City walk Ilmenau

Until about 1860, the front section of Weimarer Straße up to the junction of Poststraße was called Judengasse; at the end of this alley stood the Judentor. When the street leading to the new mine on the Mittelfeld was extended and paved, it was renamed Bergstraße and later Weimarer Straße. The name Judengasse indicates the early and presumably longer existing settlement of Jews; however, the written sources on this are scanty. The settlement of Jews in the town around 1428 is possible, but not fully documented. In contrast, Jews lived and worked in Ilmenau in the 16th century. However, there were only a few families. For 1543 a letter of protection for Seligmann and - a rarity - for a Mrs. Freudlein is preserved. The few Jews*Jewesses mentioned between 1540 and 1560 were in a close relationship with Count Poppo von Henneberg, to whom they provided loans and from whom they received letters of protection. The few families in Ilmenau as lenders were apparently spared from the general expulsion of all Jews from the Henneberg dominion, which included Ilmenau, in 1555. Also in the 17th century there were few Jewish Ilmenauer*innen; they belonged to the Jewish community of Arnstadt and had no synagogue of their own. For the continuing influx of Jews*Jewesses may speak the name of the Judentor built in the 16.16. century.

A Jewish prayer room is documented in Ilmenau only at the end of the 19th century, because until that time the number of community members remained small. In 1880 there were eight Jewish families in the town, in 1895 52 Jewish inhabitants were counted. The number of Ilmenau Jews grew to 82 by 1910. 90 Jews lived in the town in 1933 - 60 of them managed to escape, mainly to the USA and South America. The Jewish families who moved to Ilmenau at the end of the 19th century often opened businesses: Jacob Cohn from Wollstein near Posen founded a linen and white goods store in 1874, and the watchmaker Gustav Josman Grünthal traded in gold and silver goods from 1879. In 1884, four Jewish cattle dealers were active in Ilmenau.

In 1894, the Jewish families set up a prayer room in the rear building of the residential building at Burggasse 4. The room could accommodate 40 to 50 people and consisted of two rooms, between which the partition wall had been removed. Two Torah scrolls were kept in the Torah cupboard. The ceremonial inauguration took place on September 30, 1894. For more than 44 years, Burgstrasse 4 was the center of Jewish community life in the city. A rabbi traveled from out of town for the high holidays. The children received religious instruction from a teacher from Arnstadt; in 1931/32 he taught four Jewish children. The merchants Siegmund Eichenbronner, Max Gabbe and Samuel Gronner served as community leaders in the 1920s and 10930s. During the November pogrom in 1938, the prayer hall was desecrated and looted, and the interior furnishings and ritual items - Torah scrolls, prayer shawls - were publicly burned in the marketplace. Six Jewish men were arrested, two of whom were imprisoned for several weeks in the Buchenwald concentration camp. Shortly thereafter, the entire rear building at Burggasse 4 was used as living quarters. Presumably, it became a "Judenhaus" where the Ilmenau Jews*Jewesses who could not emigrate had to live together after they had been expelled from their ancestral apartments and houses by the National Socialist regime. The Jewish inhabitants* still remaining in Ilmenau were deported and murdered in three deportations in 1942 and 1944 to the ghettos and extermination camps of Belzyze, Theresienstadt and Ausschwitz.

The building of the former prayer hall was also used as a residential building after 1945 and demolished around 1987/88 due to dilapidation.

Herta Levin from Lauenburg (August 23,1881-1943) opened a hat store together with her sister at Straße des Friedens 24 shortly before the First World War. Arthur Israel Werschker (29 November1887-1943) came to town shortly thereafter as a window dresser. The two fell in love and started a family. Their daughter Felicitas (Fee) Werschker was born in Weimar on December 19, 1916, but grew up in Ilmenau. Fee remained the only child in the family and had a close relationship with her parents. She was also the only Jewish girl her age in the town. After elementary school, she attended high school in Ilmenau. Ilmenau's small Jewish community at that time consisted of 10-12 families who were friends with each other. They all did not live very religiously. Only on high holidays a rabbi came from out of town, and now and then a Jewish teacher from another town came to teach the children.

