The history of the Lax and Lump family
Klara and Emma Lump originally came from the district of Gelnhausen in the former province of Hesse-Nassau. After finishing school, the sisters Klara and Regina Lump found work in Max Stern’s haberdashery, white goods and woolen goods store. Because there were several women there with the first name Regina, Regina later called herself Emma Lump. The older siblings, Dina and Moses Lump, had emigrated to the USA at a young age, which is why the younger children of the Lump family hardly knew them, if at all.
In 1906, Klara and Emma set up their own business as milliners, which was very courageous of them, as the status of women at the time was far lower than that of men. On June 5, 1906, they moved to Kulmbach and opened the “Geschwister Lump” cleaning store there. Four years later, another cleaning supplies store was acquired at Ludwigstraße 59 in Hof, where Klara Lump also moved in. On February 20, 1911, she married the Israelite religious teacher Richard Wetzler in Kulmbach and moved with him to Ludwigstraße 55 in Hof. Their daughter Liese Ruth was born on November 18, 1911.
Richard Wetzler was later called away to Nuremberg, which is why Klara and Ruth followed him after a few weeks. Despite the move, she continued to run the business from a distance. On February 20, 1913, her sister Selma, who was also a milliner, moved into the store’s apartment and joined the company at the same time. Around six months later, Emma Lump married the merchant Hans Lax in Nuremberg and moved in with him to live with her sister Klara and her husband at Ludwigstraße 55. Her mother Hanna later died in Kulmbach on January 13, 1915.
Hans Lax was drafted into military service on May 6, 1915 at the age of 34. His younger brother Herbert Julius Lax was killed in action on September 15, 1916, and Klara’s husband Richard Wetzler on June 21, 1916. The census of Jews in the army on November 1, 1916 was a turning point in Jewish history. Previously, Jews had been citizens with all rights. This measure brought the feeling of exclusion back into their lives. On November 23, 1918, Hans Lax was discharged from military service and returned to Hof.
The wedding of Selma and the merchant Max Michaelis also took place in April of that year. After the war, the “Geschwister Lump” store at Ludwigstraße 55 was one of the leading businesses in the sector in Hof and the surrounding area. From 1918 to 1927, Hans Lax also ran a goods agency at Karolinenstraße 33. On June 8, 1927, a trade in lingerie and corsets was also registered there. However, as the National Socialist movement gained strength, the family had more and more problems with the business, so that the entire company was moved to Karolinenstraße 33 at the beginning of 1934.
Klara Wetzler emigrated with her daughter to the Netherlands in 1936, where she had to live in hiding. During her stay, however, she remained in correspondence with her sister Emma.
In April 1937, the rest of the family was forced to close their business on the grounds that Emma Lax was Jewish. The couple also had to give up their apartment. As the National Socialists exerted great pressure on them, the couple moved to Leipzig on May 2, 1939, where they were housed in a so-called “Jews‘ house”. On May 10, 1942, the couple was deported with 367 other people from Leipzig to the Bełżyce ghetto in Poland.
It is not known how Emma Lax died. It can be assumed that she either died of hunger or illness in the ghetto or was murdered in an extermination camp. Her husband Hans was probably deported to the Majdanek concentration camp. Selma was deported to Auschwitz on May 18, 1944 and never returned. Klara left the Netherlands in 1946 and emigrated to Argentina. In 1955, at the age of 70, she applied for compensation for herself and her sister Emma. However, the German state never paid any compensation for the two Jewish women.