Elisabeth Guttenberger

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Elisabeth Guttenberger , née Schneck , (born February 6, 1926 in Stuttgart ) is a German Sintiza and survivor of the Porajmos . She testified about the Auschwitz gypsy camp for the Auschwitz trials. Your report is a widely used resource for this camp.

Life

Like her siblings, who were born between 1925 and 1930, she was born in Stuttgart, where she lived with her parents until 1936. Her father traded in antiques and string instruments. The family lived at Stöckachstrasse 28. Due to a teacher and former member of the Reichstag who was an opponent of the Nazi regime , she was able to complete elementary school.

As of February 1943, the deportation of the remaining Roma to the Auschwitz concentration camp began in the Altreich due to the Auschwitz decree . Elisabeth Guttenberger was arrested on March 8, 1943 in Munich together with her siblings, parents and grandparents and deported to Auschwitz on March 16 , where she was given prisoner number Z 3991. Hugo Höllenreiner and Hermann Höllenreiner were also victims of the same deportation . Guttenberger's family is recorded in the general ledger for women of the Gypsy camp under prisoner numbers Z 3988 to Z 3992. The date of death for the grandmother was April 29, 1944, the mother October 9, 1943, and the sister born in 1927 September 27, 1943. Z 3990 is her three-year-old niece, and she did not survive the camp either. The men of the family are listed under Z 3542 to 3543 in the men's ledger, the date of entry into the camp, which differs from that for women, is March 16, 1943. Her brothers and older sister also starved to death in the camp. An aunt was murdered with gas during the liquidation of the camp .

First, she had to do forced labor to build the camp road . From September 1943 she worked as a prisoner clerk. She had to make transfers of transport lists and additions of death dates to the general ledger for men in the gypsy camp. A few days after starting this assignment, she had to register her father's death. In July 1944 she learned from the report leader Ludwig Pach (* 1906) about the planned gassing of the inmates of the gypsy camp. She was taken into quarantine on July 15, 1944 , together with around 2000 able-bodied “ gypsies ” and transferred to the Ravensbrück concentration camp on August 1, 1944, and then to the Flossenbürg satellite camp in Graslitz . The Graslitz satellite camp was set up with prisoners from Ravensbrück on August 7, 1944. Their prisoner number in Graslitz is 51750. The prisoners in Graslitz were used as forced laborers for precision mechanical assembly work at Luftfahrtgerätewerk Hakenfelde GmbH (LGW), a Siemens subsidiary. The Graslitz subcamp was evacuated from April 15, 1945 by a march towards Marienbad , during which prisoners were shot. American troops liberated the survivors in late April.

Lily van Angeren-Franz , also a prisoner clerk at the Auschwitz gypsy camp, was also deported to Graslitz via the Ravensbrück concentration camp.

After the end of the war Guttenberger testified in particular about the defendants Wilhelm Boger and Franz Johann Hofmann at the first Auschwitz trial . However, the statements are not personal statements at the hearing, but three statements were read out in the court, one that she made before a special commission on March 10, 1959, and a statement before the investigating judge Heinz Düx on December 3, 1963 in matters against Albrecht and others as well as their testimony before the Pforzheim District Court on February 2, 1965. The reason for their non-appearance was their health.

The court found the testimony against Hofmann insufficient for a conviction:

“The witness is good. knows the defendant Hofmann from the time of her imprisonment in the gypsy camp in Birkenau. In her interrogation on February 2, 1965, which was read out on February 11, 1965, she described that she had seen the accused several times as a supervisor when Plagge and Palitzsch did so brutally "sport" with prisoners that many of them did they were left lying covered in blood. In a December 3, 1963 trial against Albrecht u. a. (4 Js 1031/61 of the StA Ffm.) She said that many prisoners were left lying there due to exhaustion. The witness also points out that as a result of the suffering of the time in the camp, she became ill and had difficulty remembering. If afterwards there are already doubts as to whether one should follow one or the other of her descriptions, the further testimony of the witness that she had heard from hearsay that some of these battered prisoners died in the prisoner infirmary is at least not sufficient to support the accused To convict the burden of further murder. "

- Judgment text

As a contemporary witness, she gave several speeches. Among other things, at the commemoration event in Berlin's Reichstag for the 50th anniversary of the “Auschwitz Decree” in 1992, she talked about her life. In 1997 she gave a speech at the opening of the Documentation and Cultural Center of German Sinti and Roma . On August 2, 2014, the 70th anniversary of the "liquidation of the gypsy camp" in Auschwitz-Birkenau, an event organized by the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe Foundation and the Roma Trial eV association held a memorial hour at the memorial for the Sinti and Roma of Europe read out by the writer Olga Grjasnowa Guttenberg's report.

