Aladar Reizmann

Aladar grew up in Hungary and worked as a craftsman, a construction fitter and a metal engraver. From 1915, he was a member of the Hungarian Social Democratic Party and was active in trade unions and cooperatives. In 1918–19, he took part in the bourgeois-democratic revolution in Hungary and, following the fall of the Soviet government, was interned for two years at the Hajmáskér camp in Hungary.

He subsequently fled to Austria, and from there to Germany in 1923. Here he worked as a mechanic and metal engraver, as well as a photographer for the workers’ press and, on a voluntary basis, as a photographer and photojournalist for the Chemnitz-based “Volksstimme”. He also became a member of the Workers’ Welfare Association and the German Metalworkers’ Union.

In August 1928, he married Frida Anna Held, a weaver from Zschopau. They had two sons.

As a Hungarian citizen, Aladar Reizmann was involved in the underground struggle against the Nazi regime by distributing leaflets and banned newspapers. He also acted as a liaison to a circle of Social Democrats living in the Czechoslovak Republic (ČSR).

Until 1942, he lived in Germany on forged papers that listed him as a “first-degree mixed-race person”. Over the years, he was arrested four times, including in June 1937 on suspicion of espionage. In June 1942, he was mistreated as a “friend of the Jews” in the Gestapo cellars in Chemnitz (Kaßberg). He was subsequently forced to perform hard labour at the Ebersbach & Kühn needle factory in Altchemnitz, whilst his wife was conscripted to work at the Mende & Hellge KG artificial silk spinning and winding mill on Kapellenberg.

By moving house repeatedly, the couple managed to evade arrest by the Secret State Police. Their last home at 7 Heinrich-Beck-Straße (Kaßberg) was bombed in March 1945 and they found refuge at 5 Am Bahrehang (Borna-Heinersdorf). Aladar also contracted tuberculosis. His health improved temporarily thanks to the help of the Jewish doctor Dr Adolf Lipp.

After the end of the war, Aladar Reizmann helped found the Jewish Community of Chemnitz and worked at the “Victims of Fascism” support centre in Chemnitz. Following a recurrence of tuberculosis, he regularly spent time in sanatoriums.

As a result of his lung disease, he died on 31 October 1948 at the Municipal Hospital in Küchwald, Chemnitz, and was buried in the Jewish cemetery.

His widow Frida died on 26 April 1978 and was buried in the memorial grove of the Association of Victims of the Nazi Regime (VVN) at the municipal cemetery on Wartburgstraße in Karl-Marx-Stadt. Their two sons died in April 2008 and November 2021.