Stumbling stone for Karl Kaufmann, Ruth and Lothar Kaufmann

Karl Kaufmann was born the son of a Jewish merchant on February 2, 1895 in Langenschwalbach. He lived in Offenbach from 1911, took part in World War I as a "front-line fighter" and married the Protestant Christian Katharina, née Schott, born on July 8, 1895 in Offenbach, in 1923.

Together with their children Ruth (born 1926) and Lothar (born 1931), they lived at Hohe Straße 35 from 1927. Like their father Karl, the children also belonged to the Jewish religious community. The National Socialists considered them to be of "Jewish descent", "bastards" and "non-Aryan mongrels".

Under the rule of the National Socialists, it was soon no longer possible for Karl to continue working as a textile merchant. He had to support the family as an unskilled worker, constantly changing jobs so as not to attract attention, without social insurance or health insurance. By the time the foreign currency office tried to seize his assets at the end of 1939, the family had long been destitute and were living off the support of the Jewish community.

Ruth had to leave public school and transfer to the Jewish district school in 1934. Lothar was not even given the chance to be enrolled at a public school.

When non-uniformed people vandalized the Kaufmanns' apartment during the Pogrom Night of 1938, they had long since left out of fear. Karl was nevertheless arrested shortly afterwards and imprisoned in the Dachau concentration camp on November 16, 1938. He was released after agreeing to leave Germany.

The parents took their two children to Liège to live with relatives while they themselves waited desperately for an affidavit, a guarantee that would allow them to enter the USA.

When Karl finally had the affidavit in his hands, the war began and the Wehrmacht invaded Belgium. Ruth and Lothar tried to escape to northern France. But their escape route came under fire from German aircraft. They died in a hail of German bullets on May 23, 1940 between Lille and Arras at the ages of 9 and 14.

Karl and his wife had to leave Hohe Strasse 35 in January 1941 and moved to Luisenstrasse 82, where they watched helplessly as their fellow residents were deported in September 1942.

Karl was still one of the 33 men and women from "German-Jewish mixed marriages" in Offenbach who were deferred from the deportations. But it was only a few months before the Gestapo began to arrest them too. Many were accused of not wearing the "Jewish star" or talking to non-Jews in public. They were sent to Darmstadt or Frankfurt and from there to labor education concentration and extermination camps.

In February 1943, Karl and his wife were sent to the "Jews' house" at Domstraße 66. On March 14, Karl was arrested, taken into "protective custody" and then deported to the Auschwitz extermination camp. He was murdered there on September 14, 1943.