Stolpersteine for Emil Hochberg
..February 2017.. ..Laubegast, Dresden..
Was walking along the Elbe retracing the long journeys that Victor Klemperer’s wife made from Dresden to Pirna because they wore the Jewish star and were not allowed to ride the tram or train.
The walk along the Elbe through Laubegast towards Pillnitz is my favorite. I can’t find the words to describe how the light and sound that comes off the river affect me.
I was walking with my head down and out of the corner of my eye caught the dull grey color of a Stolpersteine (stumbling stone) which I had never seen before. I have walked along the Kleinzschachwitz Ufer many times but never saw this Stolpersteine. A Stolpersteine is a small metal plate laid into the ground of the former residencies where Jewish families lived before they were deported. You have to be looking on the ground to find them because they blend into the ground.
This Stolpersteine was of a man name Emil Hochberg who was born in 1874, deported in 1943 and died in Auschwitz on August 28th, 1943. Most of the families living in Dresden had already been deported by 1943. When I researched I found that he had a non-Jewish wife, which might have spared the family a little bit more time since it was considered a mixed marriage. His wife survived the camps but there is no published information about her after the war.
There are around 20 Stolpersteine in Laubegast but this was the first I stumbled upon.
