Stumbling Stoness Weststraße 7a (previously Weststraße 5)

These small, brass memorial plaques (Stolpersteine or stumbling stones) commemorate:

* Betty Oppenheim née Maron, born 1872, fled to Holland 1939, interned at Westerbork, deported 1943 Sobibor, murdered 7 May 1943.
* Emanel Mandel, born 1892, forced to move to Berlin 1941, deported 1943, murdered in Auschwitz.
* Anni Luise Mandel née Oppenheim, born 1904, forced to move to Berlin 1941, deported 1943, murdered in Auschwitz.
* Inge Elisabeth Mandel, born 1930, fled to Holland 1939, interned at Westerbork, deported 1943 Bergen-Belsen, 1944 Auschwitz, murdered.
* Stephanie Cäcilie Mandel, born 1933, fled to Holland 1939, interned at Westerbork, deported 1943 Bergen-Belsen, 1944 Auschwitz, murdered.

Three generations are remembered at this address, which formerly was Weststraße 5.

Betty Maron married Hugo Max Openheim, and they had 3 children: Fritz, Wilhelm Alexander, and Anni. Son Fritz was killed in action in World War I. In 1920, Hugo Max moved his stocking and glove factory, Heidenheim, Oppenheim & Co., to Adorferstrasse 2 in Chemnitz. After he died the following year, his wife Betty and son Wilhelm Alexander managed the factory successfully.

In 1930, Anni Oppenheim married Emanuel Mandel, an engineer from Vienna. The couple had 2 daughters -- Inge Elisabeth and Stefanie. He was also called Mano and Enoch.

Conditions for Jews deteriorated through the 1930s. In 1939, Wilhelm Oppenheim emigrated with his wife and son to Scotland. In the autumn of that same year, Betty Oppenheim and her granddaughters Inge (age 9) and Stephanie (age 6) Mandel fled to Amsterdam, Holland. Their parents, Emanuel and Anni, stayed in Germany.

For this family, deportations to concentration camps began in 1943. First, Emanuel and Anni were deported on 19 February from Berlin to Auschwitz and murdered. Betty Oppenheim and her granddaughters were deported to Westerbork. Then Betty was deported from Westerbork to Sobibor in May and murdered. The two girls were deported from Westerbork in September to Bergen-Belsen, then 8 months later on 24 May 1944 to Auschwitz and murdered. Inge was 13 and Stephanie was 10.

"Stolpersteine" is an art project for Europe by Gunter Demnig to commemorate victims of National Socialism (Nazism). Stolpersteine (stumbling stones) are small, 10x10cm brass plaques placed in the pavement in front of the last voluntary residence of (mostly Jewish) victims who were murdered by the Nazis. Each plaque is engraved with the victim’s name, date of birth, and place (mostly a concentration camp) and date of death. By doing this, Gunter Demnig gives an individual memorial to each victim. One stone, one name, one person. He cites the Talmud: "A human being is forgotten only when his or her name is forgotten."

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Source

• Text: Anne Palmer
• Photos: Dr. Bernd Gross
• Amtsblatt Chemnitz: Über Schickstale "stolpern", 24 August 2018, p. 4.
• Joods Monument
• Yad Vashem Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names
• Stolpersteine.eu