Escape and deportation of Jews from Fürth

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Shoa memorial at the New Jewish Cemetery in Fürth, erected in the Fürth Finkenschlag DP camp in 1947 and transferred in 1949.
Memorial plaques for the Shoah victims in Fürth in the Tahara House of the New Jewish Cemetery in Fürth.
In the foreground the memorial stone for the Shoah victims in the New Jewish Cemetery in Fürth (1949), in the background the memorial for the Jewish soldiers who died in the First World War (1923).
Memorial plaque for the Shoah victims in the former Jewish secondary school in Fürth

The flight and deportation of Jews from Fürth is due to the National Socialist persecution from 1933 to 1945 and includes emigration leaving behind large parts of the property as well as the forced deportation of Jews from Fürth. From 1933 to 1941 around 1,400 citizens of Jewish origin fled the city of Fürth , 630 people were deported between 1933 and 1944, and 1,068 of Fürth people of Jewish origin fell victim to the Shoah .

Jewish life in Fürth until 1933

Until the beginning of the 20th century, Fürth was considered a city that was largely shaped by Jewish culture and business activity, so that the term "Bavarian Jerusalem" or " Franconian Jerusalem " is used to this day. The term was first coined around 1830 by the satirist Moritz Gottlieb Saphir in an originally derogatory context. The Jewish share of the population was over 20 percent around 1800, the absolute maximum in 1880 with 3336 Jewish inhabitants. The influx of Jews was due to the liberal local conditions, which were initially restricted again when Fürth was incorporated by Bavaria in 1806. The coexistence between Jews and non-Jews in Fürth was described as comparatively socially tolerant until the First World War . However, this representation has also been contradicted.

For this reason, Hitler assessed Fürth negatively; he liked to compare the “German” city of Nuremberg with the neighboring “Jewish” city of Fürth. Wherever, as in Fürth, the Jews were left to their own devices and left alone, according to Hitler, as “pure parasites” they only produced “misery and failure”. In fact, however, Nuremberg lost half of its inhabitants from 1600 to 1800 and its importance as a European metropolis, while in the same period the number of inhabitants in Fürth increased tenfold and an industrial and commercial city emerged. In 1812 , Ludwig Tieck coined the term "North America from Fürth", Jakob Aquarius those of the "City of a Thousand Chimes". This opposing development of the two cities, which lasted until around 1820, had various reasons, one of which was presented in the widespread “Fronmüller City Chronicle” published in 1887 as follows: “Nuremberg had inflicted a deep wound on itself through the expulsion of the Jews. In part since then he has lacked at least half of the necessary capital, in part he has missed the industrial ferment which the Israelites produce in all places to promote traffic and trade ... "

As a garrison town and a heavily export-oriented economic structure, Fürth was particularly hard hit by the effects of the First World War. After the First World War and the revolutionary unrest - there was a short-lived Soviet republic in Fürth - a local branch of the NSDAP was founded on September 18, 1923 . The election results of the NSDAP and, until 1924, of the Völkisch bloc were above average until 1930, but then fell almost to the level of the German Reich. They were thus well below the average in Central Franconia, the home of the “Franconian leader” Julius Streicher since the early 1920s . However, the results in Fürth were always above those in the neighboring city of Nuremberg. In Fürth at the end of the 1920s, the NSDAP temporarily withdrew “anti- Semitism, which was overly loud during the development period ”, put anti-Bolshevik and “national patriotic” positions in the foreground and thus achieved a positive impression among the bourgeoisie, including Jews. It was not until 1932 that it again emphasized the “ struggle against Judaism ”, especially in 1933 anti-Semitic agitation was accelerated: “ The NSDAP is primarily called to solve the Jewish question. Without a solution to the Jewish question there would be no redemption of the German people ”, reported the Fürther Anzeiger on February 8, 1933. The number of members of the Fürth NSDAP tripled in Fürth from 1927 to October 1931 to almost 600 members and by August 1932 to at least 1,500 In 1932, with 38.7%, the NSDAP outperformed the former leading SPD by 3.4 percentage points, and in the Reichstag election on March 5, 1933, the NSDAP achieved 44.8%.

In 1933 the proportion of Jews from Fürth was 2.6 percent or 1,990 people.

Emigration and deportation before the start of the war

Sign with anti-Jewish propaganda around 1938, NS column on the way back from the Nazi party rally to the overnight camp (probably near Nuremberg / Höfen), on the right the building at Höfener Strasse 91 in Nuremberg, the other side of the street (left in the picture) belongs to Fürth. In the background (Höfener Strasse 91) the factory of the “Aryanized”, previously Jewish company JWSpear; The building still exists today (2010).

On March 9, 1933 Nuremberg Nazi official from the announced Fürth City Hall before about 10,000 listeners: "Here in Fürth, the city that was once verjudet red and total, a clean honest German city will be remade" .

This announcement was realized on April 1, 1933 through the boycott of the Jews , followed by cumulative anti-Semitism , smear campaigns, disenfranchisement and expropriation, so that Adrienne Thomas stated: “It was never emigration, always only escape.” Up to the complete emigration stop in 1941, for example 1,400 Jews from Fürth emigrate, including, for example, the “early retired” teacher Louis Kissinger together with family and son Heinz (“Henry”) Alfred Kissinger . Many emigrants fled to areas and cities later occupied by the Wehrmacht , such as Rotterdam or Paris, and were later deported from there to extermination camps by the SS .

In the Gau Franconia , the party functionaries under Julius Streicher enriched themselves in Jewish property even before a nationwide legally enforced " Aryanization ", which brought them at least 38 million RM and was so scandalous even for National Socialist conditions that a related investigation led by Göring to the disempowerment of Streicher led. At the same time as emigration and later deportation, the authorities appropriated Jewish property. In addition, through the expulsion policy from the emigrated Jews, the state treasury collected around RM 900 million in Reich flight tax and various other fees.

