Dora Schaul

Dora Schaul

Dora Schaul (born September 21, 1913 as Dora Davidsohn in Berlin ; † August 8, 1999 there ) was a German anti-fascist and worked in the Resistance .

Life

Dora Davidsohn was the daughter of a Jewish businessman, she attended business school and worked as a commercial clerk in Berlin. In 1933, before the persecution of the Nazi regime , she emigrated to Holland , where she met her future husband Alfred Benjamin , and later to France . At the beginning of the war, Dora Davidsohn lived in Paris without valid papers and was imprisoned in La Petite Roquette prison while attempting to report to the French authorities. In October 1939 she was taken to the Rieucros women's internment camp in Mende , southern France, as an enemy foreigner , and in the spring of 1942 she was transferred to the Brens women's internment camp near Gaillac . During the internment she married Alfred Benjamin.

In July 1942 she was able to flee six weeks before the inmates were deported to the concentration camps . Alfred Benjamin fled the Chanac labor camp in August 1942 and had a fatal accident while trying to escape to Switzerland . Dora Benjamin joined the Resistance and worked with false papers as a Frenchwoman, initially under the name Renée Gilbert, until this name became too uncertain. Later she worked as Renée Fabre for German offices in Lyon , where she came across valuable information for the Resistance.

Disguised as an Alsatian, she didn't just get information about troop movements from the field post. She also managed to compile an almost complete list of the members of the Lyon Gestapo . A few days later this list was read out on London radio in the broadcast for France. Repeated several times on the radio, this broadcast caused great unrest among Gestapo people in France. In Dora Schaul's list, the name of Klaus Barbie appeared for the first time , who was to go around the world much later as a defendant in the war crimes trial in Lyon. The post-war investigations that led to the extradition of Barbies from Bolivia in 1983 followed on from their information. She also used her contacts to German soldiers to distribute pamphlets and leaflets against National Socialism .

Dora Benjamin, whose parents and sister were deported in 1942 and murdered in the Lublin-Majdanek extermination camp , saw the end of the war in France. In 1946 she returned to Germany and married Hans Schaul , who in 1941 had been taken to Djelfa in Algeria after his internment in Le Vernet .

Dora Schaul published in 1973 on the work of German anti-fascists in the French emigration and worked intensively on research into resistance fighters against the Nazi regime in Berlin-Treptow. A special concern of her was the contact with Treptow schools, where she imparted anti-fascist empirical knowledge to the children, which above all also served for the confrontation with neo-Nazis. Thanks to her personal commitment, the fact-rich traveling exhibition “Germans in the Resistance” was developed in 1995.

tomb

Your urn was in the grave conditioning Pergolenweg the memorial of the socialists at the Berlin Central Cemetery Friedrichsfelde buried.

Honors

Memorial plaque on the house, Dammweg 73, in Berlin-Plänterwald

On March 12, 2006, a street in Brens was named after her. The Dora Schaul route leads past the former women's internment camp in Brens, where Dora Schaul had to spend several months before she escaped. Peter Schaul, her son, said on the occasion that he was filled with pride and satisfaction that at a time when the past is threatening to be forgotten and there are efforts to turn back the wheel of history, “there is a community in France there, in a country that has suffered from the occupation by Germans, which names a street after a German anti-fascist. I find that unusual and courageous, for which I am grateful and additionally motivated to use my strength to ensure that the fascist demon doesn't get a chance. ”The researcher Sterenn Le Berre gave a speech on the occasion.

On August 8, 2009, a memorial plaque was inaugurated on the 10th anniversary of Dora Schaul's last residence in Berlin-Treptow-Köpenick. The inscription on the plaque reads: “This is where the anti-fascist DORA SCHAUL (1913–1999) lived. During the Second World War she fought in France under the name Renée Fabre in the Resistance against the Nazi occupation. In Brens near Toulouse, a street received its name in 2006. “The honoring by a memorial plaque goes back to a resolution of the district assembly of Berlin - Treptow-Köpenick and the commitment of the local initiative of BdA - Bund der Antifaschisten Treptow e. V., Citizens Committee Plänterwald and ViVer - Vision and Responsibility e. V. The head of the district council assembly of Berlin-Treptow-Köpenick Siegfried Stock as well as the district councilors Oliver Igel ( SPD ) and Dr. Hans Erxleben ( Die Linke ) gave a speech. As in 2006 in Brens, Sterenn Le Berre gave a lecture on the life and person of Dora Schaul.

See also

• Women in the Resistance

literature

• Karlheinz Pech : On the side of the Resistance. The “Free Germany” movement for the West in France (1943–1945) . 2., revised. u. exp. Edition. Military publishing house of the GDR, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-327-00282-7 .

Fonts (selection)

• Resistance - Memories of German members of the French Resistance and the "Free Germany" movement for the West. Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1973 / Röderberg-Verlag, Frankfurt / M. 1975 DNB.
• Workers' athletes in the anti-fascist resistance struggle in Berlin-Treptow. Committee of the Anti-Fascist Resistance Fighters of the GDR - Berlin-Treptow district, Berlin 1979.

Web links

Commons : Dora Schaul  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Short biography of the German Resistance Memorial Center

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Gerhard Leo : "Germans in the French resistance - a way to Europe" , DRAFD Information - August 1999 DNB.
2. ↑ Martin Stolzenau: Jewess exposed, butcher of Lyon . In: Neues Deutschland from August 8, 2019, p. 18
3. ^ Traveling exhibition "Germans in the Resistance" on the DRAFD website .
4. ↑ Publication: Dora Schaul. Resistante allemande en France. Inauguration de la route Dora Schaul, 12 mars 2006, à Brens (Tarn). (pdf; 4.6 MB) Ed. on the initiative of “L'Association pour Perpétuer le Souvenir des Internées des Camps de Brens et de Rieucros ” by La Mairie de Brens. 47 p., Bilingual, literature.
5. ↑ report on www.drafd.de.
6. ↑ Report on www.vision-und-verendung.de. ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 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.