Hulda Großmann

Hulda Großmann (née Bär) grew up in Marisfeld near Themar in the district of Hildburghausen. On 5 August 1895, she married the merchant Julius Großmann, with whom she had four children. At the time, the family was living in Chemnitz and Hulda was a housewife. In November 1916, her son Herbert died on the Western Front during the First World War; in 1932, Hulda’s husband died. Her son Richard emigrated to Paris in June 1934.

The family lived at 10 Neumarkt in Chemnitz until July 1942; the house had been in the Großmann family’s possession for almost 35 years. In January 1939, Hulda received a preservation order regarding her assets. In August, the family was forced to sell the house to the firm Moritz Lippmann (Werkstätte für Wohnkunst), and in 1942 they were forced to move to the ‘Judenhaus’ at 6 Zöllnerstraße.

Their plans to emigrate to the USA come to nothing. Their children are deported to various locations and murdered:

Their daughter Elli (born 20 January 1899) is deported from Eisenach to the Bełżyce ghetto on 9 May 1942. The train stops for a day in Weimar, then continues on to Leipzig and Chemnitz, where more people are forced to board. Photographs of the deportation from Eisenach have been preserved. It remains unclear whether Elli Stern can be seen in them.

Her daughter Henny is believed to have been murdered in Auschwitz; her son Richard was deported from France to the Sobibór extermination camp and murdered.

Hulda Großmann was deported to Theresienstadt on 8 September 1942. She survived and returned to Chemnitz in June 1945.

Hulda now lives at Gerhart-Hauptmann-Platz 1 (Kaßberg) in Chemnitz. Exactly three years after her deportation to Theresienstadt, she helps to found the Jewish Community of Chemnitz. At almost 71 years of age, she is the oldest person present.

In 1947, she moved to Berlin and lived briefly at Iranische Straße 4 before moving into a Jewish retirement home. Following a diagnosis of cancer, she was admitted to the Jewish Hospital. She died in Berlin on 26 December 1948 and was buried four days later in an unmarked grave at the Jewish Cemetery in Berlin-Weißensee.