Ernesto Kroch

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Ernesto Kroch (born as Ernst Kroch ; born February 11, 1917 in Breslau ; died March 11, 2012 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German - Uruguayan communist of Jewish origin, trade unionist , anti-fascist activist and author.

Life

Kroch grew up in a liberal Jewish family. In 1932 he joined the KPO youth organization as an apprentice locksmith . When the NSDAP and its German national allies came to power, he went into illegalised resistance. In November 1934 he was arrested by the Gestapo. He was tried and sentenced to 18 months in prison. After serving them, he was sent to Lichtenburg concentration camp in "protective custody". In early 1937 he was released on condition that he had to leave Germany within ten days. He fled to Uruguay via Yugoslavia, France and Italy. His parents fell victim to the Nazi regime. The father Ludwig Kroch died in Theresienstadt, the mother Elly Kroch in Auschwitz.

From the end of 1938 the son lived in Montevideo , worked as a metal worker, became active in the metal workers' union and joined the Partido Comunista de Uruguay . He was involved in the German Antifascist Committee . After the collapse of the Nazi regime, he decided to return to Germany, even before the two German states were founded, to the east of Germany, although he did not get a visa for it from the Soviet embassy in Montevideo. There he joined the KPD . In 1964 he co-founded the Uruguay-GDR cultural institute in Montevideo, from which the Casa Bertolt Brecht emerged .

After the military coup in Uruguay in 1973, Kroch went back to underground anti-fascist resistance. The Casa Brecht was closed. Kroch's son Peter was arrested and imprisoned for years. In 1982 Ernesto Kroch fled to Brazil and from there to Germany. In 1985 he was able to return to Uruguay from exile. At the age of 68 he worked again in a metalworking factory. With the support of the GDR embassy, Casa Brecht was able to reopen the following year. The "Communication, Education and Exchange Center for the Uruguayan and European Left" became Kroch's most important political field of work from 1990 onwards , alongside work in the districts and support for the left-wing departmental government of Montevideo . Since the 1990s, Kroch has come to Germany regularly, where he gave lectures to school classes and readings, discussed with trade unionists and lectured for the annual Attac Summer Academy.

In 1966 he translated Bruno Apitz 's anti-fascist novel Nackt unter Wölfen into Spanish. He published nine books, three of them in German, six in Spanish in Uruguay. He wrote regularly for Die Weltbühne (GDR) as their Latin America correspondent and for Frankfurter Hefte (FRG).

On March 26, 2007 he was made an honorary citizen ( Ciudadano Ilustre ) of Montevideo on his 90th birthday . On his 100th birthday, he was honored by an event organized by the German Exile Archive 1933–1945 of the German National Library . The keynote lecture was given by Wolfgang Benz .

Catalog raisonné

  • Crónicas del Barrio Sur , Ediciones de la Banda Oriental, Montevideo 1987.
  • South American dominoes. Stories of love and violence , Peter Hammer Verlag, Wuppertal 1987, ISBN 3-87294-342-1 . (Peter Hammer Paperback, Volume 47.)
  • Exile at home - home into exile. dipa, Frankfurt am Main 1990, ISBN 3-7638-0476-5 (New edition: Heimat im Exil - Exil in der Heimat. Verlag Association A, Berlin, Hamburg, Göttingen 2004, ISBN 3-935936-29-X , association-a .de PDF).
  • Uruguay. Between dictatorship and democracy. A Latin American model? dipa, Frankfurt am Main 1991, ISBN 3-7638-0149-9 .
  • Los alemanes del milagro y los otros. Ediciones de la Banda Oriental, Montevideo 1993.
  • El camino a Sisikon. Ediciones de la Banda Oriental, Montevideo 2000.
  • El desafío de la globalización. Ediciones de la Banda Oriental, Montevideo 2001.

literature

  • Between Uruguay and Germany - Ernesto Kroch on his 90th birthday . In: ila . No. 302 , February 2007 ( ila-web.de ).
  • Stefan Thimmel: Ernesto Kroch: Tireless and indispensable . In: Stefan Thimmel, Theo Bruns, Gert Eisenbürger, Britt Weyde (eds.): Uruguay. A country on the move . 1st edition. Association A, Berlin, Hamburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-935936-74-3 , history and stories, p. 76-78 .
  • Erich Hackl: The irreplaceable one . In: Friday . February 16, 2007 ( freitag.de ).
  • Gabriele Oertel: For us, dispute is of secondary importance . In: New Germany . July 1, 2011 ( neue-deutschland.de ).

Movie

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Karlen Vesper: On the death of the German-Uruguayan anti-fascist Ernesto Kroch . In: New Germany . March 13, 2012 ( neue-deutschland.de ).
  2. ↑ a b All information according to: Stefan Thimmel: Ernesto Kroch - resistance fighters. In: Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. Message, politics of remembrance / anti-fascism. February 10, 2017 ( rosalux.de ).
  3. ↑ cbb.org.uy .
  4. ↑ All information, unless otherwise stated: Ernesto Kroch zum 100th In: Junge Welt. February 10, 2017, p. 11.
  5. ↑ Resolución N ° 1031/07. Montevideo City Council , March 21, 2012, accessed May 4, 2014 (Spanish).
  6. ↑ "In spite of everything" - On the 100th birthday of Ernesto Kroch. February 10, 2017 ( frankfurter-info.org ).
  7. ↑ Ernesto alias Ernst. neueWUT, accessed December 18, 2016 .
personal data
SURNAME Kroch, Ernesto
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kroch, Ernst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Uruguayan trade unionist and political activist
DATE OF BIRTH February 11, 1917
PLACE OF BIRTH Wroclaw
DATE OF DEATH March 11, 2012
Place of death Frankfurt am Main