On October 28, 1938, Polish Jews from Nuremberg and Fürth were waiting at Nuremberg Central Station.

On October 28, 1938, 54 Polish Jews were expelled or deported from Fürth as part of the so-called Poland Action :

“Two… Gestapo men followed us - to the Fürth police headquarters… At the police headquarters we were asked to empty our coat pockets. Put all the contents on the table and pull the belts out of the loops. Then we were led down a flight of stairs into the cellar ... The door kept opening and more women and children came in ... We saw several large trucks standing in front of the building. Boards were nailed to it in rows of six to sit on. We women had to split up between two trucks ... Two Gestapo men armed to the teeth sat in each car. It looked as if they wanted to transport serious criminals ... The journey came to an end at Nuremberg Central Station ... We were driven into the station hall. The Nuremberg Jews had been picked up beforehand ... They only knew that all Jews who had a Polish passport had been rounded up. At the last platform there was a special train to which we were led ... The train rolled out of the hall and headed north. In the evening we arrived in Leipzig. There was a great commotion at the train station ... You could hear “Shalom, Shalom” shouts over and over again. The entire Jewish community in Leipzig had come to the train. We were already the seventh transport that went through Leipzig ... After a 20-minute stop, the journey continued, now without stopping to the Polish border. The train stopped in Bentschen , a border town on the Berlin-Warsaw-Moscow railway line. It was night… What should we do at a Polish border, all alone, without money, without luggage! ... We got out very slowly. We actually found ourselves in the unlit station at Bentschen, completely left to our own devices. "

The Poland action indirectly gave rise to the assassination attempt by Herschel Grynszpan on Ernst Eduard vom Rath , which in turn served the National Socialist regime as a pretext for the anti-Jewish November pogroms in 1938 .

Monument (1986 by Kunihiko Kato) in the area of ​​the former synagogue. A passage from Psalm 79 is carved into the foot in German and Hebrew: "Strangers came into your possession, they defiled your temple, they laid Jerusalem in ruins".

At the time of the November pogrom in 1938, 1,200 Jews were still living in Fürth. In the course of the pogrom, the main synagogue was set on fire, numerous Jews were mistreated and 132 were deported to the Dachau concentration camp , some of which were only released after months subject to conditions. The city chronicle of Fürth reports in a handwritten entry from November 10, 1938: “Last night almost all local Jews were taken out of their beds by SA men and placed on Schlageterplatz. At ½ 2 also the 42 Jewish children from the Jewish orphanage in Julienstraße. Around 6 a.m. they came to the hall of the people's education center. The women, girls and children are allowed to go home at 9 a.m. Their husbands have also been released. About 132 of them were carried away in the bus in the evening ” .

As of December 1, 1938, the Fürth city chronicle reads: “Many, almost all Jewish houses will be transferred to Christian property.” This was further enforced by the decree on the use of Jewish assets of December 3, 1938. One of the particular beneficiaries was the “ Quelle ” mail order company owner Gustav Schickedanz , 75 percent of his total property came from originally Jewish property according to a complaint from 1949.

Since the November pogrom, the number of Jews fleeing abroad has increased significantly. In the city chronicle of May 16, 1939, it says: "Many Jewish families from here and everywhere leave Germany and settle in England, Holland, France, America, etc." .

According to the law on tenancy agreements with Jews of April 30, 1939, Jews had to vacate their apartments in “Aryan houses”. The Israelitische Kultusgemeinde then rented apartments in the houses that were still owned by Jews , which from August 1939 served as Jewish houses for an initial 117 Jews from evacuated houses. With the beginning of the war, the evictions were forced, the Jewish people from Fürth increasingly had to live in close quarters in so-called "Jewish houses" . Before the war began, around 50 Polish Jews were expelled.

In September 1939 and October 1939, orders were issued that Jews were not allowed to leave their homes between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. and were only allowed to buy groceries between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m., and in January 1940 Jewish citizens were deprived of their allocation cards for clothing, shoes and spun yarn.

In September 1941 came the imperial law, according to which almost all Jews over six years in the public a " Jewish star " of yellow cloth had to wear, had from 19 September 1941, the remaining 650 Jews in Fuerth usually wear the Star of David, the few exceptions concerned “privileged mixed marriages ”.

Deportations

Two young people with a Jewish star in Fürth, Schwabacher Strasse, at the end of 1941 or beginning of 1942. They are probably siblings from the Jewish orphanage.

After Jews were "expelled" or deported to the Dachau concentration camp for political activities by the late summer of 1941, the deportation of Jews from Germany began in mid-October 1941 . In most cases, the kidnapping was accompanied by the loss of German citizenship, and the assets were confiscated in favor of the German Reich. Reich Minister of the Interior Wilhelm Frick decreed on November 25, 1941: "The forfeited property should serve to promote all purposes related to the solution of the Jewish question" . After the property of the Jewish population - especially real estate and business assets - had been "Aryanized" before the large-scale deportations, the appropriation of the remaining property began. Fuerth made in early November rumors of a punitive action against Jews for allegedly spying for the Allies the round, it is said in the chronicle of 2 November 1941. "Of the remaining in Franconia Jews to treason because of the currently Fuerth absent Flak committed … As a punishment, all Jews under the age of 60 are to be brought to Russia ” .

