This is a group of three stumbling stones located at St. Annen-Straße 12 where the Emmering family lived and had their shop.
Elena Emmering was born on 25 August 1906 in op ’t Zandt, a village near Groningen in the Netherlands, but her childhood belonged to Lübeck. Her parents, Benjamin Emmering and Sara Goge, had married in Lübeck in 1903 and moved between the Netherlands and Germany before settling at St. Annen-Straße 12, where the family lived above and beside their business buying and selling clothing, linen and furniture. Elena, her sister Eva and their brother Aron Adolf grew up in Lübeck and their family became part of the local community. Elena moved to Hattingen with her sister Eva, but returned in 1932 after their father’s sudden death.
This was a difficult time for the family which was already marked by grief and illness as Sara was suffering from serious mental illness and was admitted to Strecknitz Mental Hospital, while the family home was rented out to help pay for her care. In 1933, as Nazi persecution intensified, Elena and Eva fled to the Netherlands where they thought that they would be safe. They later lived together in Amsterdam at Govert Flinckstraat 98, forced away from their home but trying to stay secure.
The German occupation of the Netherlands meant there was no lasting refuge. Elena was interned at Westerbork and deported from there to Auschwitz, where she was murdered by the Nazis on 30 September 1942. She was 36.