Stumbling Stones in Chemnitz

Erich Jacoby
Born: 29 August 1892
Died: after 13 July 1942

Eugenie Jacoby, née Brüll
Born: 10 November 1898
Died: after 13 July 1942

Gerhard Jacoby
Born: 10 December 1925
Died: 29 July 2019

Marion Jacoby, married name Nyman
Born: 11 March 1928
Died: 8 April 2005

At the beginning of the last biography is a "memory" written by Gerhard Jacoby in March 2005: "Recently I was given the book 'DasTietz' to read. I now live in Stockholm, Sweden, but as a child I lived with my family in Chemnitz until 1939. My father, Erich Jacoby, worked at Tietz from 1927 until the so-called Kristallnacht in November 1938. He was the head of the women's clothing department. The book reminds me and my sister Marion of old times, even though we were only children at the time. More similar books should be published so that we don't forget everything that once happened."

As Gerhard Jacoby wrote, his father was a department manager in the Tietz department stores' in Chemnitz, which was built in 1913. Hermann Fürstenheim, the director, had brought the buyer from Berlin to Chemnitz in 1927. He was described by his colleagues in a festive newspaper (1929) as "Jacoby the first in person", who could only get in the mood "when there was plenty of money in the till". Erich Jacoby was one of the employees of the department stores' who were among the countless victims of the Holocaust in Chemnitz solely because of their Jewish descent and whose names are increasingly being forgotten.

What is known about the commercial clerk? Erich Richard Jacoby was born in the town of Glogau (now Głogów), which belonged to the province of Silesia until May 1945. His parents were Julius Jacoby and Helene Hauptmann.
There is little information available about his early life. He was one of the many Jews who fought on the German side in the Second World War. He lived in Berlin-Charlottenburg for a time. There he married Eugenie Brüll, six years his junior, on 29 January 1924. Eugenie, who was affectionately called Jenny by everyone, came from Moravia. The couple had two children. Their first child, Gerhard, was born on 10 December 1925 in Charlottenburg. Ruth Marion was born on 11 March 1928 in her parents' flat in Chemnitz. Erich Jacoby had found a large five-room flat at Uhlichstraße 22. His neighbours included the dentist Dr Hans Fröhlich.
Gerhard and Marion attended the André School on Kaßberg. When Jewish pupils were no longer allowed to attend primary schools in Germany, they were among the pupils who had to attend the special Jewish classes on Brühl.

Erich and Eugenie Jacoby were forced to give up their upper-class flat on 3 April 1939 after the events of the pogrom night and move into an emergency flat in the "Jews' house" at Zschopauer Straße 74. Their frequently changing neighbours included Mr and Mrs Sonder and their son Justin.

For Erich Jacoby, the pogrom night meant that he was one of the Jews from Chemnitz who were taken into "protective custody" and deported to the Buchenwald concentration camp. He returned to Chemnitz on 27 December 1938 and realised that he had to do everything he could to get the children to safety. On 6 June 1939, Erich and Eugenie Jacoby were able to bring their children to safety with the help of the Kindertransport to Sweden. They themselves stayed behind in Chemnitz.

The Jacoby couple subsequently endeavoured to emigrate from Germany, but without success. They continued to live in Zschopauer Straße and had to watch as the first residents of the house were "resettled" on 10 May 1942.

The couple were in contact with their children in Sweden. They called them "the little boy and the dolls". Finally, they received a card from their daughter Marion, which she had written on 1 July 1942. They hoped that the siblings would live together in a home in Stockholm so that Gerhard could look after his younger sister.

Before their imminent deportation, Erich and Eugenie Jacoby wrote one last letter to their children on 11 July 1942. The first lines read: "My golden, beloved only little boy and doll! ... When you receive this line, my beloved little boy, we will no longer be in Chemnitz and we don't know exactly where we are travelling to ... I only have one request for you, my only one, and also for you, my sweet little doll, don't worry and don't be sad. We are not either!"

Erich and Eugenie Jacoby were deported to the "East" on 13 July 1942 together with 16 other Jews from Chemnitz, including the headmaster Hermann Jungmann. A total of more than 900 men and women are said to have departed that day on the collective transport from southern Germany via Magdeburg and Leipzig at midnight in the direction of Auschwitz. After the end of the war, the Chemnitz Jewish community assumed that this transport also had the Belzyce ghetto as its destination.

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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