The father was very patriotic. In World War I, he had been awarded the Iron Cross. The family lived and worked like the other Christian families. Felicitas attended dance school at 16, like all the other girls, where she also met young men for the first time. The prom was the social event of the town.

After the National Socialists came to power, the atmosphere changed. In an interview recorded by the Shoa Foundation, Felicitas vividly recounts her youth and the discrimination that began against Jewish citizens*: She was excluded from school events, for example, and her friends were no longer allowed to date her. In 1935, at the age of 18, she moved in with her aunt in Berlin. Shortly thereafter, her parents gave up the hat store in Ilmenau because, among other things, Nazi guards prevented customers from entering the store. They opened a new store in Berlin, where windows were also smashed. An English acquaintance arranged for Fee to receive an affidavit (letter of guarantee), with which she was able to leave for England in April 1939.

Her parents were unable to follow her: They were deported from Berlin to Riga on November 27, 1941, and murdered there in 1943. In the same year, Felicitas married David Werschker in London. She died in England in 2001.

In 1901, the brothers David (1870-1934) and Sigmund Eichenbronner (1872-1941), who came from Wiesenbronn/Lower Franconia, moved to Ilmenau and were successful merchants here. In November 1907, they opened their newly built department store on Lindenstraße (today Straße des Friedens 23). The building, decorated with Art Nouveau ornaments, was erected in seven months and soon became the "first house on the square". In addition to its wide range of goods, the department store was distinguished by its customer-friendly service and the unusual presentation of its merchandise: In the 1920s, the brothers had an arcade built in, which made the window display accessible all around. In 1931, they established a modern one-price store with a reduced assortment limited to low, rounded prices.

The entire Eichenbronner family was well integrated socially. Sigmund held office as head of the Jewish community for many years. His son Walter built up a thriving law firm at what is now Karl-Zink-Strasse 4. David's son Stefan (1900-1943) was a successful car racer. Siegmund's married daughter Marie Naumann (1901-1944) also lived in Ilmenau.

With the Nazi rule, the repressive measures began. Jewish stores were boycotted; customers photographed by the SA. David Eichenbronner took his own life as early as 1934, seeing his life's work destroyed. The rest of the family remained in Ilmenau; Walter could no longer work as a lawyer from about 1935, moved temporarily to Paderborn, but returned. In 1938, Sigmund had to sell the department store and the unit price business heavily below value: It was Aryanized and taken over by Volkmar. He married Mathilde Wesermann in 1939 in his second marriage. The repressions and levies grew: the Jewish Illmenauer*innen had to hand over their silver, bank accounts were restricted, they had to wear a yellow Jewish star and live together in so-called Jewish houses.

In 1941 Sigmund died in the Ilmenau hospital as a result of an operation; his wife, his sister-in-law Mathilde (1874-1942), his daughter Marie, and his son Walter with his wife Flora and daughter Gisela (1932-1942) were all deported and murdered in Theresienstadt, Belzyze and Majdanek. Only Peter Naumann (born 1934), David's grandson, survived the Nazi terror and emigrated to Brazil in 1953. A touching photo album of Gisela is preserved in the Majdanek Memorial (Poland).

In 2007, on the initiative of the Ilmenau Local History Society, a memorial plaque was erected with the following text: "In memory of the brothers David and Sigmund Eichenbronner, who built this store in 1907. The entire Eichenbronner family fell victim to the Nazi terror." The dedication of the memorial plaque took place on June 6, 2007 by Peter Naumann, David's grandson and the last survivor of the family.

