Memorial stone at the Bremen prison

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Memorial stone at the Bremen prison (Photo: Hartmut Drewes)

The memorial stone at the Bremen prison , also memorial stone for the deportation of male Jews to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp after the Reichspogromnacht on November 9, 1938 , is in Bremen - Oslebshausen in a green strip at Sonnemannstraße 2, opposite the old entrance to the Oslebshausen prison . The memorial stone was designed by the master stonemason from Bremen, Jürgen Blode, and inaugurated in November 1988 on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the so-called Reichspogromnacht . It recalls both the deportation of male Jews from Bremen to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp at the time and the destruction of Judaism and its people by the National Socialists .

The monument

The monument consists mainly of a natural stone slab broken into three parts , which are arranged at different angles on a concrete base. A Star of David is recessed through the recess on the left , an ( abstract ) marching column in the middle and the word "JUDE" on the right. Both the Star of David and the word "JUDE" are included in the break. Three further small fragments of the granite slab are embedded in the concrete foundation, on one of them the dates "9.11.1938" and "9.11.1988" are written.

The broken granite slab points both to the destruction of the synagogues in Germany by the National Socialists in the so-called Reichspogromnacht of November 9th to 10th, 1938 , as well as to the destruction of Judaism and its people carried out by the National Socialists . Not only the murdered is thought of, but also the survivors and bereaved, whose biography was "broken" in many ways.

Occasion and inauguration

The occasion for the erection of the memorial stone was the 50th  anniversary of the so-called Reichspogromnacht. This date inspired the master stonemason and sculptor Jürgen Blode (1948–1999) from Bremen to come up with the idea of ​​producing one. The memorial stone was intended to serve as a reminder of the male citizens of Jewish origin who were rounded up and taken into custody during the Bremen pogrom night. 162 of them, Jewish men and boys between the ages of 16 and 60, had to go from the city center to the then so-called penitentiary of Bremen ("Bremen prison"; today prison Oslebshausen) under guard by SA men in the early morning of 10 November as part of the Bremen penal institution ) in the West Bremen district of Oslebshausen. The next day they were transported by train via Oranienburg to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where they were held for a few weeks. Many of them later perished in the extermination camps in the course of the systematic murder of Jewish citizens by the Nazi regime .

The inauguration of the memorial stone took place on 10 November 1988 as the completion of one prior memorial march , that of the of the Nazi regime Association of Victims - Association of anti-fascists and anti-fascists (VVN-BdA) and disarmament initiative Bremer parishes in conjunction with the Senate of Bremen organized has been. The memorial march led from the school yard of the old grammar school in Dechanatstrasse - one of the Bremen collection points for the arrested Jews - past the nearby site of the then destroyed synagogue in Kolpingstrasse as well as other sites of the persecution of Jews to the Oslebshausen prison. At least 4,000 schoolchildren and many adults took part in the four-hour memorial march. The motto of this march was “We walked through a silent city”, a quote from Felix Aber, who was a rabbi in Bremen until 1938 . The march ended near the main entrance of the prison, where the Senator for Justice Volker Kröning presented the memorial stone erected there to the public.

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Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Memorial stone for the deportation of male Jews to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp after the Reichspogromnacht on November 9, 1938. In: kunst-im-oefflichen-raum-bremen.de. Senator for Culture Bremen , accessed on January 26, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Jürgen Blode. Biography. In: kunst-im-oefflichen-raum-bremen.de. Senator for Culture Bremen , accessed on January 26, 2019 (short biography).
  3. ^ Wilhelm Lührs (author): "Reichskristallnacht" in Bremen. Prehistory, course of events and judicial management of the pogrom of 9/10 November 1938 . Ed .: Senator for Justice and Constitution of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen in conjunction with the Israelite Community of Bremen . Steintor Verlagsgesellschaft, Bremen 1988, ISBN 3-926028-40-8 .
  4. ^ Herbert Black Forest : History of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen . Extended and improved edition. tape 4 : Bremen during the Nazi era (1933-1945) . Edition Temmen, Bremen 1995, ISBN 978-3-86108-283-5 , pp. 314-319 .
  5. ↑ Erika Thies: Silence and maybe shame. Jewish pogrom 50 years ago: nowhere else as many dead as in Bremen . In: Weser courier . Bremen November 9, 1988, p. 20 .
  6. ↑ a b (ts.): Once again on the path of terror. Memorial passage commemorates the suffering of Bremen Jews . In: Weser courier . Bremen November 11, 1988, p. 13 .
  7. ↑ (mg.): Across Bremen on the trail of the victims. Remembrance day for the 50th anniversary of the Reichspogromnacht . In: Weser courier . Bremen November 3, 1988, p. 17 .

Coordinates: 53 ° 7 ′ 46.6 "  N , 8 ° 44 ′ 42.7"  E