Ernst Laske

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Ernst Laske (born August 9, 1915 in Berlin ; † May 11, 2004 in Kibbutz Bror Chail , Israel ) was a German-Israeli book antiquarian and bibliophile.

Life

Ernst Laske was the only son of the clothing merchant , art patron and bibliophile Gotthard Laske (1882–1936) and his wife Nelly. Laske grew up in Berlin. In response to the rise of the National Socialists , he joined the Zionist movement , but hesitated for a long time to leave Germany. His father had committed suicide in 1936, his sister had received an affidavit for South Africa and emigrated there. Laske worried about leaving his mother alone in Berlin. Nelly Laske was murdered in Auschwitz in 1943 .

In 1938 Ernst Laske took part in a Hachschara in the Hessian town of Grüsen , a preparatory course for the Aliyah in what was then Palestine . On November 9, 1938 , the accommodation of the young Zionists was attacked by the National Socialists and Laske was beaten so badly that he almost went blind in one eye. The seriously injured man dragged himself 30 kilometers to a hospital. There the Nazis picked him up again and deported him to the Buchenwald concentration camp . Because his Zionist friends got him a visa for Denmark , Laske managed to be released from the concentration camp and to flee to Denmark. In 1943 he was one of the Jews who were able to save themselves from the deportation of the Jews from Denmark in fishing boats to Sweden .

In February 1947, Laske set out with his wife and daughter Nurit on one of the illegal immigrant ships for Palestine. But the "Chaim Arlosorof" was brought up by the British Navy off Haifa and the Laske family interned in Cyprus . Immigration finally succeeded at the beginning of 1948. The Laske family co-founded the kibbutz "Ne'ot Mordechai" in Northern Galilee .

In the mid-1970s Ernst Laske left the kibbutz and started a new life in Tel Aviv . For around two decades he ran the second-hand bookshop in the “Landsberger” bookstore on Ben-Jehuda-Strasse in Tel Aviv. It quickly became an institution for anyone interested in German books and German history. He was happy to invite his customers - including publishers and antiquarians from Germany - to his apartment on Jabotinsky Street in Tel Aviv. In his library there were also some bibliophile treasures from his father, which he had been able to save in a box when he emigrated.

Laske traveled to Europe every two years to meet friends. During a visit to Berlin in September 1993, he became a member of the Pirckheimer Society .

At the age of 80, Ernst Laske retired from the book business. He spent the last years of his life in an old people's home in Kibbutz Bror Chail in southern Israel, close to his grandson's family. He is buried there too.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gotthard Laske at DNB
  2. ↑ a b c Cf. also Friedhilde Krause: Commemoration of the German-Jewish bibliophiles Gotthard and Ernst Laske . In: Marginalien - magazine for book art and bibliography , 183. Issue 3/2006
  3. ↑ See also GEO special, No. 4 of August 17, 1988, pp. 51-52
personal data
SURNAME Laske, Ernst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Israeli book antiquarian
DATE OF BIRTH August 9, 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH May 11, 2004
Place of death Bror Chail , Israel