Marianne Rotstein

Marianne Liddy Rotstein was born in 1920, the daughter of Jankel Hersch Rotstein, a merchant originally from Russian Poland. She lived with her four siblings and parents at 1 Alexanderstraße (now Ludwig-Kirsch-Straße) in the Sonnenberg district of Chemnitz and attended the Pestalozzi School. After training as a sales assistant, she worked at the shop ‘Lyon Modejournale und Schnittmuster’ in Chemnitz city centre, after which she worked as a domestic helper.

In September 1939, her father was arrested and deported to the Warsaw Ghetto, where he starved to death. Her mother was forced to look after the five children on her own.

In 1939, Marianne Rotstein was ‘on Hachshara’, the systematic preparation of young Jews for emigration to Palestine. To this end, she worked in a Jewish labour camp and lived in Berlin.

On 10 October 1944, she was arrested and deported to the Neumühle forced-labour camp near Straußberg, Berlin. In January 1945, she was taken to Theresienstadt and had to work in the ‘work group for all tasks’ in the ghetto.

After the liberation, she returned to Chemnitz on 9 June 1945 and became a founding member of the Jewish community. Just one year later, she moved to Berlin; in January 1947, she emigrated to New York (USA). There, in 1947, she married the baker Ludwig (Lutz) Meyer. They had three children together. In the 1970s, the family lived in Metuchen (New Jersey).

Marianne Rotstein returned to her birthplace, Chemnitz, for a visit in 1974 and visited the new community centre.

Her husband died in New Jersey on 2 October 1985. Marianne died on 7 February 2008 at Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch (USA).

In her memory, a Stolperstein will be laid on 6 May 2021 in Chemnitz in front of her former home at 1 Ludwig-Kirsch-Straße.