Reception and honors

Since March 2008 a stumbling stone reminds of her and five more stones of her family in front of the former house in Stuttgart. During the transfer, students and teachers from Ostheim's primary and secondary school, who had also been attended by Elisabeth Guttenberger and her siblings, were present. There is a history group at the school that won the Alfred Hausser Prize of the VVN in 2008 with a project on the Schneck / Guttenberger family . Elisabeth Guttenberger, who visited her elementary school several times, was present at the award ceremony.

Autobiographical Reports

Under the title “The Gypsy Camp”, there are several versions of a text in several documentaries about Auschwitz. So in:

In addition to this report, some of their statements in the course of the Nazi trials are also available.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.sintiundroma.de/uploads/media/guttenberger.rtf
  2. ↑ Commemorative Book of Births of Siblings: Men p. 938, Women p. 282
  3. ↑ a b Gottfried Kößler (ed.): The presence of Auschwitz. Material booklet for the poster portfolio for school and extracurricular educational work. With photographs by Henning Langenheim and Peter Liedtke. New edition (2003)
  4. ↑ 68 new stumbling blocks. Remembering Nazi Victims. Article in the Stuttgarter Nachrichten of March 13, 2008. online at www.stolpersteine-stuttgart.de
  5. ↑ a b c Raphael Gross , Werner Renz : Der Frankfurter Auschwitz-Prozess (1963–1965): Annotated Source Edition , Volume 1. Campus Verlag, 2013. online p. 352
  6. ↑ Memorial Book, p. 282
  7. ↑ Memorial Book, pp. 938f.
  8. ↑ Guttenberger Gedenkbuch report, p. 1503
  9. ^ Guttenberger Gedenkbuch report, p. 1501
  10. ^ Guttenberger Gedenkbuch report, p. 1502
  11. ^ Rolf Schmolling: Graslitz . In: Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel (eds.): The place of terror . History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. Volume 4: Flossenbürg, Mauthausen, Ravensbrück. CH Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-406-52964-X , pp. 123-126.
  12. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from April 2, 2015 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.lorbeer-verlag.de
  13. ↑ http://www.gedenkstaette-flossenbuerg.de/geschichte/aussenlager/aussenlager/?user_flbaussenlager_pi1%5Bid%5D=22
  14. ↑ Article Lily van Angeren-Franz .
  15. ↑ http://auschwitz-prozess.de/index.php?show=RA-Staiger_Plaedoyer_fuer_Hofmann
  16. ↑ Hermann Langbein: The Auschwitz Trial . A documentation. EVA 1965, p. 977
  17. ↑ Auschwitz Trial - Judgment. LG Frankfurt / Main from 19./20. August 1965, 4 Ks 2/63 on holocaust-history.org
  18. ↑ Klaus Härtung : At a memorial event in the Berlin Reichstag, the Central Council of Sinti and Roma commemorated the 50th anniversary of the “Auschwitz Decree”, “Freed from unpleasant fellow men”. in: The time of December 25, 1993
  19. ↑ http://www.sintiundroma.de/uploads/media/guttenberger.rtf
  20. ↑ Press release , stiftung-denkmal.de
  21. ↑ 68 new stumbling blocks. Remembering Nazi Victims. Article in the Stuttgarter Nachrichten of March 13, 2008, online at stolpersteine-stuttgart.de
  22. ↑ Awarding of the Alfred Hausser Prize 2008: A Bridge from the Past to the Future.
  23. ↑ ibid. P. 14, p. 401
personal data
SURNAME Guttenberger, Elisabeth
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schneck, Elisabeth (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Sinto and survivors of the Porajmos
DATE OF BIRTH February 6, 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH Stuttgart