On 25 July 2024, two stumbling stones were laid for Dr. Sigmund and Else Dormitzer. The laying of the stones was initiated by Judith Haas, their great-granddaughter. The socially active and successful German-Jewish couple fled to Holland after the Pogrom Night of 1938. From there they were deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Sigmund was murdered there in 1943; Else survived.

Dr. Sigmund Dormitzer was born on 14 August 1869. His parents were the wholesaler Philipp Dormitzer and his wife Jeanette, née Besels. Sigmund studied law in Erlangen, where he obtained his doctorate in 1893. For many decades he led a very successful and respected law firm; in 1928 he received the title “Geheimer Justizrat” (“Judicial Privy Councillor”).

His wife Else was born on 17 November 1877. Her parents were the sawmill owner and timber merchant Salomon Forchheimer and his wife Klara, née Ehrlich. Sigmund and Else married on 1 May 1898. After her marriage, Else worked as a journalist and wrote children’s books under the pen name Else Dorn.

The couple lived at Blumenstrasse 1, near Else’s parents. There they had two daughters: Elisabeth Anna Getrud, born on 16 February 1899, and Hildegard, born on 6. November 1907. In 1930, the family moved to Else’s parents’ house at Blumenstrasse 9.

In the Pogrom Night of 1938, the Dormitzer’s were brutally maltreated and then forced to sell their home. They went into exile in 1939 to Hilversum in Holland. From there they were deported in April 1943 to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Sigmund was murdered there on 10 December 1943. Else survived and emigrated after her liberation to England, where she died in 1958.