| Location of stones: Sigenastrasse 4 | District: Gleisshammer |
| Sponsor: Alfred Fass | Laying of stones: 30. April 2025 |
Biography
On 30 April 2025, four stumbling stones were laid for the Adelsberger family. The sponsor was Abraham’s great-grandson Alfred Fass. Fass researches the history of his family and works toward the restitution of artworks from Jewish families. Abraham and Clothilde fled in 1939 to their daughter in Holland. Clothilde was deported, but survived the Shoah.
Abraham Adelsberger was born on 28 April 1863 in Hockenheim, as the son of Isaak and Sara Sophie Adelsberger (née Flegenheimer). On 14 June 1893, he married Clothilde Reichhold in Fürth. She was born there on 17 July 1872, as the daughter of Isaak and Adelheid (née Bundschuh) Reichhold.
They had two children: Paul, born on 11 March 1894 in Mannheim, and Sofie, born on 21. August 1897 in Nuremberg.
Adelsberger was already a successful hop merchant as he moved from Fürth to Nuremberg in 1897 and purchased the tin toy factory “Fischer & Co.”. His wealth made possible the creation of a large art collection with almost 200 paintings and an estimated 500 art and craft objects. The Councilor of Commerce (Kommerzienrat) had a city mansion built at Sigenastrasse 4, where the family lived from March 1926 and the collection was displayed on the ground floor.
In the years of the Great Depression, as his company began to show losses, Adelsberger pledged a large part of his collection as collateral to the “Darmstädter und Nationalbank” credit institute, which merged with the Dresdner Bank during the bank crisis of 1931. After the National Socialists came to power, he began to sell his company’s assets. In 1933 and 1939, objects from his collection appear at auction at the Lempertz auction house in Cologne. In 1937, the authorities confiscated his villa.
His son Paul moved to America and returned to Nuremberg in 1922. He was registered in the Sigenastrasse in June 1925. In 1933, he fled to New York.
His daughter Sofie married the business man Alfred Isay from Cologne on 10 June 1920. They had two children. The Isay family fled to Amsterdam in 1936.
Abraham and Clothilde fled to their daughter in Holland in 1939. Abraham died there on 24 August 1940.
Clothilde was interned in Westerbork and deported in 1944 to Bergen-Belsen. She survived the Shoah.
Her daughter Sofie was also interned in Westerbork and deported in 1944 to Auschwitz. She too survived the Shoah.
