The “Stolpersteine” (Tripping Stones) for Albert and Billa Kahn - a Documentation in Photos

Photo 2:

Late October 2019, a rainy day in Montabaur. We need to move a garbage can before we can get to two nondescript brass plates. Kneeling down to them to maintain them is a symbol, the people whose names are engraved there have al- ready been dead for a long time. After years of persecution, Albert and Billa Kahn were murdered in Treblinka. Neither their exact date of death is known nor the circumstances, under which they died. As many other Jews with unknown fates, they were declared dead on May 8th 1945, the day of German un- conditional surrender.

Photo 3:

For our yearly “tripping stone care” we went to the “Vorderer Rebstock”, the place where the family lived voluntarily for the last time. Since the city council agreed to the laying of the “Stolpersteine” (tripping stones) in 2011, schools including our “Landesmusikgymna- sium” have adopted the stones and therefore have actively kept the memories alive, just like we do today by looking after them.

Photo 4:

After treating the brasses with a paste and waiting for it to act upon it, we are sitting on a bench and looking through some documents that were found in the municipal archive that show us more insights into the family’s life. Finding documents about Jewish people being murdered by the Nazis is not easy at all as only some could be rescued from destruction. The files were probably burned in the Night of Broken Glass, the ones with further information about the NSDAP were destroyed, such as some incriminated mate- rial, for blurring the traces. Because of that few documents of that period of time about the Jewish inhabitants of Mon- tabaur, a systematic purge of archival materials at the end of World War II. seems very likely. Furthermore, only some information from and about contemporary witnesses are sustained.

But still, the life and the death of several people can be reconstructed from scattered remaining files and docu- mentations. For their memory, the people walking by should recognize the tripping stones again after the care they received from us:

Photo 5, Photo 6 and Photo 7:

Albert Kahn is born on March 10th 1874 in Montabaur as the son of David and Adelheid Kahn (née Wolf). His twin brother Louis dies six months after their birth. From 1880 on, young Albert attends elementary school and does a commercial apprenticeship after his graduation. He marries Sybilla (“Billa”) Wolff in 1907 who is born in Kobern at the Mosel on March 26th 1882 as a daughter of Isaak and Helene Wolff (née Mayer). As a list of the residents of their house from 1917 shows, they live in “Vorderer Rebstock 24” with their children Erna (*1908), Ernst (*1910) and Werner (*1916).

Photo 8 and Photo 9: The family is part of the Jewish community in Montabaur that has 72 participants in 1933 and therefore is a minority in the Catholic environment. Albert Kahn is even the chairman of the community for some years. We recognize that husband and wife are both mentioned in the resident’s book of the Westerwald region of 1926 as busi- ness people and even own one of may be 100 telephone connections that existed back in the days in Montabaur. The Jewish community in the town takes part in gymnastic and carnival clubs and choirs, they participate at the firefighters and are friends and neighbours, as busi- ness people they are even part of the town council.

But some years later, due to years of dis- crimination by the national socialistic soci- ety and its laws (The window display of a cake shop shows, that “Jews are unwel- come”), many Jews drew the obvious con- clusion and emigrated. But not before the frightening scenario in the Night of Broken Glass in November 1938 and the following cruel treatment inside the concentration camp Buchenwald, Albert Kahn believed in such a long reign of the Nazis in Ger- many and also was convinced that he, as a soldier of World War I., could escape from the systematic persecution of Jews. He regretted deeply to not have advised his sons to leave the country earlier. Photo 10 and Photo 11:

As from Germans so labelled Jews, Albert and Billa Kahn are forced to add “Israel” or “Sara” to their first names in early 1939.

Photo 12:

Another year later they are moving into Albert’s brother Leopold’s house, who is living just around the corner. Their own house is being rented, but the rent is payed onto a blocked account, so the family does not have any access to the money anymore. That is why the house needs to be sold at last, but only for 45% of its actual worth.

Photo 13:

The last remaining Jews of Montabaur are pledged to do compulsory labour in Friedrichssegen near Lahnstein in the same year and therefore are forced to move another time. The couple is going to pass the next year in this ghetto in the Westerwald-Lahn region before they are deported to Theresienstadt on September 1st 1942. Some weeks later they are brought into the extermination camp of Treblinka.

Photo 14, Photos 15 and 16:

The names of Albert and his wife Billa Kahn appear last on the lists of this transport „XII/2 train Da 509“ with the numbers 1044/1045 and transport „Bs“ with the numbers 1073/1074.

Photo 17 and Photo 18:

Albert and Billa Kahn were victims of a personal and social tragedy, we were able to track with only few documents and files. We are beyond shock how debased a human life can become, even in the small town of Montabaur, where 25 people were deported and murdered by Nazis. Even their children’s fate is oppressive: Erna dies with her husband and daughter in a concentration camp, Werner and Ernst have to flee the country and to leave their family behind.

We are proclaiming to pay attention to the tripping stones not only in Montabaur but in each city, as behind every little brass plate is an own frightening fate and destroyed life.

The Children of Albert and Billa Kahn

Erna (*20.12.1908, +1942 im KZ Sobibor; die Stolpersteine für ihre Familie liegen in Idstein)

Werner (*17.09.1916, +1.10.1992 in Miami, Florida / USA; baute dort ein heute noch existierendes Photostudio auf.)

Ernst (*19.10.1910, +24.12.1999 in Mandurah, Australien; war 1988 in der alten Heimat und traf seinen Freund Josef Born)

C.P. Beuttenmüller, 9.11.2019