The married couple Jakob (1888-1942) and Johanna Münz (1897-1942) ran a textile store in Schwanitzstraße and also had their apartment there. The trained engineer came from Wiesenbronn near Würzburg. Until 1933, the couple and their son Herbert, born in 1925, were esteemed people who treated customers and business partners courteously. Herbert attended the Goethegymnasium.

After the Nazis came to power in 1933, repressive measures against Jewish citizens* began. Still in 1936 the family appeared confident and solved in the family circle, as a preserved photo of the "Jewish Skittles Club Ilmenau 1933" shows.
In 1938, the business was Aryanized; Jakob had to sell his car and was imprisoned in Buchenwald for several weeks in November. After his return, the disenfranchisement continued. Ostracized and humiliated, Herbert had to leave the Gymnasium, where he was held up as an "example of the Jewish race" in biology classes.
With the first deportation on May 9, 1942, Jakob, Johanna and Herbert, who was 17 years old at the time, were taken to the Belyze Ghetto, where Johanna was presumably killed. Jakob and Herbert went on to Majdanek and were murdered there on September 9, 1942. In front of the former textile store, three Stolpersteine, which were laid on 06 May 2008, commemorate the Münz family.

In 1926, the general practitioner, internist and pediatrician Dr. Ewald Czapski settled in Ilmenau and lived temporarily at Friedrich-Hofmann-Strasse 3. He had been born in Jena on November 10, 1892, the son of the Jewish physicist Siegfried Czapski (from 1891 one of three managing directors of the Carl Zeiss company) and a Christian French woman, and after graduating from high school had studied medicine in Jena, Leipzig and Munich. In the First World War, he served as an auxiliary field physician and received the Iron Cross 1st Class.

His practice was well attended and Czapski was well integrated socially: He was considered a "ravishing companion." That changed after the Nazis seized power in 1933. Because Czapski was a "half-Jew" in the eyes of the Nazis, his picture appeared in fifth place in an anti-Semitic diatribe on Ilmenau Jews*Jewesses. However, he retained his license as a panel doctor and was able to continue working as a physician. However, he secretly supported the Communist Party and participated in the distribution of banned Communist pamphlets. Despite further defamation, among other things because of his multiple marriages, he was conscripted into compulsory service during World War II.

After the war ended, he practiced medicine again in Ilmenau before being called to Weimar by the Thuringian state government to help build a new health care system. The GDR government recognized Czapski as a victim of fascism. In addition to his work as a doctor, he regularly translated French books into German. Ewald Czapski died in Erfurt on December 4, 1976.

Wilhelm Sandler gave his store in Poststraße to the couple after his sister Helene married Samuel Gronner in 1911. Sandler had previously established a chain of clothing stores in Coburg. For a decade and a half, the two oversaw several offshoots of the business, further expanding it. In 1927, the Gronner couple acquired a plot of land on which a new building was erected two years later, based on the contemporary Bauhaus design by architect Willy Ilgen, in what is now Friedrich-Hoffman-Strasse. The building, in the New Objectivity style, merged form and function to simplify modern life. The press and the people of Ilmenau unreservedly praised the building and the Gronners' hands-on and modern merchant spirit. The department store was famous for its fine selection of men's and boys' clothing and attracted a clientele that reached far beyond Thuringia.

After the death of his wife Selma in 1935, Wilhelm Sandler's health deteriorated. For a short time he lived with the Gronners in Ilmenau, then he moved to a nursing home in Frankfurt. In October 1938, the Sandler-Gronner department store in Ilmenau was Aryanized and taken over by the NSDAP member Hilmar Näder. After the forced sale, Helene and Samuel could only rent the apartment above the sales rooms. On the night of November 9, 1938, Samuel Gronner was taken into protective custody and subsequently imprisoned for a month in the Buchenwald concentration camp.

