The other Jews of Großräschen (Stolpersteine 2011)

Großräschen was a small mining town, and its Jews were only a handful of families. On 22 March 2011 the town laid twenty-two Stolpersteine for them, at three places. Nine are for the Gerechters and the Bernhards. One is for Kurt Mannheim, at his shop in Neue Straße. Twelve are at Rudolf-Breitscheid-Straße 26, where the Spiros lived.

Samuel Spiro, born in 1871, kept a shop in the town with his wife. In 1938 he was stripped of his German citizenship. We don't know what became of him.

Martha Spiro, born Friede in Cottbus in 1873, was Samuel's wife. She died in Cottbus in 1933.

Felix Spiro, their son, was born in Räschen in 1908 or 1909. He learned the watchmaker's trade in his parents' shop and ran its branch in Senftenberg. In 1933 he was arrested for organising resistance, and in 1935 he was taken again. On 19 October 1935 he took his own life, afraid that he would be made to give away his comrades' names.

Hans Emanuel Spiro, Felix's younger brother, was born in Groß-Räschen on 16 May 1911. He too was stripped of his citizenship, in 1938, but he survived. Later he recorded the names of his family, so that they would be remembered.

Berta Lebenstein was born in Großräschen in 1888, the daughter of Shimon and Johanna. Her husband was Herman. In 1938 she took her own life.

Frieda Laufer and Mosche Schalom Laufer lived here too. One of them died on 11 January 1941. We don't know when they were born.

Marja Major was born in 1916. In 1941 she was deported to Łódź, and murdered there.

Cäcilia Sachs, born Klebamsky in 1856, died in 1933. She was very probably the mother of Elisabeth, Meta and Paul.

Meta Sachs was born in Coswig on 16 March 1880. She lived in Senftenberg. On 19 April 1943 she was deported from Berlin to Auschwitz, and murdered. She was sixty-three.

Paul Sachs, born in 1887, lived in Bückgen and worked at the Ilse mine. His marriage protected him. He was humiliated, and he survived.

Elisabeth Olga Ketschau, born Sachs in 1877, was married to a druggist in Senftenberg. She too was humiliated, and she too survived.

In February 1937 the police counted only five Jews left in the whole district: Armin, Herbert Bernhard, Kurt Mannheim, Paul Sachs and the dentist Gerhard Hurwitz. When the stones were laid in 2011, the town recalled that people had been deported from the tracks at Großräschen-Süd.