Stumbling Stones Hermann-Stockmann-Straße 10

These small, brass memorial plaques (Stolpersteine or Stumbling Stones) commemorate:

* Hans Neumeyer, born 1887, deported 1942, Theresienstadt, dead 19 May 1944)
* Vera Neumeyer née Ephraim, born 1893, Majdanek, ??? [fate unknown]
* Julius Kohn, born 1886, deported 1943, Auschwitz, murdered March 1943

Background

Hans Neumeyer was blind and a teacher of musical harmony and composition. Most of his own compositions are lost, although two of his chamber pieces survived, both of which he composed in 1940 after the family had been evicted from their Dachau house on Kristallnacht in 1938. They went to Munich.

Hans was married to Vera Neumeyer née Ephraim, a teacher of improvised dance. They had two children, Ruth and Raimund. The parents recognized early the dangers of the Reich. Through her work, Vera had made contacts in England and was able to get both children on a Kindertransport on 9 May 1939.

Vera and Hans wrote the children frequently. Vera’s last brief message to them was written on 9 July 1942 just before deportation: "Going on journey, but cheerful and happy, healthy. Father same. Keep in touch with aunt Dora Böse, Dresden, Leipzigerstrasse 147. Keep happy! Mother."
Vera’s final message was to her sister, written the Sunday night before the 13 July 1942 deportation. She expressed her thoughts for others – for her family and for the people in the deportation whom she hoped to give support.

Hans Neumeyer was deported to Theresienstadt on 5 June 1942. He survived there for 2 years, probably in part because he gave music lessons in exchange for food. The immediate cause of his death was TB.

Although the stolperstein shows Majdanek as the place where Vera Neumeyer was taken, Munich City deportation lists indicate that she was deported from Munich in July 1942 to Auschwitz. Another source suggests a Warsaw possibility. Details of her fate are unknown; she has been declared dead.

Julius Kohn, an accountant and office worker, was their lodger. He was a WW1 veteran and had no family. In 1939, the Nazis, in order to stop the performance of a play in the house, took Julius to Dachau concentration camp for 2 weeks. He did not speak of what had happened there. His deportation to Auschwitz in 1943 followed those of the Neumeyers.

"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 with the victim’s name, date 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."

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Source

• Text: Anne Palmer
• Photos: Wiki surfer bcr (1), contribution by Tim Locke, grandson (2, 3)
• The Ephraims and the Neumeyers, by his grandson
• Statistik und Deportation 13.07.1942
• Music and the Holocaust: Hans Neumeyer
• Wikipedia article on Hans Neumeyer
• USHMM Holocaust Survivors and Victims Database
• Stolpersteine.eu