Max Abel

Max Abel was born in Dessau (Anhalt). He spent his early years in the Ore Mountains with his parents, Hermann Abel and Rosa Huhn, and his siblings, until he attended secondary schools in Annaberg and Chemnitz in 1906. This was followed by a commercial apprenticeship at the Jewish carpet factory ‘Bachmann & Ladewig’ in Chemnitz. After spending four years in the USA from 1909 to 1913 to improve his commercial skills, he returned to Germany and worked as a sales representative for spinning mills, weaving mills and twisting mills until the outbreak of the First World War. From 1915 to 1918, he served as a front-line soldier in the infantry during the First World War.

After demobilisation, he worked as an authorised signatory and, from 1922, was a co-owner of his father’s agency and commission business in Chemnitz. On 31 May 1922, he married Margarethe Amanda Clara Henke, a Protestant from Berlin four years his junior – the marriage remained childless. His father died in Chemnitz in 1936 and was buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Chemnitz-Altendorf.

During the November pogroms of 1938, Max Abel was arrested and detained at Buchenwald concentration camp until 7 December 1938.

In November 1938, his business was included in the “Directory of Jewish Industrial and Wholesale Enterprises” published by the Chemnitz Chamber of Industry and Commerce; two months later, his business licence was revoked. In March 1939, the company was finally liquidated and he was forced to move into the Chemnitz “Judenhaus” at 32 Ahornstraße (Kaßberg). His plans to flee to Bolivia failed.

This was followed by years of forced labour in the Municipal Parks Department (“maintenance” of the municipal cemetery), in road construction for the Zwickau civil engineering contractor Bruno Lautner, as a metal worker’s assistant at the “E.F. Barthel” lighting fixture factory in Altchemnitz, and as a municipal assistant in organising the “Jewish transport” to the Bełżyce ghetto near Lublin (now in Poland).

On 14 February 1945, Abel was deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto, but was soon liberated by the Allies.

When he returned to Chemnitz in June 1945, his former home had been completely bombed out and his wife had fled to Plaue near Flöha. He moved into the house at 13 Vettersstraße, joined the SPD and became a founding member of the Chemnitz Jewish Community, established on 7 September 1945, later serving as a member of its executive committee and its chairman.

After a brief stint as a trustee, he soon began working as a clerk at the Bank für Handwerk und Gewerbe in Chemnitz. His wife Margarethe died on 10 November 1948. Shortly afterwards, he entered into a civil partnership with her sister Irmgard Henke, who had taken over the care of the Jewish cemetery; this partnership lasted until his death on 19 December 1955. He was buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Chemnitz. Max Abel’s last place of residence was 44 Walter-Oertel-Straße (Helenenhof) in Karl-Marx-Stadt. His partner died there on 24 August 1977.