Sara Berger

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A Stolperstein (in English "stumbling block") is a ten-centimetre (four-inch) concrete cube bearing a brass plate inscribed with the name and life dates of victims of Nazi extermination or persecution. The Stolpersteine project, initiated by the German artist Gunter Demnig in 1992, aims to commemorate persons at the last place that they chose freely to reside, work or study (with exceptions possible on a case-by-case basis) before they fell victim to Nazi terror, forced euthanasia, eugenics, deportation to a concentration or extermination camp, or escaped persecution by emigration or suicide. As of June 2023, 100,000 Stolpersteine have been laid, making the Stolpersteine project the world's largest

Photographed by James Hulse, February 26, 2026

2. Sara Berger Marker (left marker)

decentralized memorial.

Leopold (called Lemel) Berger was born on December 12, 1885, in Sokolow, and Sara Kaufmann on April 18, 1888, in nearby Nienadowka. The two small villages lie about 200 kilometers east of Kraków, close to what is today the border with Ukraine. At that time the region was known as Western Galicia.

In search of better living conditions, many Jews from Eastern Europe fled westward at the end of the nineteenth century. Pogroms in Russia and neighboring countries were the main cause. Over several decades about one thousand “Eastern Jews” came to Nuremberg, including the Berger couple. The term “Eastern Jews” at first merely indicated the regional and cultural origin of this group, but it soon acquired a discriminatory meaning, implying backwardness.

In Nuremberg, Lemel and Sara Berger established a leather goods shop and lived in the house at Heugäßchen 2, on the corner of Neue Gasse. The building no longer exists today: after air raids during the Second World War the district was largely destroyed, and reconstruction did not follow the exact pattern of the earlier buildings.

The Berger couple had four children: Giza (born 1911), Elsa (born 1913), Zalo (born

Photographed by James Hulse, February 26, 2026

3. Sara Berger Marker

The view of the markers along the sidewalk.

1915), and Sami (born 1917). Between 1933 and 1936 they were able to emigrate to Palestine. The parents likely did not want to emigrate once again to a foreign country and leave behind everything they had built for themselves in Nuremberg.

On October 28, 1938, the Reich government ordered the so-called “Polenaktion.” Throughout the German Reich about 17,000 Jews of Polish origin were arrested and deported in collective transports across the border into Poland. The mass deportation was carried out violently and came as a complete surprise to those affected. The pretext was a decree by the Polish government declaring that the passports of Polish citizens of Jewish faith would become invalid if they had spent more than five years abroad.

Lemel and Sara Berger were among those deported. In Poland they were confined with about 5,000 others in a barracks in the border town of Zbąszyń, where people had to live under catastrophic conditions. After ten months the Berger couple reached Lemel’s birthplace, Sokolow. From there they were deported in 1942 to Bełżec and murdered.

Photographed by James Hulse, February 26, 2026

4. Sara Berger Marker

The view of the markers in front of the building.