In early 1940, the Nazis' repressive laws forced Samuel and Helene to vacate the living quarters they had built: they were ordered to move into a "Judenhaus" at 11 Goethestraße in a very confined space. On November 28, 1941, Samuel was sent to Buchenwald concentration camp for forced labor because he had "discussed the war with a Pole." He was released on January 21, 1942. Together with other Jews remaining in Thuringia, the Gronners were deported in May and taken to their alleged destination in the Belzyce ghetto. Records of their arrival do not exist.

On August 18, 1942, Wilhelm Sandler was deported to Theresienstadt and murdered in Auschwitz in 1944. His daughter Ruth and her husband Fritz Weil managed to emigrate to the USA in 1939.

The elder son Rudolf Gronner left the Reich in 1933 and survived the war in France. His brother Joachim was a student in Palestine from 1937 and served in the British Army during the war years. In 1957, he and his wife returned to Germany with their Israeli-born children and moved to the United States two years later. In 1992, after half a century of seeking justice, American citizen John Gronner, the only surviving son of Samuel and Helene Gronner, was successfully granted his birthright in Ilmenau. A plaque above the storefront windows was dedicated in 1993 to promote resistance to intolerance. Three stumbling stones are embedded in the sidewalk to commemorate the lives of the former residents*: Samuel and Helene Gronner and Wilhelm Sandler.

The brothers Sally (1874-1944) and Max (1877-?) Gabbe came from Adlig Briesen (Wąbrzeźno, Pomerania; then West Prussia, now Poland). In 1903, Max Gabbe opened the "Berliner Warenhaus" at the corner of Post- and Friedrich-Hofman-Strasse. The house, decorated with Art Nouveau elements, had full-length shop windows on the first floor. With "99-Pfennig" days, the department store became known far beyond Ilmenau. Sally Gabbe built up a corset factory.

Sally married Jeanette Baron (1875-1938). The couple had a son, Heinz (1903-1992, Ramat Gan, Israel), in 1903 in Pösnick, Thuringia, where they probably lived around this time. Max was married to Elka Helene. They had three children, Hildegard (1905-1990, São Paulo, Brazil), Manfred, and Walter. Hildegard's husband Max Nussbaum supported his father-in-law Max Gabbe as co-owner of the "Berliner Warenhaus" since 1930. He was, next to Sigmund Eichenbronner, the second head of the Jewish community. Another department store owner, Samuel Gronner, served as treasurer. All had held these offices since at least 1924. After Hitler came to power, the Nazis passed the first "Jewish laws" in April 1933 and the repressive measures began. The department store continued to exist until 1938, which, among other things, testifies to the continuous demand of Ilmenau residents for the products offered. During the pogrom night on November 9/10, 1938, as the Ilmenau daily newspaper reported, "a huge crowd gathered in front of the Berlin department store ... and expressed their attitude in chants. The store had to be closed. The shop windows and later also the notice boards were cleared." To assaults it had not come - differently than with the prayer house.

Shortly thereafter, still in November 1938, Sally's wife Jeannette died in Ilmenau hospital. Her son Heinz was active in the Zionist movement. Already two months before the pogrom in 1938 he emigrated with his wife and daughter to Palestine. In 1930 he had married Lotte Gattel (1909-2002), daughter of a Berlin hat manufacturer. In 1932 daughter Ruth had been born. In Palestine, Heinz and his sister-in-law built up a brassiere factory. The Ilmenau corset factory founded by his father in Ilmenau had been Aryanized in 1938 and taken over by Alfred Zimmer. Zimmer later fled the GDR for the FRG. Sally Gabbe remained in Ilmenau and was deported to Theresienstadt on September 20, 1942, where he was murdered on April 23, 1944. His death by starvation - an intended method of extermination in the concentration camps - was meticulously "registered" in the files from the Theresienstadt concentration camp on April 23, 1944.

The building of the former "Berlin department store" was extensively restored at the instigation of Marek Schramm (entrepreneur and son of the current chairman of the Jewish regional community of Thuringia) and a memorial plaque was installed to commemorate the former Jewish owners and their fate.