Dates
These are our forthcoming events. Information on our previous activities can be found here.
| Date | Venue/Location | Event |
|---|---|---|
| 25.04.2024 beginning at 10 a.m. | Various | Eleven stones are to be laid in memory of Jewish men and women from Heppenheim. Our research group has been researching the Hirsch families for some time. The memorial service will begin at 10 a.m. at the Marstall (situated in Heppenheim’s old town centre). To the accompaniment of live music, some local school students pupils will recite the life stories of those to be commemorated. Afterwards, the participants will go to the individual places where the stones are being laid. Four stumbling stones will be laid at Kleiner Markt 3 for Leo and Selma Hirsch and the twins Erna and Walter. Only Walter survived the Holocaust. He left Germany in 1938 and fled to the USA. His parents and sister were deported to Piaski in Poland in March 1942 and perished there. The widow Alice Martha Hirsch lived at Kleiner Markt 4 with her daughter Lore. Both were able to flee in 1938. Six months later, her cousin Cilli Hirsch also left Heppenheim. She lived at Graben 9. Bertha Hirsch lived in what was then Fürther Straße, now Siegfriedstraße. In June 1942, 80-year-old Bertha moved from Heppenheim to Darmstadt to the Jewish old people’s and infirmary home in Eschollbrückerstraße. She was deported to Theresienstadt at the end of September and died there just a few days later. A stumbling stone will be laid for Bertha Hirsch at Siegfriedstrasse 14. Markus Hirsch, who was born in Heppenheim, moved his factory for “corsets” from Frankfurt to Heppenheim in 1932 to the premises of the Neumeier silverware factory in the Heppenheim valley of Hambach. He was a respected businessman. During the pogrom night of 1938, he was deported to Buchenwald concentration camp with the other Jewish men of Heppenheim and suffered severe abuse there. The severe head injuries he suffered there affected and scarred him for the rest of his life. After the factory was “aryanised” in 1938, he and his wife Lina fled to the USA via Palestine in 1939. His mother Helene Hirsch also left Germany and followed her son. Three stumbling stones in front of the house at Hambacher Tal 12 will commemorate the family (these stones will be laid for organisational reasons at 9 a.m.). We are delighted to welcome three descendants from USA to the stone laying. |
