On 26 June 2022 Gunter Demnig laid ten stumbling stones at eight different locations in the city. Jan Meyer had stumbling stones laid for the couple Fritz Wurzinger and his wife Jenny, their son Stephan and daughter-in-law Jenny. The parents were murdered in Treblinka. Their son, together with his wife, managed to emigrate to the USA. 

Stephan Wurzinger was born in Nuremberg on 31 August 1897. His parents were the textile wholesaler Fritz Wurzinger and his wife Jenny (née Ross). Stephan grew up with his younger brother Alfred (born on 5 June 1901) in their parents’ house in Rückersdorf. 

In 1919 Stephan began to study medicine, first in Erlangen and then in Munich. After obtaining his doctorate, he worked in 1929/30 as a trainee at the Dr von Haunerschen Children’s Hospital in Munich. From June 1930 onwards, he was in charge of a children’s surgery in Nuremberg. 

On 21 December 1933 he married Jenny Müller in Munich. Jenny was born into a Catholic family in Danzig on 25 March 1896. 

Already in the summer of 1933 the National Socialists had forbidden all Jewish doctors from taking up positions in the public health service. This meant they were no longer allowed to work in universities or hospitals. At the same time, Jewish doctors were no longer entitled to membership of the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (Kassenärztliche Vereinigung). Consequently, they could only treat people on a private basis. In September 1939 the National Socialist state took the final step in its plan to destroy the professional life of Jewish doctors: their licences to practise medicine were revoked and only a few were allowed, as “patient handlers”, to treat Jewish patients.

At this time Dr Stephan and Jenny Wurzinger emigrated to the USA. They left Nuremberg on 23 September 1938.

Stephan’s parents were murdered in Treblinka. His brother Alfred also managed in 1938 to escape to the USA.