Stumbling stone for Dr. Heinrich Ludwig Aull, Helene Aull, née Hessdörfer, Helene Karoline Brühl, née Aull, Dr. Gertrud Aull, married name Silberg

Dr. Heinrich Ludwig Aull, born on 2 September 1880 in Mainz, was married to Helene Aull on 29 May 1907. Her maiden name was Hesdörffer, and she was also born in Mainz on April 15, 1882. The Aull couple had a daughter, Helene Karoline, born in 1908.

The Aull family lived in Offenbach from 1907. From 1912 onwards, Dr. Aull was a syndic for the city of Offenbach and deputy chairman of the trade and merchants' court. In 1921, he was elected as a full-time alderman (city councillor) by the Offenbach city council. In 1929, he was re-elected for a further twelve years with the title of 'Mayor' with responsibility for the legal system and the city's social department.

On March 27, 1933, he had to resign from office.

In the pogrom night on November 9, 1938, he saw his view that the partisans of the new state were not aiming for peace, but for war and persecution, confirmed - after these terrible riots, he chose suicide by hanging on November 25, 1938.

His widow Helene, who had Jewish ancestors and was a member of the Confessing Church, managed to escape to China at the last minute in 1939 in an adventurous way. There they took in their daughter Helene, son-in-law Dr. Heinz Brühl and their three children.

Helene Brühl had already emigrated to China with her family in 1933, where she ended her own life on December 8, 1944, in a state of deep depression and oppressed by heavy American bombing raids. From then on, Helene Aull took over the care of her three grandchildren and ran her son-in-law's household.

At the end of 1948, with the help of many friends, the Brühl/Aull family managed - again at the last minute - to leave China, which was now shaken by civil war. They made their way via Japan and Honolulu to San Francisco and from there to St. Paul and Faribault, Minnesota, USA. Helene Aull died there on December 22, 1961.

Dr. Heinrich Aull's sister, Dr. Gertrud Aull, married Silberg, born in 1910, left Germany for Austria in 1935 and emigrated to the USA in 1940, where she became a very renowned psychoanalyst in New York. She died in 1993.

Mr. Clemens Meyer-Aull, the nephew of the former mayor of Offenbach, contacted the History Workshop and provided it with information.