Agnes Meyer (showman)

Agnes Meyer (born Klauer; born October 3, 1896 in Geistingen ; † March 9, 1990 in Neuwied ) was a German showwoman who became known as "Mother Courage from the Rhine" after she was the only non-Jewish woman during the Nazi era “Courage, drive and skillful tactics” made it possible for part of her Jewish family to survive. In 1984 she was honored with the Federal Cross of Merit. The writer Friedrich Wolf processed her story in the fragment of the novel The Carousel Magnes: Novel of a Brave Woman.

Life

Agnes Klauer was the youngest of 18 children in a Catholic Cologne family of showmen and women. During the First World War she did military service in a bullet factory in Siegburg in 1915 , where she met her future husband, Julius Meyer from Neuwied, who was also a showman. The couple married in 1920, their son Herbert was born in 1921 and they founded their own carousel business in Cologne, which they gradually expanded.

When the National Socialists came to power in 1933, anti-Jewish repression and denunciations began for Julius Meyer and his family. The operation could only be maintained because it was retroactively transferred to the “ Aryan ” Agnes Meyer by a benevolent Cologne tax officer , so that she could continue the company under her own name. The company moved through rural regions in the hope of being less well known there and not attracting attention, so the family remained undisturbed in a small town in Upper Silesia during the November pogroms in 1938 , while the in-laws in Neuwied “ protective custody ”, damage to their health and the destruction of theirs Had to accept property.

Agnes Meyer looked after her family and did all the “public” tasks, while her husband and son stayed in the background as inconspicuously as possible. In 1942 Julius' sister Rosa was deported to Auschwitz and his parents to Theresienstadt , where his mother died in October 1942. Agnes and Julius Meyer, who were traveling in Silesia at that time, drove to Theresienstadt to find out something about the whereabouts of Wolf Meyer and to support him, which initially succeeded. In 1943, however, he was transported to Auschwitz and murdered there.

In 1944, Agnes Meyer traveled from Silesia to Cologne alone to have her traveling trade documents extended. Her husband escaped deportation in July 1944 when Agnes Meyer made sure that he was instead taken to a labor camp in Czestochowa with a column of " Eastern workers " . When the Soviet army advanced in early 1945, he and other sick people were transferred to a hospital in Patschkau and she camped nearby alone in her caravan. There she witnessed the death marches of concentration camp inmates and tried to give the starving people what she had from the roadside - whereupon she and the inmates were beaten up by the guards. Shortly before the end of the war, the family got together again after their son Herbert had left the labor service and Julius Meyer had been able to flee before another transfer. People stayed in hiding and Agnes Meyer worked in the area in exchange for groceries without being recognized.

After their return to Neuwied, the family rebuilt the show business, which has existed to the present day. Apart from the in-laws Wolf and Mathilde Meyer, who were murdered in Theresienstadt, three of Julius' siblings - Rosa, Frieda and Johanna - were deported to Auschwitz and murdered. Julius Meyer died in 1968.

Shortly after the war, the writer Friedrich Wolf had Julius Meyer tell him the fate of the family in a detailed letter; The resulting 1950/51 novel fragment Die Karussellagnes: Novel of a brave woman or excerpts from it appeared in 1988 in the documentary anthology Friedrich Wolf - Weltbürger from Neuwied .

On November 24, 1989, Agnes Meyer was awarded the Medal of Merit of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. She died in Neuwied in 1990 after a brief illness.

literature

• The unbelievable story of the rediscovery of the "Carousel Magnes" from Neuwied Retold by Henning Müller [as well as the novel fragment and other texts] . In: Henning Müller (Ed.): Friedrich Wolf: Weltbürger from Neuwied; Self-testimonials in poetry and Prose, documents, etc. Documentary, pictures, etc. Letters . First edition edition. Kehrein, Neuwied 1988, ISBN 978-3-9801152-4-7 , pp. 161–170 ( table of contents via d-nb.info ).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Agnes Meyer “Carousel Magnes”. In: fembio.org. Retrieved December 26, 2019 . 
2. ^ Letter from Julius Meyer to Friedrich Wolf - Stolpersteine ​​Neuwied. Retrieved December 26, 2019 . 
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Wolfgang Dietz: Appreciation of a courageous woman . In: Homeland yearbook of the Neuwied district . 1991, p. 102–105 ( online via stolpersteine-neuwied.de ).
4. ↑ Stolpersteine ​​Neuwied. In: stolpersteine-neuwied.de. German-Israeli Friends of Neuwied eV, accessed on December 26, 2019 . 
5. ↑ Meyer, Wolf. In: Memorial Book. Victim of the persecution of the Jews under the Nazi tyranny in Germany 1933-1945. Federal Archives, accessed on December 26, 2019 . 
6. ↑ Meyer, Wolf. In: stolpersteine-neuwied.de. German-Israeli Friends of Neuwied eV, accessed on December 26, 2019 . 
7. ↑ About us. In: schausteller-meyer.de. Retrieved December 26, 2019 . 
8. ↑ Rosa Meyer. In: stolpersteine-neuwied.de. German-Israeli Friends of Neuwied eV, accessed on December 26, 2019 . 
9. ↑ Frieda Wilp. In: stolpersteine-neuwied.de. German-Israeli Friends of Neuwied eV, accessed on December 26, 2019 . 
10. ^ Johanna Guntersheim. In: stolpersteine-neuwied.de. German-Israeli Friends of Neuwied eV, accessed on December 26, 2019 . 
11. ^ Friedrich Wolf: Cosmopolitan from Neuwied; Self-testimonials in poetry and Prose, documents, etc. Documentary, pictures, etc. Letters . First edition. Kehrein, Neuwied 1988, ISBN 978-3-9801152-4-7 ( dnb.de [accessed December 26, 2019]).
12. ↑ Meyer, Agnes / 1896-1990. In: Rhineland-Palatinate personal database. State Library Center Rheinische Landesbibliothek, March 24, 2011, accessed on December 26, 2019 .