Ernest Kolman

Ernest Kolman (born June 1, 1926 as Ernst Kohlmann in Wesel ; † January 11, 2021 in London ) was a German-British contemporary witness who did remembrance and reconciliation work in the context of coming to terms with National Socialism and the Holocaust . For his work he was made an honorary citizen of the city of Wesel in 2016.

Life

Kolman was born Ernst Kohlmann in Wesel in 1926. His parents Martin and Frieda Kohlmann, who belonged to liberal Judaism , ran a textile business there. In 1934 he moved with the family to Cologne, where he first attended a Jewish elementary school and then the Jawne secondary school. On January 18, 1939, at the age of 12, he was able to travel to England as part of a child transport . This transport was organized by the director of his school, Erich Klibansky , who made it possible for Jewish students to travel to England in entire school classes. His parents were against it in the December 7, 1941 the Riga ghetto deportedand murdered there in July 1944. His older sister Margit (born in 1924), which was also deported with their parents survived the Holocaust and emigrated to the Second World War in the United States of.

After his arrival Kohlmann lived first in the London borough of Cricklewood and then in the city of Bedford , where he stayed with several non-Jewish host families. At the age of 14 he had to leave school and from 1942 to 1945 he was a member of the youth organization Air Training Corps of the Royal Air Force . After the end of the war, he returned to Germany in 1946 and 1947 to work for the US Army. There he met his future wife. In 1947 he acquired British citizenship and changed his name from Ernst Kohlmann to the Anglicized form Ernest Kolman. He worked as a painter and decorator and was self-employed in his profession.

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the November pogroms in 1938 , Kolman took part in several memorial events in his native Wesel in November 1988, to which the former Jewish citizens of the city had been invited. In the following decades Kolman, who lives in London, visited the city again and again - almost every year and sometimes several times a year - and reported on his experiences from the time of National Socialism at commemorative events. He was in regular contact with schools in Wesel and promoted certain issues, for example an investigation into the role of Jewish soldiers from Wesel in the First World War . Kolman was said to report clearly and occasionally in an inconvenient way about the time of National Socialism. He was recognized for great merits in the work of remembrance and reconciliation. For this reason, he was made honorary citizen of the city of Wesel on June 11, 2016 .

Stumbling blocks for Frieda and Martin Kohlmann, Roonstrasse 58 in Cologne

In 2009, four stumbling blocks were laid for the Kohlmann family in Wesel as part of Gunter Demnig's art and memory project . Before the last freely chosen place of residence in Cologne, at Roonstrasse 58 , two more stumbling blocks remind of Ernst Kohlmann's parents.

In the 2018 ZDF history documentary Rescue of the Ten Thousand - the Kindertransport , Ernest Kolman reported on his rescue from Germany by one of the Kindertransportes.

He died in London in January 2021 at the age of 94.

literature

• Doris Rulofs-Terfurth: Wesel Jewish citizens 1933–1942, in Ulrich Bauhaus, Hermann Ostendarp Ed .: Jews in Wesel and on the Lower Rhine. A search for clues. Edited and published by the Christian-Jewish Circle of Friends of Wesel and the City of Wesel, 2014, pp. 341–370. With list of people, Ernst Kolmann: p. 356, with illustration of his English ID card for the Kindertransport p. 357

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Ernest Kolman (kindertransporte-nrw.eu)
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Ernest Kolman becomes an honorary citizen
3. ↑ ^{a b} Rescue of the Ten Thousand - The Kindertransporte . ( zdf.de [accessed on September 23, 2018]).
4. ↑ ^{a b} The "Jüdisch-Christian Freundeskreis Wesel e. V. " (zeitreise-wesel.de)