Deportation on November 27, 1941

In November 1941 the Jewish community in Fürth was informed that a number of members were being "evacuated for resettlement to the east" . The deportees were forced to make a “donation” of 25 percent of their assets into a special “W” account in the Bavarian State Bank for the benefit of the Reich Association of Jews in Germany . By March 31, 1943, the special account received 147,606 Reichsmarks, from which the costs of "emigration" (18,836 Reichsmarks) were deducted; the rest remained in the special account "W" and was later collected by the Reich Security Main Office . Personal luggage was limited to 50 kg. The city food office granted additional rations for a week-long trip, and those selected were supposed to take with them “ghetto collective goods”, such as large kettles, mattresses, stoves, sewing machines, all kinds of tools, panes of glass, putty, bandages and medicines, as well as medical instruments from the Jewish community Hospital in Fürth. Among the people scheduled for deportation were ten employees of the Jewish hospital, so that medical care was assumed in the target area and it was assumed that the deportees would work there for warfare or agriculture.

On November 27, 1941, the Gestapo picked up 94 men, women and children as part of the “organizational instructions for carrying out the evacuation of Jews on November 29, 1941” (dated November 11, 1941) and took them to a barrack camp in Langwasser near Nuremberg ( near the Nazi party rally grounds ). There they met around 500 people from Nuremberg and other Franconian cities. On November 29th, around 1,000 Jews were loaded onto a train bound for Riga at the Märzfeld train station . The personal effects left behind were sold out of the apartments to interested parties, provided they were not of interest to the city administration, the apartments and houses usually passed into the possession of the state, the tax office was in charge with the participation of the Fürth city administration.

The ghetto in Riga was overcrowded, however, and the “evacuation” there in the form of a mass execution of 27,500 Latvian Jews had not yet been completed. German police officers, SS men and Latvian auxiliary police officers therefore murdered 1,053 Jews from Berlin on the first train transport from Berlin to arrive from Germany early in the morning of November 30, 1941. The transport from Nuremberg, which arrived shortly afterwards, and the following transports from the Altreich , however, came to the Jungfernhof camp . On March 26, 1942, the security police murdered 1,800 inmates of the Jungfernhof concentration camp and another 500 in early 1942 as part of the Dünamünde campaign . The remnants gradually came to the Riga Ghetto , which in turn was gradually " dissolved " from the summer of 1943 .

Deportation on March 22, 1942

The deportation of March 22, 1942 is particularly present in Fürth's collective memory (and thus in the “ oral history ”) due to the fate of the Jewish orphanage .

This was preceded by the start of " Aktion Reinhardt " and the full commissioning of the Bełżec extermination camp on March 17, 1942 .

As early as March 20, it was common knowledge in Fürth that another evacuation was to take place on March 22, 1942, 231 Fürth residents had to get ready, including the director of the orphanage Dr. Isaak Hallemann with all orphans and Rabbi Dr. Siegfried Behrens.

The actual fate of those evacuated was generally known at least as a rumor, according to a diary entry of a Fürth craftsman from March 21, 1942: "Tomorrow morning the rest of the Jews still staying in Fürth will be evacuated ... Certain rumors that are hardly true more can be doubted report that thousands of Jewish men, women and children were and are murdered in Poland. The SS is supposed to be the executor of these inhuman acts. Woe to those who degrade German soldiers to executioners! "

The "utilization" of the property left behind was partly taken over by the tax office (real estate) and partly by the Fürth city administration (movable goods): "For 1942, the Fürth city treasury posted income of RM 87,201.60 from the disposal of their personal property Jewish citizens sent to extermination ” .

The Fürth city chronicle reports in the entry of March 22, 1942: “This morning at 9 o'clock a car full of Jews left the police building on Nürnberger Strasse and headed for Nuremberg. Some time later, 4 cars with Jews left ” . About 420 Jews from Nuremberg and about 300 from Bamberg and Würzburg were added to the Fürth group of 231 people, the transport left Nuremberg-Langwasser on March 24, 1942 and reached Izbica about three days later . The Da 36 train was originally intended for the Trawniki destination and remained the only transport from Nuremberg to the Lublin district.

Izbica was an isolated, easily monitored place with a train station that connected it with Bełżec (approx. 55 km away) and Sobibor (approx. 87 km away) and was therefore chosen as the main transit camp. From the concentration camp Ghetto Izbica (also known as the transit ghetto) about 2,000 people were moved on March 24, 1942 to the Bełżec extermination camp, which had recently been in operation , in order to “make room for newcomers”. A transport from Aachen , Koblenz and Kassel arrived on March 25th , probably the train from Nuremberg on March 27th, both with around 1,000 Jews as prisoners. The arrival is confirmed by a letter from the " Judenrat Izbica" to the Jewish community of Würzburg; it asks for money, clothes and food. The letter was intercepted by the Würzburg Gestapo. Postcards from Izbica were still possible, but only a few general words were allowed.

On November 2, 1942, SS men shot around 2,000 Jews in the Izbica ghetto . The place was increasingly characterized by overpopulation, disease and malnutrition, and a typhus epidemic broke out. There are no known survivors from the Bełżec extermination camp. In the Sobibor camp there were 47 survivors after the Sobibór uprising there on October 14, 1943. By autumn 1943 the last Jews from Izbica were murdered in Sobibor.

Deportations on September 10, 1942 and later

In the late summer of 1942 the authorities announced another “emigration transport”, and on August 31, 1942, the apartments had to be vacated to accommodate those injured by airplanes. 176, especially older people, had to vacate the apartments immediately with their “emigration baggage” and arrive with mattresses in the Julienstraße nursing home (orphanage until March 1942). On September 10, the Jews from Fürth were probably taken by bus from Julienstraße to the faeces loading point on the edge of the Nuremberg cattle yard in Finkenstraße, where they boarded freight wagons along with 550 Jews from Nuremberg, 128 Jews from Bamberg and 142 Jews from Würzburg Transport to Theresienstadt left in the early evening . “Undoubtedly, the feces loading point in Nuremberg, the point of departure for the transport to Theresienstadt on September 10, 1942, was a similarly degrading place for the Jews who were 'concentrated' for deportation as the slaughterhouse in Düsseldorf-Derendorf, the cattle loading point in Wiesbaden or the Wholesale market hall of Frankfurt am Main ” . From June 16 to 18, 1943, 43 people were again deported to Theresienstadt (another 4 people on January 17, 1944), Auschwitz and places in the east that were not specifically mentioned. Regular transports led from Theresienstadt to various extermination camps, several times to Treblinka in September 1942 , and since October 1942 mainly to Auschwitz.

