Stumbling block for Martin Eichel

Martin Eichel was born on February 13, 1897 in Offenbach.
He worked as a Jewish sales assistant and married the Christian Anna Emilie Baumgart, born on March 15, 1896 in Zurich, on December 24, 1920. During the Nazi era, the Nazis pressured Mrs. Eichel to divorce her Jewish husband, but she did not do so.

Neighbors at Französisches Gässchen 12 in Offenbach's old town stood by the couple, secretly listened to the London radio station with Martin Eichel and asked him to come with them to the air raid shelter during air raids. However, as Jews were forbidden, he refused because he didn't want to cause any trouble for his neighbors. He had to use a separate cellar.
Because of his so-called "mixed marriage status", Martin Eichel escaped deportation in September 1942, but in spring 1943 he became a victim of the "elimination of Jewish partners in mixed marriages" ordered by the National Socialists. According to surviving Christian spouses, most of the Jewish partners were summoned to the Gestapo station in Offenbach for questioning in 1943, from where they never returned home. They were taken from Offenbach prison to the Gestapo office in Darmstadt and deported from there to an extermination camp.
The date of Martin Eichel's deportation is not known. Contemporary witnesses confirmed that he was first taken to Darmstadt and imprisoned there.
According to the Memorial Book of the Victims of National Socialism (opens in a new tab), Martin Eichel died in Auschwitz on August 25, 1943.

His wife received written notification that he had died of pneumonia. As she was in contact with other relatives of Auschwitz prisoners, she noticed that they had received a letter with the same wording on the same day. This made it clear to them that this was not the true cause of death and that their relatives had been murdered.

The godmothers of the Stumbling Stone for Martin Eichel are Renate Heidenreich and her mother Emmy, who knew the Eichel couple from her neighborhood as a child.
Laid on October 21, 2006