Emil Kraft (Senator)

Emil Kraft (born October 23, 1871 in Landeck , West Prussia ; died September 24, 1943 in Auschwitz ) was a timber merchant and senator for the city of Wunstorf .

Life

Kraft was born into a Jewish family in the West Prussian village of Landeck. During his years of training in the timber trade, he came to Wunstorf in 1896, where he became a partner in the timber business of Moses Löwenstein, which he continued to run alone a short time later. By the First World War, he managed to expand the business into a supra-regional timber trade with branches in Düsseldorf and Allenstein / East Prussia . The company continued to expand, despite the loss of its forest land at the end of the war.

He was married to Elfriede Kraft geb. Freund was born in 1874 in Königshütte, Upper Silesia . The couple had a son, Julius Kraft , born in 1898, a university professor and emigrated to the Netherlands and the USA after the Nazi authorities revoked his teaching permit; and a daughter, Flora, born in 1900, who received a PhD in philosophy.

Political and social engagement

Kraft became politically active as a member of the German Democratic Party in local politics. In 1924 he was a member of the mayor council and was elected as an honorary senator for the city of Wunstorf. Culturally, economically and politically, Kraft was well integrated in Wunstorf and enjoyed a high reputation in the city. His wealth, which he had acquired in the timber trade, enabled him to do various things for the benefit of the city of Wunstorf or citizens in need, through donations, a foundation or interest-free loans. In an unprecedented way, he helped many small builders in the so-called EPA district ( Karstadt's low-price chain ) who had built houses in the simplest construction in the cheap segment. Due to the global economic crisis in autumn 1929, they were about to lose their houses. Kraft loaned them money "in a disinterested way on extremely favorable terms so that the houses in the EPA district did not have to change hands." The name "Denemark" was created for the building district, because Kraft gave the 'ne Mark and the' ne Mark . His wife Elfriede founded the first non-church kindergarten, which was taken over by the city and, after the Second World War, under church management.

Persecution and extermination

After the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, he had to give up his seat in the magistrate and was denied further political activity; he was exposed to public humiliation and violence. Soon the anti-Semitic propaganda of the National Socialists and the boycott calls of the Wunstorfer Zeitung under its owner Theo Oppermann also made themselves felt for Krafts Holzhandlung. After the boycott day on April 1, 1933, Oppermann no longer accepted advertisements from his former Jewish customers for his newspaper. For the first time in his life Emil Kraft was exposed to discrimination, agitation and violence in Wunstorf. In July 1938, Kraft sold his timber wholesaler at Bahnhofstrasse 61 to prevent the threatened ruin of his business to Fritz Hermsdorf, who had the golden party badge . He had hoped - in vain - his intercession.

On November 10, 1938, in the course of the pogrom in Wunstorf , Kraft was taken into “protective custody” together with other Jews classified as “wealthy” by the Gestapo, taken to the police prison in Hanover, deported by special train to Buchenwald concentration camp on November 11, and had to suffer sadistic torments there. Released weeks later from prison in Buchenwald, he was forced to emigrate to the Netherlands with his wife Frieda at the beginning of March 1939 in view of the "atonement" and heightened " Aryanization " imposed , completely penniless. After the couple were initially able to go into hiding in Amsterdam , Emil Kraft was caught by the Gestapo in 1942 and was supposed to be taken by truck to the Westerbork transit camp near Amersfoort . The Knigge / Kaiser family, who also lived in Amsterdam, was able to prevent this by using a Wehrmacht officer who was used for guarding for strength. When the 70-year-old was next arrested, however, this was no longer successful, and Kraft was deported via Westerbork to Auschwitz and murdered there on September 24, 1943. After the experiences of her husband in Buchenwald, Elfriede Kraft had no longer mentally coped with his kidnapping and fell from a great height from an Amsterdam balcony.

Appreciation

In 1952 Emil Kraft was honored by the street name Senator-Kraft-Straße in the northern part of Wunstorf.

literature

• Klaus Fesche: History of Wunstorf. The city, the town and the villages , Springe 2010
• Armin Mandel: The Wunstorf Book. From the history of a city and its landscape , Wunstorf 1990
• Heiner Wittrock : The fate of the Jews in Wunstorf , Wunstorf 2007

Web links

Pogroms 1938 - Wunstorf

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Fesche, pp. 176,190
2. ↑ Wittrock, p. 29
3. ↑ Wittrock, p. 28
4. ↑ Fesche, p 190
5. ↑ Fesche, p. 216: He is said to have been taken from his apartment and driven through the city to the town hall with abuse and abuse.
6. ↑ cf. Almond, p. 334f.
7. ↑ Fesche, p 216
8. ↑ Wittrock, p. 54ff.
9. ^ Wittrock, p. 87