As far as we know today, 630 people were deported from Fürth, 13 of whom came back. The fate of the approx. 90 Jews who remained in Fürth is only partially known, around 50 survived mostly in so-called "mixed marriages" or because they (occasionally) worked in a war-important company whose employer covered the Jewish employees.

According to the current state of knowledge, 1,068 people of Jewish origin from Fürth fell victim to the Shoah.

Exemplary individual fates

Rudolf Benario and Ernst Goldmann

Memorial plaque for Rudolf Benario in Fürth. The birch on the right was planted by Benario.

Two citizens of Fürth of Jewish origin were the first to die in the Dachau concentration camp in April 1933 and thus the first ever Jewish victims in a concentration camp : Dr. Rudolf Benario (* 1908) and Ernst Goldmann (* 1908), both close to the KPD. During his studies in Berlin, Würzburg and Erlangen, Benario was politically active in the Republican Student Union and in the KPD. Benario actively went public for the interests of his party.

The “Fürther Anzeiger” reported on the arrest of Benario in its edition of March 10, 1933: “… the well-known communist Winsler and Jew Benario [was] taken into protective custody” . The deportation to Dachau took place on April 11, 1933. On April 12, 1933, the company commander in the Dachau concentration camp Benario, Ernst Goldmann and Arthur Kahn from Nuremberg initially started to shovel rubbish and then went with them to the firing range, shortly afterwards they were “on the Escape shot ".

Isaak Hallemann and the Jewish orphanage

Memorial plaque (1963) on the former Jewish orphanage.

The Jewish orphanage goes back to a foundation from 1763; it was located on Julienstraße (today: Hallemann Straße 2 / 2a ). The last head of the Jewish orphanage, Dr. Isaak Hallemann (* 1896) proposed in 1936 that the children be brought to Israel with the help of the foundation's assets. This was rejected because the foundation statutes stipulated that the funds would only be used in Fürth. Hallemann and his wife Klara (* 1896) with two of four of their own (* 1933 and 1927) children and all 33 remaining orphans (memorial plaque in Hallemannstrasse) were deported to Izbica on March 22, 1942. The couple had taken over the management of the “Israelite Orphanage” in 1929, and they had repeatedly been offered opportunities to leave the country, which they did not accept with regard to the orphans. Today a street and a school in Fürth are named after Isaak Hallemann.

Julius Dünkelsbühler and Berl Baumann

Julius Dünkelsbühler was deported to Theresienstadt at the age of 92 and died there three weeks after arrival. Berl Baumann (* 1942) is the last Jewish child who was entered in the Fürth birth registers before the religious community was erased; he was deported to Theresienstadt at the age of 5 months. The parents applied to emigrate to the USA on March 30, 1940, but the decision was refused in September 1940. Parents and child died in Auschwitz, the exact date is not known.

Justus Bendit

Justus Bendit was deported to Theresienstadt at the age of 76 and allegedly died there on February 14, 1944 of blood poisoning. He was the father of the well-known war hero Manfred Bendit, who fell in 1917 from the First World War and was awarded the Iron Cross as a 16-year-old volunteer in 1914 , at that time the youngest holder of this award in Fürth and possibly in the whole of the German Reich. Justus Bendit himself was a factory owner and commercial judge.

Siegfried Behrens

Dr. Siegfried Behrens (* 1876) came to Fürth with his family in 1923 and was the last district rabbi. He was removed from office on May 26, 1941 and deported to Izbica on March 22, 1942 with his wife Ida (* 1888) and daughter Margot (* 1913). They perished there or in Belzec and were officially declared dead in 1956.

The Glaser family from Fürth in 1938: Top row, from left to right: Willie (* 1921), Adele (* 1895) - Second row: Bertha (* 1930), Esther (* 1860), Ferdinand (* 1890) - Bottom row: Frieda (* 1935), Leo (* 1932). Adele, Bertha, Leo and Frieda were deported from Fürth to Izbica on March 22, 1942. Ferdinand was deported from Paris to Auschwitz on December 7, 1943. Esther Glaser died on April 6, 1942 in the Fürth Jewish Hospital. Willie Glaser was able to leave for England shortly before the start of the war, he returned with the 1st Polish Armored Division in 1944 and now lives in Canada.

Glaser family

In 1892 the Glaser family settled in Fürth. Ferdinand Glaser became a soldier in the Austrian army in 1914 because his father was born in Galicia . After the end of the war he married Adele Krieser (* 1895 in Auschwitz) in Fürth in 1918. After the war, Galicia became a part of Poland , which is why the Glaser family received Polish citizenship. Efforts to obtain German citizenship failed.

Ferdinand Glaser's brother Benno settled in Palestine in Kibbutz Giwat Brenner in 1934 . However, Ferdinand Glaser wanted to go to England or France, where he had business connections. From 1937 onwards, he began helping other Jews to move their furniture and personal effects abroad. In 1938 the eldest daughter Lottie was able to travel to England as part of the “ Kindertransporte ” (“Refugee Children Movement”). Ferdinand Glaser left Fürth at the beginning of August to travel to France via Switzerland.

