Sala Kochmann

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Memorial plaque for Martin and Sala Kochmann on Gipsstrasse 3 in Berlin.

Sala Kochmann , née Rosenbaum (born June 7, 1912 in Rzeszów , Poland , † August 18, 1942 in Berlin-Plötzensee ) was a German kindergarten teacher and resistance fighter against the Nazi regime . She was executed in 1942 as a member of the Baum group as a victim of Nazi war justice.

Life and activity

Sala Rosenbaum learned to be a kindergarten teacher. In 1938 she married Martin Kochmann .

During the Second World War , Kochmann and her husband joined the communist-oriented resistance group raised by the former KPD functionary Herbert Baum , which pursued the goal of using active resistance work in the political underground to defeat the efforts of the Allied powers - especially the Soviet Union - to support the military overthrow of the Nazi regime from within.

In the course of the police breaking up of the group after an arson attack by the Baum group on the anti-Soviet propaganda exhibition “ The Soviet Paradise ”, Kochmann was arrested, as were numerous other members of the group. She was arrested on May 23, 1942.

Fearing that she and the other members of the group under the pressure of brutal interrogation techniques secret police could tell, undertook Kochmann during their detention a suicide attempt by (according to other sources: a light shaft) in a stairwell of the Berlin Police Headquarters fell. She survived seriously injured with a broken spine. She had to be carried with a stretcher to the sessions of the subsequent trial against the arrested members of the Baum group in front of the People's Court. She was charged with degrading military strength and found guilty at the session of July 16, 1942, and sentenced to death .

On August 18, 1942, Kochmann was executed with the guillotine together with 18 other people in the execution site of the Plötzensee prison . At this "appointment" too, she had to be carried on a stretcher due to her injuries. Her husband was executed in 1943 .

Today, among other things, a plaque on the house at Gipsstrasse 3 in Berlin-Mitte commemorates Kochmann and her husband. A plaque at the Jewish cemetery in Berlin-Weißensee commemorates the 27 members of the group who were executed (or killed) for their resistance in 1942/43.

literature

  • Christiane Hoss / Martin Schönfeld / Marion Neumann: Memorial plaques in Berlin: Places of remembrance of those persecuted by National Socialism, 1991–2001 , 2002, p. 130.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Page 140 at Margot Pikarski: Youth in Berlin's resistance. Herbert Baum and comrade in arms. Military Publishing House of the German Democratic Republic, Berlin 1978,
  2. ↑ Sala and Martin Kochmann Gedenktafeln-in-Berlin.de. Retrieved June 10, 2015
personal data
SURNAME Kochmann, Sala
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rosenbaum, Sala (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German kindergarten teacher and resistance fighter against National Socialism
DATE OF BIRTH June 7, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Rzeszów
DATE OF DEATH August 18, 1942
Place of death Berlin-Plötzensee