Philipp and Anna Cohn (1829–1878; 1846–1907)

Philipp Cohn was born on October 11, 1829, in Kreuzburg (today Kluczbork, Poland), in the Prussian province of Silesia. Descended from a long-established Jewish family of merchants and scholars, he represented the generation of Jewish entrepreneurs who helped shape Görlitz during its industrial expansion in the 19th century. Listed in the city directory as a Kaufmann (merchant) residing at Konsulstraße 17, Cohn belonged to Görlitz’s prosperous Jewish middle class. Together with his business partner Julius Fleischer, he operated the Mechanische Weberei Cohn & Fleischer at 21 Berlinerstraße — a modern textile firm producing fine wool and cashmere fabrics for the Silesian market.

Anna Cohn (née Gottschalk) was born on April 14, 1846, in Märkisch Friedland (today Mirosławiec, Poland), in the Prussian province of Pomerania. Coming from a liberal, educated background, she brought to Görlitz the intellectual ideals of the North German Jewish bourgeoisie. Following Philipp’s early death in 1878, Anna raised their six children — Jonas (1869–1947), Else (1872–1938), Valeska “Vally” (1873–1905), Paul (1874–1882), Richard (1877–1940), and Gertrud (1878–1906) — in a home characterized by education, reason, and moral independence.

The Cohn household exemplified the spirit of the German-Jewish Enlightenment. Both parents valued humanistic ideals over religious observance, guided by the philosophies of Lessing and Kant. As their eldest son, Jonas Cohn, later recalled, he grew up “free of religious compulsion” yet deeply formed by ethics and intellectual curiosity — principles that would shape his later career as a philosopher and professor of education at the University of Freiburg. Their daughter Valeska, remembered as a writer and advocate for women’s education, extended these values into public life and literature.

Anna died in Berlin on August 20, 1907, and was brought back to Görlitz to be buried beside Philipp in the city’s Jewish Cemetery. Their joint gravestone, inscribed in Hebrew and German, bears the priestly hands of the Kohanim above Philipp’s name — a mark of their family’s ancient lineage. Within the same family plot lies their young son Paul (1874–1882), whose small gravestone rests at the base of his parents’ monument.

In the postwar decades, the family tomb was desecrated with antisemitic graffiti, including SS runes. Though the paint was later removed, faint traces sometimes reappear under certain weather conditions — a haunting reminder that, like antisemitism itself, prejudice may fade from view but is never fully gone.

Together, Philipp, Anna, and their son Paul rest in one of the few surviving family plots of the Görlitz Jewish Cemetery — a lasting memorial to the intertwined histories of faith, assimilation, loss, and remembrance.

© Lauren Leiderman 2025