In August 1939 Willie (originally: Wilhelm) Glaser received an entry permit for England, at the beginning of the war Willie and Lottie Glaser were in Northern Ireland, Ferdinand Glaser in Paris. His wife Adele with three children and their grandmother Esther were in Fürth.

Adele Glaser

Shortly after the start of the war, Adele Glaser was instructed to leave her large apartment at Schwabacher Strasse 22 and move into an apartment at Hindenburgstrasse 8 (today: Rudolf-Breitscheid-Strasse) with a married couple. The building was a “ Jewish house ”, and special quarters for Jews were set up by order of the municipal housing office.

Adele Glaser and children Bertha, Frieda and Leo were deported on 22 March 1942 either they are already in Izbica or - accordingly, an indication of Jan Karski - Belzec death ( so ). Esther Glaser died three weeks after the deportation of her daughter-in-law and three grandchildren in the Jewish hospital in Fürth (Theaterstrasse 36).

Ferdinand Glaser

Vanishing point for Jews from France: the Italian occupied Saint-Martin-Vésubie
Registration form in the Drancy transit camp.
Drancy-Auschwitz deportation list (excerpt), fourth from the bottom Ferdinand Glaser.

The armistice between France and Germany of June 22, 1940 included the partition of France ( Vichy regime ), the provisions of the armistice included the extradition of all Jews living in France (cf. deportations of Jews from France ). From October 29, 1940 to December 5, 1940 Ferdinand Glaser was in the Gurs internment camp and later in other camps. Ferdinand Glaser fled and reached the French border area occupied by Italy. According to a report from the International Tracing Service of the Red Cross, his last place of residence was Saint-Martin-Vésubie ( Département Alpes-Maritimes ). The Italian authorities hardly took part in the persecution of the Jews there and so the Italian-occupied border area became a refuge for Jews from France, estimates speak of over 50,000 Jews (around half of them non-French) in this area.

After the capitulation of Italy on September 8, 1943, German troops moved into the previously Italian-occupied French territories, and the Jewish refugees left Saint-Martin-Vésubie because of this. Glaser fled to Valdieri via the Colle di Ciliegie . In Valdieri the SS Panzer Grenadier Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler was entrusted with arresting Jews. Numerous refugees survived the raids, even today (so far the last time in 2003) there are meetings of the survivors in Saint-Martin-Vésubie to commemorate the crossing of the pass to Valdieri. Ferdinand Glaser was arrested and taken with a group of other prisoners to Borgo San Dalmazzo in the local police detention center. On September 20, 1943, according to the war diary of the General Command of the II SS Panzer Corps, 216 Jews were arrested in Borgo San Dalmazzo and transferred to the SD ( Security Service of the Reichsführer SS ). A total of 350 Jews (148 women, 202 men) were detained in Borgo at this time.

On November 21, 1943, the group came by train ("Memoriale della Deportazione" at the Borgo San Dalmazzo train station with the names of the deportees including Ferdinand Glaser) to the Gestapo headquarters in Nice and from there to the Drancy transit camp near Paris, where Ferdinand Glaser arrived on November 24th. November arrived. On December 7th, he and about a thousand other Jews were taken to the Bobigny train station .

A few days later the transport arrived in Auschwitz. According to the records in Auschwitz, 334 men and women were tattooed with numbers. 657 men, women and children were immediately gassed. Ferdinand Glaser was probably assigned to the latter group due to his age and the job title “toy manufacturer”.

Willie Glaser

Tank memorial in Hermanville-sur-Mer ( Calvados department ). Willie Glaser landed in Normandy in 1944 with a similar tank.
Juno Beach near Courseulles-sur-Mer ( Calvados department ), in the foreground a German bunker, in the background the Canadian Juno Beach Center.

Willie Glaser initially worked in Belfast from 1939 to 1941 . Until the end of 1941, correspondence with mother Adele could be maintained through neutral Ireland. At the beginning of 1941 Willie Glaser enlisted in the army, in 1943 Willie Glaser was transferred to the 1st Polish Armored Division. When the Red Army penetrated Poland in 1939/40, this unit had withdrawn to Hungary, almost completely reached France, where it formed part of a Polish brigade that was later evacuated via Dunkirk ( Operation Dynamo ). Glaser became a radio operator and gun loader on a fast Cromwell reconnaissance tank .

Operation Overlord began on June 6, 1944 ( D-Day ) . On August 8, 1944, the First Polish Armored Division landed in Normandy as an integral part of the First Canadian Army, and from the Juno Beach bridgehead the unit moved towards Caen .

In mid-August 1944 Willie Glaser was involved in the encirclement of German troops in the Falaise pocket. Because of his language skills, he interrogated German prisoners of war, including members of the 12th SS Panzer Division "Hitler Youth" and the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (1st LSSAH). The latter was the division that Father Ferdinand Glaser had captured the year before. Willie Glaser specifically asked prisoners - some from Franconia and Fürth - whether he himself corresponded to the image of the “cowardly Jew”, which was shaped by Julius Streicher'sDer Stürmer ”.

The Polish armored troop was involved in skirmishes with the Tiger and Panther tanks , feared by the Allies . Willie Glaser's tank was hit by an SS "panther" near Chambois, killing two crew members. Shortly afterwards, the reconnaissance tank managed to shoot down a heavy German battle tank - which the Cromwell tank was actually not designed for. The crew members therefore received the Polish Cross of Valor "Krzych Wlecznych". The regiment then moved to Belgium and Holland, in November 1944 the tanks reached the Meuse , in April 1945 German territory, the last fighting took place on May 4th near the town of Astederfeld (now part of Zetel ). A little later, Willie Glaser drove to Fürth in a jeep and lived there with the American commandant in Gustav Schickedanz's requisitioned villa . In Fürth, however, he was unable to find any indications of the fate of his family.

