Stumbling Stones Lange Straße 19

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

* Emil Motulski, born 1887, deported 1942, Belzyce, Auschwitz, murdered.
* Ludwig Motulski, born 1928, deported 1942 Belzyce, murdered.
* Elfriede Motulski née Luchtenstein, born 1892, deported 1942, Belzyce, Auschwitz, murdered.

Emil David Motulski and Elfriede Luchtenstein married and had four children. Emil Motulski’s business was a shop at Lange Strasse 45 selling manufactured goods, haberdashery, wool and linen goods. After the Reichspogromnacht destroyed the shop, Motulski closed it on 10 November 1938. The Motulskis were forced to leave their home and had no option but to leave Zschopau and go to a Judenhaus in Chemnitz.

Three of their children survived. The parents and Ludwig (called Lutz) did not. They were deported in 1942. The German Federal Archives show that Emil David Motulski, Elfriede Motulski, and their son Ludwig Motulski were all deported from Weimar-Leipzig on 10 May 1942 to Belzyce Ghetto in Poland. Reflecting the difficulties of finding accurate records, the Archives, the stolpersteine, and the testimony of a daughter are not consistent as to the place of death for the parents. The Archives state that the Belzyce Ghetto was the place of death for both, while testimony filed with Yad Vashem by a daughter states that her father was murdered in Auschwitz, her mother at Majdanec.

Another stolperstein was installed for Ludwig at the location where the family lived in Chemnitz: Zschopauer Straße 74 in Chemnitz.

"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: TracesOfWar.com
• Zschopau: Stumbling Stones
• Yad Vashem Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names
• Geni.com
• USHMM Holocaust Survivors and Victims Database
• Stolpersteine.eu