Arno Lustiger

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Arno Lustiger (2007)

Arno Lustiger (born May 7, 1924 in Będzin ; † May 15, 2012 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German historian of Polish origin. Lustiger - himself a survivor of the Holocaust - made significant contributions to the research and processing of the history of the Jewish resistance against the dictatorship of National Socialism .

Life

Life path up to the end of the Second World War

Lustiger was born in 1924 to Polish Jews in Będzin, where he also spent his childhood. His father David Lustiger was a city councilor and owner of a bakery machine business. After the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, the city was occupied by the Germans and the father's company " Aryanized ". David Lustiger initially remained employed as an employee.

At the beginning of 1943 the Jewish population of Będzin was interned in the Ghetto Będzin, the Lustiger family hid in a cellar. In August 1943 the ghetto was cleared and its residents were deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. A few days later the family went to the Annaberg forced labor camp in Silesia to at least stay together. There the family was torn apart, however, and Lustiger was sent to the Ottmuth concentration camp and then to the Blechhammer concentration camp , a satellite camp of Auschwitz . From January 21, 1945, because of the advancing Soviet troops in the freezing winter, Lustiger was forced by the SS to go on a death march to the Gross-Rosen concentration camp in Lower Silesia, which only 2,000 of 4,000 prisoners survived. Then he was transported to the Buchenwald concentration camp and from there to the Langenstein-Zwieberge concentration camp near Halberstadt . According to Lustiger, the life expectancy of prisoners there was usually three to four weeks.

In April 1945 Lustiger fled on another death march when this concentration camp was also evacuated in view of the approaching American troops. Lustiger fell into the hands of members of the Volkssturm , was able to escape again and was found by American soldiers and made into a uniformed and armed interpreter for the US Army .

His father, David Lustiger, was briefly sent to the Blechhammer concentration camp and then killed in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Arno Lustiger stayed in Germany after the war. His sister had survived the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp , but was not allowed to enter the United States because she had tuberculosis . He could not go to Israel because of the hot weather and his health.

After 1945: company development and research to come to terms with the Nazi regime

After the end of the Second World War, Arno Lustiger lived in Frankfurt am Main. As a textile manufacturer , he built a successful company for women's fashion there. After "40 years of silence", as he himself put it, Lustiger began to publish on Jewish history, especially in the 20th century. He was particularly dedicated to German-Jewish history , the Spanish Civil War , the Jewish resistance and the persecution of Jews in the Soviet Union under Stalin , especially in the years after the Second World War. He was a co-founder of the Frankfurt am Main Jewish Community and a board member of the Budge Foundation . From the 2004 summer semester to the 2006 summer semester, he was visiting professor at the Fritz Bauer Institute in Frankfurt am Main.

Arno Lustiger (2005)

In a much-noticed controversy, Lustiger contradicted the American historian Raul Hilberg , who took the position that Jewish resistance to the Nazi regime was irrelevant.

On January 27, 2005, Arno Lustiger spoke with Wolf Biermann in front of the German Bundestag on the occasion of the commemoration day for the commemoration of the victims of National Socialism . Among other things, he pointed to the lack of historical processing of the death marches of concentration camp prisoners , to which several hundred thousand prisoners fell victim on the streets of the German Reich.

On January 17, 2006, Arno Lustiger appealed to friends and acquaintances, through an appeal he had written, that the book I will not be silent anymore, planned for January 20, 2006 in the Heiliggeistkirche in Frankfurt . Prevent About Law and Justice in Palestine by Rupert Neudeck . This appeal was successful because the Protestant church no longer wanted to make the hall intended for it available. Lustiger described the speakers scheduled for the event as "peculiar figures" and obviously considered them enemies of Israel.

On September 10, 2006, an essay by him, slightly abridged, appeared in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung . It is entitled Poetry and Truth? No cheating! These are comments on Günter Grass' latest book . In it, Lustiger criticizes Günter Grass without condemning him.

Lustiger became the father of two daughters, the painter Rina Lustiger and the writer Gila Lustiger . Jean-Marie Cardinal Lustiger , Archbishop of Paris who died on August 5, 2007, was his cousin. Lustiger had a deep friendship with the writer Valentin Senger , whom he also supported spiritually and in his work. In interviews and at events, he called Senger his "brother," while neither was related.