In August 1945, the Polish regiment, as part of the British Army of the Rhine, replaced the Canadian troops stationed in Aurich who were returning to Canada. In March 1947, the division returned to England and became a semi-military unit, the Polish Resettlement Corps. During 1947, the Canadian government invited about 5,000 Polish veterans to settle in Canada. Willie Glaser accepted this offer.

After a successful business life, in old age he devoted himself to contacts with Fürth and research on the question: How did the Holocaust come about? First he worked on the fate of his family in detail. In addition to inspecting the original documents (e.g. in the Mémorial de la Shoah in Paris ), Willie Glaser used information from contemporary witnesses and those affected - including B. Jan Karski and Serge Klarsfeld - back. After extensive research, he came to the following conclusion: Father Ferdinand Glaser was murdered in Auschwitz, his mother Adele with three little siblings in Belzec (see above). Accordingly, Willie Glaser will be a joint plaintiff in a new Belzec lawsuit that begins in the fall of 2010.

The survivors of the Glaser family, Lottie and Willie, at the awarding of the letter of honor by the city of Fürth on June 30, 2010

However, Willie Glaser never broke off contacts with Germany and Fürth. As early as 1998 he initiated the donation of valuable Hebrew prints by the archive of the Canadian Jewish Congress to the Jewish Museum Franconia , and in 2007 he participated in the contemporary witness project of the Leopold-Ullstein School in Fürth. In an expert report for the Fürth City Council on the awarding of the letter of honor to Willie Glasers, it was said: “In his numerous public appearances in Canada as a highly decorated war veteran, he never let his time in Fürth appear in a bad light. By coming to terms with the fate of his family, he was able to provide historical scholars with valuable information on Holocaust research ... Willie Glaser from Fürth is an example of a fate in a hitherto unprecedented historical turning point. By overcoming this turning point himself, he will help us to cope with it. ” On June 30, 2010, Willie Glaser received the letter of honor from the city of Fürth after a unanimous decision of the city council in recognition of his services to the well-being of the city of Fürth, not least the above Entries (version of February 17, 2010) on Wikipedia were the basis of the decision.

