Lily van Angeren-Franz

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Lily van Angeren-Franz (born January 24, 1924 in Neustädtel ; † March 7, 2011 in Woerden (Netherlands)) was a German Sintiza from Hildesheim , a survivor of the Porajmos and an important contemporary witness. She survived the deportation to the " Gypsy camp Auschwitz " as well as the Ravensbrück concentration camp and its Graslitz ( Kraslice ) satellite camp . After the end of the Second World War she lived in the Netherlands and did a great job remembering the Nazi crimes against the European Sinti and Roma .

Street sign Lily-Franz-Straße in Hildesheim

Life

Memorial plaque on the deportation of the Sinti from Hildesheim and the surrounding area

On January 24, 1924 Lily (partly also Lilli or Lilly) van Angeren-Franz was born as Adele Franz, probably in Neustädtel (Polish: Nowe Miasteczko) . Her father, Julius Franz, was a musician and horse dealer, her mother, Anna Franz, was a haberdashery. She was the oldest of six siblings. This was followed by Hedwig (= Waltraud, 1927), Hanu (= Wilhelm, 1929), Schelein (= Karl, 1931), Neke (= Gerhard, 1932) and Gimpel (= Günter, 1933) and Trudel (1936), about whom nothing is further known.

Until 1929 the parents lived with the children as traveling workers in Upper Silesia . Like many people in the poor areas of East Prussia, including numerous members of the Roma minority, they decided to migrate to West Prussia and moved to the vicinity of Hildesheim.

On June 13, 1938, her father Julius was arrested on the return trip of the whole family to Hildesheim, near Kassel in the course of the "Arbeitsschaf Reich" campaign and deported to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp . The rest of the family was left in the dark.

The mother now settled in Hildesheim. At 15, Lily had a compulsory year in a family that included one day a week in home economics school and one day of work in the munitions factory. From September 1941 she worked * in the Wetzel rubber factory in Hildesheim's Moritzberg district. After the Auschwitz decree came into force , she was arrested at her place of work on March 1, 1943 and, together with other Sinti from Hildesheim, deported to the “gypsy camp” in Auschwitz-Birkenau on March 2 . Lily received warehouse number Z-562. Due to her ability to write and read, she found shelter in the office and was able to document many crimes through this activity.

Her brother Schelein died in the camp. Lily was able to save her sister Waltraud from death. Zbigniew Glowacki, a Polish medical student, helped her, and the two became a couple. Lily developed appendicitis and needed an operation. She was about to die from a subsequent peritonitis , and Zbigniew was able to help her with medication again. Since the camp doctor Josef Mengele also committed his crimes in the infirmary , it remained unclear for a long time whether she was not also sterilized during the operation. Her sister Waltraud was transferred from Auschwitz on May 24, 1944 and survived. Shortly before the liquidation of the "Gypsy camp ", Lily was transferred to the Ravensbrück concentration camp and thus escaped the murder of all remaining Sinti and Roma, including her own family. In the Graslitz ( Kraslice ) subcamp she had to adjust rifles.

In April 1945, she and others managed to escape on a death march . In Asch (Aš in Czech) she was taken into custody by the Dutch and later brought to a camp for displaced persons in Erfurt . There she met Leo Jansen, her future husband. She worked for the Red Cross and went to the Netherlands. Her residence status in there was unsecured; she was able to stay in the Netherlands through an adoption by Piet and Door Gelen. She later married Leo Jansen. The two had four children.

In 1952 she received news that her father Julius and her sister Waltraud were living in Hildesheim. A visit to Bad Bentheim near the German-Dutch border could later be arranged. Her father died in 1964, and the funeral in Hildesheim was a great reunion for the widely scattered Sinti families. Her husband Leo died after a long illness despite intensive care. At the end of the 1970s, she married Nico van Angeren, whom she married in 1986.

Lily van Angeren was one of the most important witnesses in one of the last German Nazi trials, which was carried out in Siegen against SS block leader Ernst-August König (1987–1991), as she was almost all of the SS people working in the “gypsy camp” by name and with their function. Your detailed testimony was essential for the verdict in this trial, which was one of the very few in which perpetrators were convicted of crimes against Sinti and Roma.

