Stumbling stones of Jacob Herz and Bertha Herz

Bertha Herz and Jacob Herz lived at Essen-Werden before Jacob's deportation. Their lives, too, were severely impacted by the increasing discrimination and persecution of the Jewish population in Germany. Two Stolpersteine (stumbling stones) are located at Bungertstraße 22 in [location missing]. 45239 Essen-Werden at Baldeneysee remember their fate.

Jacob Herz was a true Jew. He was born on November 20, 1893, in the abbey town of [unknown] and was one of the Jewish citizens who suffered under the increasing repression of the Nazi regime. He, too, was arrested during the November Pogroms of 1938 and taken into so-called "protective custody." "Protective custody" meant nothing other than that people were imprisoned without any legal basis. Jacob Herz was taken to the Dachau concentration camp, one of the first and most notorious camps of the Nazi regime. There he was subjected to the harshest conditions before finally being released.

But his persecution did not end with his release. On April 22, 1942, Jacob Herz was deported again—this time, like Sophie and Ruth Baum, to the Izbica transit ghetto. This ghetto in Poland served as a transit camp for Jewish deportees who were later transported to extermination camps such as Sobibor or Belzec. There are no precise records of his subsequent fate, but it is likely that he perished in one of the extermination camps.

His wife, Bertha Herz, three years his junior, was also deported to Izbica in 1942. Unfortunately, less documented information exists about her. She, too, was a victim of Nazi persecution, but there are no specific details regarding her deportation, her subsequent fate, or her death.

The Stolpersteine (stumbling stones) for Jacob Herz were originally laid on July 7, 2006, and later replaced on September 20, 2024. These memorial stones commemorate the life and tragic end of Jewish citizens and are part of the efforts to keep the memory of the victims of the Holocaust alive as a memorial.