Erich Wangenheim

Erich Wangenheim was born in Chemnitz, the son of Theodor Wangenheim and Johanna Ida Joachimsthal, a married couple who were merchants. After attending secondary school, he began a commercial apprenticeship in Frankfurt am Main. He received further training abroad. From June 1912, he was a co-owner of his father’s linen factory; a year later, he married Emilie Ellen Tuchler, the daughter of a Dresden family, who was six years his junior – the marriage produced a son in 1916.

During the First World War, Wangenheim served as a front-line soldier (non-commissioned officer), where he lost his left leg. In Chemnitz, he became chairman of the local branch of the Reich Association of Jewish Frontline Soldiers (1931–1932). When his father died in 1925, he became the sole owner of the laundry factory at what is now the defunct 46 Lange Straße (city centre). Until 1938, he and his mother, who became a limited partner in the laundry, lived at 13 Agricolastraße (Kaßberg).

When a call was made in Chemnitz in April 1933 for a “boycott of Jewish shops, lawyers and doctors”, Theodor Wangenheim’s haberdashery also suffered as a result. Having lost the majority of its customers, the business went into temporary liquidation – he was forced to close the shop that very same year. Erich Wangenheim became a member of the representative body of the Jewish Religious Community (School Commission) and took on bookkeeping duties.

During the November pogroms, he was arrested and held at Buchenwald concentration camp until 26 November 1938.

In March 1936, he was elected chairman of the Jewish Religious Community; in October 1939, he was appointed chairman of the Jewish Cultural Association in Chemnitz. From February 1940, Erich managed the Jewish retirement home on Antonplatz, with which he concluded a “home purchase agreement” three years later. Until 1943, he lived with his wife in the “Judenhaus” at Apollostraße 18.

His mother Johanna was deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto in September 1942 and is believed to have died there on 30 October. On 29 March 1943, Emilie and Erich Wangenheim were also deported to Theresienstadt. Emilie died on 21 March 1944.

Erich is released and returns to Chemnitz on 13 June 1945. From then on, he lives at the Hotel “Hermann” (Königsstraße 38, now Straße der Nationen) and helps to found the Jewish Community.

At 29 Gartenstraße (Chemnitz-Rabenstein), he opens a textile shop (“Magazin für die Rote Armee”). He falls out with the support centre for political prisoners and closes the shop again in 1948. In July 1946, Gertha Sand, a nurse from Berlin, was appointed as his carer. Together with her, Erich moved to Munich in January 1949 and then emigrated to Israel to join his son Gustav.

He died in Tel Aviv (Israel) on 5 August 1955.