Stumbling stones for Karl August, Paul and Elisabeth Stern, née Roth

Karl August Stern was born in Frankfurt on October 8, 1878 to Jewish parents. After marrying the Protestant Christian Elisabeth Roth, who was born on July 5, 1877, also in Frankfurt, the couple moved to Wilhelmsplatz in Offenbach in 1898.

They had three children: Bernhard Eduard, born in 1899, Stephania Johanna, born in 1901, and Willi Georg Paul, born in 1907, who were baptized Protestant, as Elisabeth Stern did not convert to Judaism.

After Karl August Stern Karl Stern had risen to the position of authorized signatory in the well-known Jewish tannery Mayer & Sohn and had successfully proven himself in the management of the company, the couple acquired the two-storey residential building at Löwenstraße 5 and lived there until 1936.

Karl and Elisabeth Stern were well-known personalities in Offenbach. During the First World War and the Weimar period, they were both involved in various war welfare organizations and charitable work in Offenbach. Karl Stern supported his wife when she also took on tasks in local social policy as chairwoman of the relief association. He was involved as the supervisor of the association's finances and campaigned for the Mayer & Sohn company to support the association's activities. Elisabeth Stern, known in Offenbach only as "Else", was known by many as the "angel of the poor" because of her numerous activities for those in need.

Daughter Stephanie, who was a successful German foil fencing champion in 1923/24, moved to the USA in 1927 after her marriage. Son Bernhard worked in Berlin from 1933 and later emigrated from there to the USA.

After training in the leather goods industry, Paul Stern joined Mayer & Sohn in 1926 and was appointed authorized signatory and head of the finance departmentv in 1934. In the meantime, his father Karl Stern was one of the company's board members, along with two other people. The National Socialists exerted increasing pressure on them to "Aryanize" the Jewish company.

In 1936, the company was taken over by the "Salamander" firm, which urged the expulsion of the Jewish board members Karl August Stern and Max Weil. As a woman married to a Jew, Else Stern had to give up the management of the social institutions that had been taken over by the Nazi welfare organization in 1934.

On September 29, 1936, Karl Stern was arrested on suspicion of foreign currency violations and damage to the company. Demoralized by false statements from an employee and fearing that his statements as a Jew would not be believed during interrogation, he took his own life in the Gestapo cellar on 27 October 1936.

When Paul Stern learned that he was being watched by the Gestapo, he left for Switzerland after his father's funeral on October 31, 1936. From there, he emigrated to the USA with his family in 1937.

His wife, who had stayed behind, initially had her passport taken away after her son fled. Through connections, she got the document back from a policeman with the recommendation to leave the country as quickly as possible. Elisabeth Else Stern then fled to Switzerland, from where she emigrated to the USA to join her children in 1937.

The house at Löwenstrasse 5 was confiscated by the Reich Treasury.

Not long after the end of the war, Elisabeth Else Stern made contact with acquaintances in Offenbach who were still alive. An exchange of letters also developed with Offenbach's Lord Mayor.
In 1955, the city council wanted to make her an honorary citizen in recognition of her services. Else Stern refused; although she no longer harbored a grudge against the city, the estrangement was still too great.

After her death in 1966, her urn was buried in the family grave in Frankfurt. The local press then included her in the circle of memorable Jewish personalities in the city's history as a benefactor of the poor. A street in Rumpenheim is named after her.