Individual evidence

  1. Alexander Mayer: The Jews in Fürth - Schlaglichter 1792-1914. In: Altstadtbläddla 34. Fürth 1999. pp. 10–13. ( Memento of the original from September 21, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.altstadtverein-fuerth.de
  2. Daniela Eisenstein: Myths of Tolerance. In: District Middle Franconia (ed.): Anti-Judism and Anti-Semitism in Franconia. Franconia Judaica 3. Ansbach 2008. S. 156 ff.
  3. Ian Kershaw: Hitler 1936-1945. Munich 2002. p. 758.
  4. Alexander Mayer: The mayors in the flea chamber. Gudensberg-Gleichen 2007. P. 56 ff.
  5. Georg Tobias Christoph Fronmüller: Chronicle of the city of Fürth. Leipzig 1887. p. 35.
  6. Manfred Mümmler: Fürth 1933-1945. Emskirchen 1995. p. 15.
  7. Heinrich Strauss: Fürth in the world economic crisis and the National Socialist seizure of power. Nuremberg 1979. p. 413.
  8. Heinrich Strauss: Fürth in the world economic crisis and the National Socialist seizure of power. Nuremberg 1979. P. 381 ff., P. 389, P. 461. Jürgen Falter: Hitler's voters. Munich 1991. p. 160.
  9. Committee for the Commemoration of the Shoah Victims of Fürth (edited by Gisela Naomi Blume): Memor book for the memory of the Jews of Fürth murdered by the Nazis. Fürth 1997. p. 13.
  10. Bernd Windsheimer: History of the City of Fürth. Munich 2007. p. 120.
  11. Quoted from Wolfgang Benz (Ed.): The Jews in Germany 1933-1945. Munich 1996 (4th edition). P. 413.
  12. ^ Adolf Schwammberger: Fürth from AZ. A history dictionary. Fürth 1968. p. 220.
  13. Monika Berthold-Hilpert: “You are requested to pay the amount as soon as possible under the name of ´Judengeld´. The city administration of Fürth and the exploitation of the property of deported Jews. S. 100. In: Jim G. Tobias / Peter Zinke (Ed.): Contributions to German and Jewish history. Volume 2. Main topic: Between amnesia and coming to terms with it - on the culture of memory. Yearbook of the Nuremberg Institute for Nazi Research and Jewish History of the 20th Century. Nuremberg 2004.
  14. ^ Günther Bernd Ginzel : Jewish Everyday Life in Germany 1933-1945. Düsseldorf 1984. p. 237.
  15. Committee for the Commemoration of the Shoah Victims of Fürth (edited by Gisela Naomi Blume): Memor book for the memory of the Jews of Fürth murdered by the Nazis. Fürth 1997. p. 14.
  16. Bella Rosenkranz, Michael Kerstan: Bella. Odyssey of a princess in the Soviet Union . Berlin 2005, p. 13ff.
  17. Lothar Berthold, Peter Krauss, Andy Reum, Josh Reuter: "Kristallnacht" in Fürth. Special issue of Fürther Freiheit , Fürth 1988.
  18. a b c d Paul Georg Rieß: Chronicle of the city of Fürth. Volume 1911-1944. (Fürth City Archives).
  19. Peter Zinke: “He threatened again with the Gauleitung” - Gustav Schickedanz and the “Aryanizations”, p. 63. In: Jim G. Tobias, Peter Zinke (ed.): Contributions to German and Jewish history. Volume 4. Main topic: disenfranchisement and expropriation. Yearbook of the Nuremberg Institute for Nazi Research and Jewish History of the 20th Century. Nuremberg 2008. pp. 63-80.
  20. Manfred Mümmler: Fürth 1933-1945 . Emskirchen 1995. pp. 160 f .; Willie Glaser: My mother's chronicle Adele Glaser: From Fürth to Izbica. Nuremberg 2007, p. 3 .
  21. Committee for the Commemoration of the Shoah Victims of Fürth (edited by Gisela Naomi Blume): Memor book for the memory of the Jews of Fürth murdered by the Nazis. Fürth 1997. p. 14; Bella Rosenkranz, Michael Kerstan: Bella. Odyssey of a princess in the Soviet Union. Berlin 2005. p. 13 ff.
  22. Willie Glaser: The chronicle of my mother Adele Glaser: From Fürth to Izbica. Nuremberg 2007. p. 3 .; Manfred Mümmler: Fürth 1933-1945. Emskirchen 1995. p. 158 f.
  23. ^ Paul Georg Riess: Chronicle of the city of Fürth . Entry from September 20, 1941.
  24. Jim G. Tobias: "… in favor of the Reich captured", p. 31. In: Jim G. Tobias / Peter Zinke (ed.): Contributions to German and Jewish history. Volume 4. Main topic: disenfranchisement and expropriation. Yearbook of the Nuremberg Institute for Nazi Research and Jewish History of the 20th Century. Nuremberg 2008.
  25. Monika Berthold-Hilpert: “You are requested to pay the amount as soon as possible under the name of ´Judengeld´. The city administration of Fürth and the exploitation of the property of deported Jews. P. 99. In: Jim G. Tobias / Peter Zinke (eds.): Contributions to German and Jewish history. Volume 2. Main topic: Between amnesia and coming to terms with it - on the culture of memory. Yearbook of the Nuremberg Institute for Nazi Research and Jewish History of the 20th Century. Nuremberg 2004 .; Paul Georg Riess: Chronicle of the city of Fürth. Volume 1911-1944. (Fürth City Archives).
  26. Hans Günther Adler: The hidden truth. Theresienstadt documents. Tübingen 1958, p. 50 / Christiane Kuller: 'First principle: hoarding for the Reichsfinanzverwaltung' - the utilization of the property of the deported Nuremberg Jews, p. 166, in: Birthe Kundrus, Beate Meyer (ed.): Die Deportation der Juden aus Germany. Göttingen 2004, ISBN 3-89244-792-6
  27. Manfred Mümmler: Fürth 1933-1945. Emskirchen 1995. ISBN 3-926477-13-X . P. 163.
  28. Manfred Mümmler: Fürth 1933-1945. Emskirchen 1995. ISBN 3-926477-13-X . P. 162.
  29. a b Monika Berthold-Hilpert: "You are requested to pay the amount as soon as possible under the name of ´Judenrechte´." The city administration of Fürth and the exploitation of the property of deported Jews. S. 105. In: Jim G. Tobias / Peter Zinke (Ed.): Contributions to German and Jewish history. Volume 2. Main topic: Between amnesia and coming to terms with it - on the culture of memory. Yearbook of the Nuremberg Institute for Nazi Research and Jewish History of the 20th Century. Nuremberg 2004.
  30. ^ Diana Schulle, Alfred B. Gottwaldt: Deportations of Jews from the German Reich from 1941-1945 . Wiesbaden 2005. p. 110 ff.
  31. ^ Herbert Jungkunz (ed.) The diary of Daniel Lotter. Fürth 2003 (2nd edition). P. 150.
  32. Willie Glaser: The chronicle of my mother Adele Glaser: From Fürth to Izbica. Nuremberg 2007. p. 8 ff.
  33. ^ Diana Schulle, Alfred B. Gottwaldt: Deportations of Jews from the German Reich from 1941-1945. Wiesbaden 2005. p. 186
  34. Willie Glaser: The chronicle of my mother Adele Glaser: From Fürth to Izbica. Nuremberg 2007. p. 8 ff .; Herbert Schultheis: Pictures and files of the Gestapo Würzburg on the deportations of Jews 1941-1943. Bad Neustadt ad Saale 1988 (= Bad Neustadt contributions to the history and local history of Franconia, Volume 5)
  35. Willie Glaser: The chronicle of my mother Adele Glaser: From Fürth to Izbica. Nuremberg 2007. p. 13 ff.
  36. ^ Diana Schulle, Alfred B. Gottwaldt: Deportations of Jews from the German Reich from 1941-1945 . Wiesbaden 2005. p. 323 ff.
  37. Committee for the Commemoration of the Shoah Victims of Fürth (edited by Gisela Naomi Blume): Memor book for the memory of the Jews of Fürth murdered by the Nazis. Fürth 1997. p. 14.
  38. ^ Diana Schulle, Alfred B. Gottwaldt: Deportations of Jews from the German Reich from 1941-1945 . Wiesbaden 2005. p. 453 ff.
  39. Fürther Nachrichten of June 3, 2009, p. 1: Monument extended .
  40. Committee for the Commemoration of the Shoah Victims of Fürth (edited by Gisela Naomi Blume): Memor book for the memory of the Jews of Fürth murdered by the Nazis. Fürth 1997. p. 47 and p. 137; Hans-Günter Richardi: School of violence. The Dachau concentration camp 1933-1934. Munich 1983. p. 88 ff .; Udo Sponsel, Helmut Steiner: Memory of Rudolf Benario. One of the first victims of the National Socialist terror. In: Fürther Heimatblätter 1997, No. 2 .; Bernd Noack: Tormenting memories . Fürther Nachrichten of February 7, 2012, p. 3 (local section).
  41. Committee for the Commemoration of the Shoah Victims of Fürth (edited by Gisela Naomi Blume): Memor book for the memory of the Jews of Fürth murdered by the Nazis. Fürth 1997. pp. 160 ff .; Kathrin Bielefeldt: History of the Jews in Fürth. A home for centuries . Nuremberg 2005. p. 34 ff.
  42. Committee for the Commemoration of the Shoah Victims of Fürth (edited by Gisela Naomi Blume): Memor book for the memory of the Jews of Fürth murdered by the Nazis. Fürth 1997. p. 80 u. P. 41.
  43. Committee for the Commemoration of the Shoah Victims of Fürth (edited by Gisela Naomi Blume): Memor book for the memory of the Jews of Fürth murdered by the Nazis. Fürth 1997. p. 50. Alexander Mayer: Fürth 1911-1914. War of Illusions - The Local View. Fürth 2000. p. 96.
  44. Committee for the Commemoration of the Shoah Victims of Fürth (edited by Gisela Naomi Blume): Memor book for the memory of the Jews of Fürth murdered by the Nazis. Fürth 1997. p. 46 f.
  45. Willie Glaser: The tragic odyssey of Ferdinand Glaser: In search of my father's footsteps in France and Italy. Nuremberg 2007. p. 2 ff.
  46. Willie Glaser: The chronicle of my mother Adele Glaser: From Fürth to Izbica. Nuremberg 2007 .; Herbert Schultheis: Pictures and files of the Gestapo Würzburg on the deportations of Jews 1941-1943. Bad Neustadt ad Saale 1988 (= Bad Neustadt contributions to the history and local history of Franconia, Volume 5).
  47. The Borgo San Dalmazzo camp on the municipality's website .
  48. Description of the monument on the website of the municipality of Borgo San Dalmazzo ; Alberto Cavaglion, Nella notte straniera. Gli ebrei di Saint Martin Vésubie, 8 September - 21 November 1943 (L'Arciere: Cuneo 2003). / Israel Gutman, Bracha Rivlin e Liliana Picciotto , I giusti d'Italia: i non ebrei che salvarono gli ebrei, 1943-45 (Mondadori: Milano 2006), pp. 235–236.
  49. Willie Glaser: The tragic odyssey of Ferdinand Glaser: In search of my father's footsteps in France and Italy. Nuremberg 2007.
  50. ^ Willie Glaser: Memory of a young Jew who grew up in Germany of his service in the Polish army 1941-1947. Nuremberg 2007 ; Alexander Mayer: tanks and stork's nest. In: Altstadtbläddla No. 37, Fürth 2002. pp. 10–12 ( Memento of the original from October 18, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ; Regimental History of 10th Mounted Rifles Regiments. Nuremberg 1947. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.altstadtverein-fuerth.de
  51. cit. to: Circular letter from the city councilor of the city of Fürth No. 65 (PDF; 91 kB)
  52. cf. Volker Dittmar: "Fürth: Honor for Jewish citizens sets standards"  ( page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Fürther Nachrichten of July 2, 2010, p. 1)@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.nn-online.de  

