Stumbling stone for Therese, née Jochum, and Rosa Kessler

Therese Jochum gave birth to her daughter Rosa in Offenbach City Hospital on February 20, 1939. Due to the expulsion of "gypsies" from the area on the left bank of the Rhine, she had come from Aachen to Offenbach-Bürgel, where she presumably found accommodation with relatives named Jochum at Niedergasse 41. The unmarried haberdasher Therese Jochum was born on January 14, 1913 as the daughter of Elisabeth Delis and Hermann Julius Jochum in Steinbach im Odenwald.

The birth of Therese's daughter Rosa was reported verbally to the Offenbach registry office by the grinder Josef Kessler, born on January 6, 1915 in Düsseldorf.
Like Therese Jochum, he was also previously registered in Aachen and identified himself in Offenbach with his traveling trade license. Josef Kessler moved on from Offenbach and settled as a textile merchant in Halle/Saale, Karolinger Straße 96, at the end of 1939/beginning of 1940. Both married there on November 25, 1940. On this day, Joseph also acknowledged the biological paternity of their child Rosa. The family remained in Halle.

After the National Socialists' "determination decree" of October 1939, the Sinti and Roma were no longer allowed to leave their place of residence. At the instigation of the "Racial Hygiene Research Centre" in Berlin, the authorities throughout the Reich were instructed to treat the "Gypsies" for identification purposes. In 1940, the Kessler couple were stripped of their German citizenship. The new identity card was marked "stateless". Therese Kessler was the first of the family to be arrested by the criminal police in Halle on March 5, 1943, sent to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp and given the prisoner number Z1541. The reason for his imprisonment was: "Asocial work-shy gypsy". Josef Kessler was deported to the "gypsy camp" in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp on March 8, 1943 and was given the prisoner number Z 1358. According to the registration in the camp, he "died" on December 27, 1943. Daughter Rosa was taken to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp on October 15, 1943. The reason given for the deportation of the five-year-old child was: "Gypsy". Rosa died in the "gypsy camp" on February 13, 1944 under prisoner number Z 9487.

When the SS decided to dissolve the "gypsy camp" due to the advance of the Soviet army, Therese Kessler, who was still able to work, was transferred to the Ravensbrück concentration camp on April 19, 1944, where she was registered as a forced laborer. According to the Offenbach registration card, Therese Kessler survived the inhumane conditions in the concentration camp, returned to Offenbach-Bürgel and found refuge with relatives there. In June 1947, Therese Kessler married the merchant Josef Petermann, also a concentration camp inmate, born on April 7, 1905 in Hanover. She lived with him at Gerberstraße 43 until 1954 and then moved to Mühlheimer Straße.