Stumbling Stones in Chemnitz
Jacob Degen
Jacob Degen
Born: 11 October 1900
Died: 27.04.1940
Godparents: Ralph and Dr Andrea Pötzsch
Laying location:
Erich-Mühsam-StraßeStumbling stone laying on:
5 December 2019
Life path
In his first novel "Nicht alle waren Mörder - Eine Kindheit in Berlin" (1999), actor and writer Michael Degen describes the fate of a Jew in the Nazi state. In it, he also describes the terrible fate of his father. The merchant Jacob Degen was born in the community of Lutowiska (Austria-Poland). On 11 December 1922, he married Anna Rosalia Rudolf in Chemnitz. His bride came from Lemberg, the capital of the former Austrian crown land of Galicia.
As a result of the collapse of the Habsburg Monarchy, the couple initially had Ukrainian citizenship. Jacob Degen built up a tricot trade in Chemnitz. The couple initially lived in Altchemnitz. Their son Adolf was born at the beginning of 1924. The couple lived on Kaßberg from the end of the 1920s. They found a suitable flat on the first floor of the apartment block at Hohenzollernstraße 18. Their second son, Michael, was born in the following years.
In 1933, the now stateless family moved to Berlin-Tiergarten. In the early morning of 13 September 1939, Jacob Degen was arrested by the Secret State Police and deported to Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where he was severely mistreated in the weeks that followed. The father of the family was released on 2 February 1940. The planned emigration to Shanghai was no longer an option. Despite intensive care, Jacob Degen never recovered from his injuries. Michael Degen noted in his novel: "He died after two months in terrible agony" in the Jewish Hospital.
Jacob Degen was buried in a coffin "made only of planks" at the Heerstraße cemetery in Charlottenburg. Michael Degen was delighted last year when he learnt of the plan to lay a stumbling block for his father in Chemnitz. A Stumbling Stone has already been commemorating Jacob Degen in the Berlin district of Moabit for several years.
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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