literature

  • Wolfgang Benz (Ed.): The Jews in Germany 1933-1945 . Munich 1989. ISBN 978-3406373251 .
  • Wolfgang Benz, Claudio Cario, Andrea Hammel (eds.): The Kindertransporte 1938/39. Salvation and Integration . Frankfurt am Main 2003. ISBN 978-3596157457 .
  • Monika Berthold-Hilpert: The reconstruction of the Jewish community in Fürth after 1945 . In: Julius H. Schoeps (ed.): Life in the land of perpetrators: Jews in post-war Germany (1945-1952) . Berlin: Jüdische Verl.-Anstalt, 2001, pp. 157–170
  • District Middle Franconia (Ed.): Jews in Franconia 1806 to today. Franconia Judaica 1. Ansbach 2007.
  • District Middle Franconia (Hrsg.): Anti-Judism and Anti-Semitism in Franconia. Franconia Judaica 3. Ansbach 2008. ISSN  1864-6484 .
  • Kathrin Bielefeldt: History of the Jews in Fürth. A home for centuries . Nuremberg 2005. ISBN 3-930699-44-3 .
  • Werner J. Heymann (Ed.): Kleeblatt and Star of David . Emskirchen 1990, ISBN 3-926477-06-7 .
  • Committee for the Remembrance of the Shoah Victims of Fürth (edited by Gisela Naomi Blume): Memor book for the memory of the Jews of Fürth murdered by the Nazis . Fuerth 1997.
  • Manfred Mümmler: Fürth 1933-1945 . Emskirchen 1995. ISBN 3-926477-13-X .
  • Diana Schulle, Alfred B. Gottwaldt: Deportations of Jews from the German Reich from 1941-1945 . Wiesbaden 2005, ISBN 978-3865390592 .
  • Jim G. Tobias, Peter Zinke (Ed.): Contributions to German and Jewish history . Volume I. Main topic: Jewish life in Fürth. Yearbook of the Nuremberg Institute for Nazi Research and Jewish History of the 20th Century. Nuremberg 2002. ISBN 3-9806636-4-7 .
  • Jim G. Tobias, Peter Zinke (Ed.): Contributions to German and Jewish history . Volume 2. Main topic: Between amnesia and coming to terms with it - on the culture of memory. Yearbook of the Nuremberg Institute for Nazi Research and Jewish History of the 20th Century . Nuremberg 2004, ISBN 3-9806636-7-1 .
  • Jim G. Tobias, Peter Zinke (Ed.): Contributions to German and Jewish history . Volume 4. Main topic: disenfranchisement and expropriation. Yearbook of the Nuremberg Institute for Nazi Research and Jewish History of the 20th Century . Nuremberg 2008, ISBN 978-3-938286-34-0 .

Web links