Stolpersteine in Chemnitz
Hanna Luise Sachs
Hanna Luise Sachs
Hanna Luise Sachs, née Cohn
Born: 16 November 1919
Died: 24 January 2017
Location:
Eulitzstraße 13 (today Eulitzstraße 7)
Stolperstein laid on:
6 May 2026
Photos of the laying of the Stumbling Stones
Life Path
When Hanna Cohn publicly announced her engagement to Gerhard Günther Sachs, the son of a factory owner, on 14 July 1938, her fiancé was already living in Buenos Aires.
What is known about the eldest daughter of the lawyer Dr Fritz Gabriel Cohn? She had two other siblings: Hilde Gabriele and Franz Theodor.
Hanna grew up in an art-loving family home on Kaßberg. Her mother, Flora Margot, was the sister of the publisher Gottfried Bermann Fischer. Her uncle Martin Cohn was acquainted, or even friends with, the famous Norwegian painter Edvard Munch.
After Hanna was born, her parents looked for a new flat. Until then, they had been living at Heinrich-Beck-Straße 11, where her paternal grandparents lived. Her parents found a larger flat in the nearby building at Eulitzstraße 13. The building did not survive the Allied air raids on the City of Chemnitz in the spring of 1945.
From a description by her brother Franz, we can get an idea of what the flat on the first floor was like: “Eulitzstraße 13 was a five-storey building from the nineteenth century without a lift, with a large six-room flat on the ground floor. – We lived on the first floor. Margot had a cook/maid (Johanne) and a nanny (Dora) to help her. … Mrs Krüger also came to do the washing and ironing…. – All this help was needed to run the old-fashioned household with three children and to cope with a large family and a wide circle of friends.”
Hanna’s friends included Helga Sachs, Irene Avramovici, Gerhard Sachs, Herbert Sachs, Herbert Schreiber, Walter Mecklenburg and Gustav Wangenheim. They were members of the local branch of the Federation of German-Jewish Youth, founded in 1933.
The sisters Hanna and Hilla attended the Higher Girls’ School in Chemnitz until 1937. Hanna continued her education at the Orthodox Jewish Domestic Science School in Frankfurt am Main.
Gerhard Sachs, Hanna’s fiancé, had found work in Argentina as a textile machinery technician. This enabled him to leave the country in April 1938 and register in Buenos Aires. He left behind Hanna, who was expecting a baby. An abortion, which was permitted in Budapest, was out of the question for the young woman. Consequently, the couple became engaged. They therefore made a mutual promise to marry. In order for Hanna and the expected child to be able to follow Gerhard to Argentina, they had to be married. With the help of the Argentine consul in Leipzig, Dr Fritz Gabriel Cohn, Hanna’s father, was able to organise a marriage by proxy on 9 November 1938. The wedding ceremony according to Jewish custom was later performed in Buenos Aires by the former Chemnitz rabbi, Dr Hugo Fuchs.
Their daughter Tana was born in Chemnitz on 28 December 1938. A Jewish midwife assisted with the birth. In April 1939, Hanna and their daughter were also able to emigrate to Buenos Aires.
Gerardo Sachs, as he called himself in his new homeland, served for a time as an advisor to the Argentine government on new state-owned enterprises in the textile industry. Gerardo and Hanna Sachs spent their twilight years partly in Buenos Aires and partly in Villa Gesell, a seaside resort on the coast of Buenos Aires Province. In their final years, the couple lived in a retirement home. Gerardo Sachs died on 12 February 2012 in Buenos Aires. His widow continued to live in the retirement home. According to their daughter Tana, Hanna Sachs died in a nursing home following a long and serious illness. The couple were laid to rest in a private Jewish cemetery in Colinas del Tiempo, located 50 kilometres outside Buenos Aires.
Author: Dr Jürgen Nitsche