Stumbling stones in Chemnitz
Dear, Ester, Manfred and Rosa Löwi
Dear Löwi
Born: 27.07.1893
Died: after 23.09.1940
Godmother: Tabea Böhme
Ester Löwi, née Wurzel
Born: 16.01.1895
Died: after 23/09/1940
Godmother: Ines Schwittaua
Manfred Löwi
Born: 13.01.1925
Died: after 23/09/1940
Godmother: Beate Legler
Rosa Löwi
Born: 19 May 1921
Died: after 23/09/1940
Godmother: Martina Lange
Laying location:
Karl-Liebknecht-Straße (car park north behind the opera house)Stumbling stone laying on:
5 December 2019
Life path
The watchmaker Lieber Löwi was one of the Jews from Chemnitz who recognised the potential dangers that threatened them and their families in view of the boycott measures already introduced in the Nazi state in spring 1933 and therefore left the country in good time. Like many others, he had hoped that this would have kept him safe.
Lieber Löwi came from the town of Sędziszów (Austrian Poland). On 27 May 1920 in Chemnitz, he married Ester Wurzel, a merchant's daughter who also came from Austrian Poland. They had three children from this marriage. In addition to Rosa and Manfred, another daughter, Fanny, was born on 11 October 1928. However, she died the following day and was buried in one of the nameless children's graves in the Jewish cemetery in the Altendorf neighbourhood.
Together with a merchant, Leo Löwi, as he was known in the business world, founded a textile shop in the Reitbahn district. After a few months, however, Löwi and his partner gave up their business. In the meantime, Erna Löwi, as she was also known, had opened a watchmaker's repair workshop. In 1926, the couple finally found a suitable flat on the first floor of the apartment block at Bismarckstraße 9. From then on, Lieber Löwi took a share in his wife's watchmaking business before taking it over completely. The children started school at the end of the 1920s. Rosa attended the orphan school, Manfred the Brühlschule.
The couple decided to leave the country as early as 1934. They decided to live in the Republic of Poland. No reliable statements can be made about their whereabouts. It is only known that they were living in Sędziszów in the autumn of 1940.
The couple and their children were subsequently murdered in one of the countless ghettos or extermination camps in occupied Poland. Stumbling stones were laid for Ester's mother Klara Wurzel, her younger brother Elias and his wife on the Sonnenberg on 30 August 2018
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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