Stumbling Stones Beethovenstraße 60

These small, brass memorial plaques (Stolpersteine or stumbling stones) commemorate:

* Adolf Aron Goldschmidt, born 1878, humiliated/deprived of rights, fled into death, 7 November 1936.
* Lilly Goldschmidt née Rothschild, born 1892, fled 1940 Holland, interned Westerbork, deported 1942, Theresienstadt, freed.
* Hans Goldschmidt, born 1913, fled 1939 England, USA.
* Lotte Goldschmidt, born 1920, fled 1934, USA.

Background

Aron Adolf Goldschmidt (known as Adolf), a tailoring supplies wholesaler, and Lilly Rothschild married in March 1913 and lived near the Frankfurt zoo. Their son Has was born 9 months later. Adolf then served in the German military and was decorated in WW1. He lost his hearing due to the Spanish Flu in 1919. Daughter Lotte was born the following year. Hans and Lotte both attended Frankfurt schools.

By 1932 Adolf Goldschmidt had to give up his business due to financial losses from the economic crisis. Hans went to France, and the family moved their household and business to Beethovenstrasse 60. But the 1933 anti-Jewish boycott further damaged the business. In 1934 Hans, who had not been able to get a French work permit, returned to Frankfurt and joined his father’s work.

Lotte at age 14 was in one of the first groups of German Jewish children to be evacuated to the USA – arriving there in December 1934. She lived with a foster family in Philadelphia until 1938, the year she completed high school.

Towards the end of 1936, Lilly Goldschmidt tried to kill herself. Hans took her to the hospital. Adolf could not stay alone; so Adolf was admitted to the hospital also. Unfortunately, he was told that his wife might not survive. He killed himself on 7 November 1936.

Lilly recovered. She then supported herself by renting out 2 rooms at Beethovenstrasse 60. The next month, Hans took a new position as a representative of a jewelry company. In early 1938, he married Ellen Kastellan, and they moved in with her parents. Lilly herself, alone, then moved to a room on the second floor of a different building. In October 1938, the jewelry company was "Aryanized" and Hans lost his job. During the November pogrom, Hans was arrested and held in Buchenwald for a month.
Meanwhile, Lotte had worked to arrange permits for her family to go to the USA. Hans and Ellen Goldschmidt left Germany in January 1939 and eventually reached the USA, where they joined Lotte in Denver.

Lilly had her visa to the US, but when she went to board her ship in Rotterdam, the ships were gone. The Germans had bombed the harbor the night before. Lilly then went to stay with a family friend from Frankfurt, Arnold Salomons, who was living in his hometown, Almelo, NL. They went into hiding there until caught. They met again at Westerbork, where they married. Then they were deported to Theresienstadt instead of Auschwitz because Arnold was a decorated soldier from WW1. He was nevertheless eventually deported to Auschwitz. Lilly herself was liberated by the Allies in 1945 and went to Almelo to wait for Arnold. He did not return: he had been murdered in Auschwitz in October 1944. She emigrated to the USA in November 1946, joining her children in the Denver area.

Stolpersteine for Arnold Solomons and his family are at Karl-Albert Strasse 33 in Frankfurt, just a few houses away from where Lilly Goldschmidt née Rothschilds grew up.

"Stolpersteine" is an art project for Europe by Gunter Demnig to commemorate victims of National Socialism (Nazism). Stolpersteine (stumbling stones) are small, 10x10cm brass plaques placed in the pavement in front of the last voluntary residence of (mostly Jewish) victims who were murdered by the Nazis. Each plaque is engraved victim’s with the name, year of birth, and place (mostly a concentration camp) and date of death. By doing this, Gunter Demnig gives an individual memorial to each victim. One stone, one name, one person. He cites the Talmud: "A human being is forgotten only when his or her name is forgotten."