Works

As an author

  • “Shalom Libertad!” Jews in the Spanish Civil War. Athenaeum, Frankfurt am Main 1989, ISBN 3-610-08529-0 .
  • “Sog nit kejnmol” - songs of the Jewish resistance. City of Frankfurt am Main, Department for Culture and Leisure, among others, Frankfurt am Main 1994, ISBN 3-88270-855-7 .
  • To the fight to the death. The Book of the Resistance of the Jews 1933–1945. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1994, ISBN 3-462-02292-X .
  • Red Book: Stalin and the Jews. The tragic story of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee and the Soviet Jews. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-351-02478-9 .
  • We won't go under. On Jewish history. Ullstein, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-550-07546-4 .
  • Sing with pain and anger. Structure, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-351-02579-3 .
  • Renate Kingma: Traces of Humanity, Help for Jewish Frankfurters in the Third Reich. Preface by Arno Lustiger. CoCon, Hanau 2006, ISBN 3-937774-33-5 .
  • Rescue Resistance. About the rescuers of Jews in Europe during the Nazi era. Wallstein, Göttingen 2011, ISBN 978-3-8353-0990-6 .

As a conversation partner

  • B. Kerski, J. Skibinska (Ed.): A Jewish Life in the Age of Extremes. Conversations with Arno Lustiger. Fiber, Osnabrück 2004, ISBN 3-929759-93-4 .
  • “Nobody will believe you.” In: Martin Doerry (Ed.): Nowhere and everywhere at home. Conversations with survivors of the Holocaust. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-421-04207-1 , pp. 142–151 (also on CD).
  • Arno Lustiger tells about his life: “I've been lucky all my life.” In the Witnesses of a Time edition . Active Museum Spiegelgasse for German-Jewish History V., Wiesbaden 2008, ISBN 978-3-9412-8901-7 (1 audio CD).

As editor

Awards

literature

  • Nobody will believe you. In: Der Spiegel. January 23, 2006, pp. 138-142.
  • Sing with pain and anger. A life for the resistance. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-351-02579-3 .
  • David Dambitsch: In the shadow of the Shoah. Conversations with survivors and their descendants. Philo Verlagsges., Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-8257-0246-4 .
  • David Dambitsch: Voices of the rescued. Reports from survivors of the Shoah. Der Audio Verlag, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-89813-213-7 (audio CD).
  • Sigismund von Dobschütz: Very enthusiastic about the spa town. Professor Dr. Arno Lustiger wants to move to Bad Kissingen. In: Saale newspaper. December 7, 2007.
  • Julius H. Schoeps: Encounters. People who crossed my path in life. Berlin 2016, pp. 149–164, ISBN 978-3-633-54278-9

Web links

Commons : Arno Lustiger  - collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Announcement in the Jüdische Allgemeine from May 16, 2012
  2. ↑ A man who never wanted to give up. In: Berliner Morgenpost , May 18, 2012, page 19.
  3. ↑ a b Joachim Käppner: Arno Lustiger on rescue. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , 12./13. November 2011, p. V2 / 8.
  4. ^ Visiting professorship at the Fritz Bauer Institute in Frankfurt am Main
  5. ↑ Video of the memorial hour for the victims of National Socialism with Arno Lustiger and Wolf Biermann on January 27, 2005
  6. ↑ Accessed January 17, 2006 (PDF file; 67 kB)
  7. ↑ The unabridged text can be found on the website of the Fritz Bauer Institute. Notes on Günter Grass' book "The Skinning of the Onion". (PDF file)
  8. ↑ Arno Lustiger: My cousin, the cardinal. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung No. 182 of August 8, 2007.
  9. ↑ Audio file with Arno Lustiger about his relationship with Valentin Senger
  10. ^ Reviews: A. Kuchenbecker, in: Die Zeit , December 3, 1998; Leonid Luks in FAZ , November 26, 1998.
personal data
SURNAME Funny, Arno
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Jewish historian and writer
DATE OF BIRTH May 7, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Będzin , Poland
DATE OF DEATH May 15, 2012
Place of death Frankfurt am Main