Stumbling Stones in Chemnitz
Enoch Bulka, Rahel Bulka, Doris Ida Bulka, Max Josef Bulka
Enoch Bulka
Born: 13.03.1898
Died: unknown
Rahel Bulka, née Paperno
Born: 30.02.1905
Died: after 10.05.1942
Doris Ida Bulka
Born: 22/04/1934
Died: after 10 May 1942
Max Josef Bulka
Born: 13/06/1938
Died: after 10.05.1942
Installation location:
Zschopauer Straße 54Stumbling stone laying on:
29 May 2024
Photos of the laying of the Stumbling Stones
Life path
The merchant Henoch Bulka was born in the town of Lututow (Russian Poland until 1918). He had a brother, Abram Bulka.
During the First World War (1917), he moved to Germany. From April 1919 he lived in Saxony. After the fall of the Russian Empire, he became stateless. On 8 August 1933, Henoch Bulka, who also called himself Heinrich, married Rahel Paperno. The wedding took place in Frankenberg, where his bride was living at the time. Salomon Paperno, her father, and Wilhelm Sielmann were the witnesses to the marriage.
The couple then moved to Chemnitz. They had two children. Doris Ida was born in the State Gynaecological Clinic in Chemnitz. Max Josef was born in the private clinic of the doctors Dr Hans Uhle and Dr Franz Vogt.
Henoch Bulka tried to set up a wholesale yarn business. Rahel Bulka, on the other hand, traded in textile waste. Their business premises were located at Wiesenstraße 56, but their commercial endeavours were not crowned with success. The couple were forced to give up their flat. They lived with their children with Rahel's parents at Zschopauer Straße 54. Rahel Bulka now worked as a stocking fitter. Her dream of emigrating to Australia or Palestine remained unfulfilled due to the outbreak of war in September 1939. Close relatives lived in both countries. The Bulka and Paperno families were evicted from Zschopauer Straße 54 in autumn 1939. They found emergency accommodation on the first floor of the "Jews' house" at Apollostrasse 18.
Their daughter Doris had now reached school age. She was not allowed to attend primary school due to Nazi legislation. She therefore attended the private Jewish primary school on Zöllnerstraße, which opened in August 1939.
Salomon Paperno fled to Belgium, where he died in May 1940. He may have travelled there with his son-in-law Henoch Bulka. His brother Abram lived in the country from the end of the 1920s. He had probably hoped to be able to bring his family there. But this did not happen. In 1960/61, Abram Bulka enquired from Belgium to the Jewish community in Karl-Marx-Stadt about his brother's whereabouts.
Rahel Bulka was left alone with the children. The conditions in the "Jews' house" hardly allowed for a decent existence. She endeavoured to tap into all possible sources of income. In February 1940, for example, she took over a remaining batch of individual and faulty stockings from her father's shop to sell them to Berlin. It is not known whether the Chamber of Industry and Commerce authorised this.
Rahel Bulka and her children were deported to the Bełżyce ghetto on 10 May 1942. After that, their trail is lost.
Author: Dr Jürgen Nitsche
Stumbling Stones in Chemnitz
It is a project against forgetting: stumbling stones have been laid in Chemnitz every year since 2007.
Embedded in the pavement, the memorial stones commemorate the tragic fates of fellow citizens who were persecuted, deported, murdered or driven to their deaths during the National Socialist regime.
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