Lily van Angeren-Franz died on March 7, 2011 in Woerden (Netherlands). In 1997 the original Dutch edition of her life story was Lily. Het unieke levensverhaal van een zegeunerin was published, followed in 2004 by the German translation “Police forced kidnapped.” The life of the Sintizza Lily van Angeren-Franz is told by herself.

An invitation to Hildesheim took place in 2002, where she was received by the then mayor Kurt Machens as part of an exhibition about the fate of the Hildesheim Sinti. A memorial plaque about the deportation of the Hildesheim Sinti was also put up.

A meeting with Zbigniew became possible in 2003 after a Dutch TV station found him in Australia.

Honors

In 2015 a street in Hildesheim was named after her.

Web links

Individual evidence

Unless otherwise noted, all information and data have been taken from or derived from the book " Police forced kidnapping".

  1. ↑ Record of The Gypsy Family Camp Record Book accessed on September 29, 2014: "Franz, Adele b.1924-01-24 (Neustadtl), camp serial number: Z-561, profession: Arbeiterin, category: ZDR" Place of birth very likely Neustädtel ; Lily van Angeren-Franz does not give her place of birth. Your record in the Auschwitz file contains Neustadtl as the place of birth. Her mother was born in Zeippern (Polish: Bartodzieje) . About 50 km to the west is Neustädtel, Polish (Nowe Miasteczko) . It is natural to assume this place as the birthplace of Lily.
  2. ↑ data set s. o. "Franz, Anna b.1903-10-04 (Zeippern), camp serial number: Z-560, profession: without, category: ZDR"
  3. ↑ data set s. o. "Franz, Waltraud b.1927-11-28 (Wachhiw), camp serial number: Z-562, profession: worker, category: ZDR, remarks: Transp. 1944-05-24". Place of birth probably Wachow (City of Rosenberg Oberschlesien) (Polish Olesno).
  4. ↑ data set s. o. "z ?, Wilhelm b.1924-10-04 (Billstedt), camp serial number: Z-483, category: ZDR" Year of birth probably 1929, location Hamburg-Billstedt.
  5. ↑ data set s. o. "Franz, Karl b.1931-03-29 (Münchhausen), camp serial number: Z-484, category: ZDR" Birthplace in Polish Mnichow near Oppeln ".
  6. ↑ record as "Franz, Gerhard b.1932-05-28 (Prince Castle), camp serial number: Z-485, category: ZDR"
  7. ↑ Dataset like "Franz, Günther b.1933-10-10 (Honsbrug), camp serial number: Z-486, category: ZDR, remarks: Gest.0000-00-00?", Place of birth definitely Dortmund-Hombruch.
  8. ↑ On the migration of Roma, including members of the name group Franz, from the east to the west of Prussia since the turn of the century, see: Ulrich Friedrich Opfermann, "Gypsies": Fiction and Reality in a West German Region. A contribution to the history of minorities on the Lower Rhine in the 19th and 20th centuries, in: Die Heimat. Krefelder Jahrbuch, 85 (2014), pp. 50–63.
  9. ^ Ulrich Friedrich Opfermann , Genocide and Justice. Closing line as “state political objective”, in: Karola Fings / Ulrich Friedrich Opfermann (eds.), Gypsy persecution in the Rhineland and Westphalia. 1933-1945. History, processing and memory, Paderborn 2012, pp. 315–326.
  10. ↑ a b Central Council of German Sinti and Roma mourns Lily van Angeren . Retrieved September 22, 2014.
  11. ↑ "Lily: het unieke levensverhaal van een gypsy: zoals verteld by Lily Franz en opgetekend by Henry Clemens en Dick Berts" / met een voorw. van Wim Willems, ISBN 90-225-2284-9 Verlag De Boekerij bv, Amsterdam 1997.
  12. ↑ Hans-Dieter Schmid (Ed.): "Police force-kidnapped". The life of the Sintizza Lily van Angeren-Franz is told by herself. recorded by Henny Clemens and Dick Berts.
  13. ↑ Luck in love despite war. , Deutsche Welle, accessed on September 29, 2014.
  14. ↑ Lily-Franz-Straße inaugurated , City of Hildesheim, accessed on March 10, 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Angeren-Franz, Lily van
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Franz, Lily; Franz, Lilli; Franz, Adele
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Sintizza
DATE OF BIRTH January 24, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Neustädtel
DATE OF DEATH March 7, 2011
Place of death Woerden