Dr. Lisa Eppenstein (1887 - 1942)

Born in Breslau on 22 November 1887 as the youngest child of a wealthy Jewish merchant family, Lisa Eppenstein obtained her Abitur in 1907 as an external student at a Realgymnasium. She studied history and geography in Breslau and Freiburg i. Br., where she also earned her doctorate. Afterwards she worked as a teacher of history and geography in Berlin for more than 15 years, until she was forced to retire as a "non-Aryan" teacher in 1933. She turned to theological studies, passed a theological exam and joined the confessional congregation of the Epiphanienkirche in Berlin-Charlottenburg. For a short time she taught at a school established by Provost Grüber for baptized Christian children from Jewish families.

In order to escape the threat of deportation in Berlin, she sought shelter in October 1941 with her siblings Otto Eppenstein and Emmy Wandersleb in Jena, where she lived in the Wandersleb house. On May 3, 1942, she received a summons to report to the Westbahnhof on May 9 "ready to march to unknown destination." Lisa Eppenstein came with more than 1,000 Jews from Saxony and Thuringia to Bełżyce, a transit station to the extermination camps. She was probably murdered when the SS evacuated the ghetto in October 1942.

Her sister Emmy Wandersleb, deported to Theresienstadt in January 1945, survived imprisonment; her brother Otto died in Jena in 1942.

The stumbling stone for Dr. Lisa Eppenstein was placed at Schaefferstrasse 14 on June 2, 2010 (initiative of the Jenaer Arbeitskreis Judentum).

Hier wohnte Dr. Lisa Eppenstein, Jg. 1887, deportiert 1942, Belzyce, ermordet 13.10.1942.