Esther Srul

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Esther Srul (* date and place unknown; † September 15, 1942 in Kowel , Volhynia ) was a Jewish resident of the village of Kowel, who was locked up in the local synagogue with the other Jews of the village in September 1942 and murdered by the German Wehrmacht .

An inscription in Yiddish as Esther Srul's last message was found on the wall of the synagogue in Kovel.

Kovel, a city in the Volyn region of Ukraine , had a large Jewish community. On June 28, 1941, Volhynia was occupied by the German Wehrmacht as part of Operation Barbarossa . In September 1942, those of the 17,000 Jewish residents of Kovel (50 percent of the population) who had not yet been massacred by the German Wehrmacht were arrested by the Germans and locked in the synagogue. The prisoners were let out of the synagogue in groups and shot. The synagogue was set on fire. Only one woman survived; she went insane. Messages like Esther Srul's in Yiddish were found in the ruins of the synagogue. Some of the inscriptions on the walls were written in blood.

The inscription by Esther Srul on the wall of the synagogue reads:

“The gates are opening. There are our killers. Dressed in black. They wear white gloves on their dirty hands. They chase us out of the synagogue in pairs. Dear sisters and brothers, how difficult it is to say goodbye to the good life. You who stay alive never forget our innocent little Jewish street. Sisters and brothers, take revenge on our murderers. - Esther Srul, murdered September 15, 1942 "

The Italian composer Luigi Nono selected ten farewell letters and final messages from women, men and young people who were murdered by the German Wehrmacht and the National Socialists for the text of his choral work Il canto sospeso, written in 1956 , including the inscription by Esther Srul.

Translations of Esther Srul's inscription can be found in several languages ​​on the interactive Italian portal Canzoni contro la guerra.

Web links

literature

  • Piero Malvezzi, Giovanni Pirelli (ed.): Lettere di condannati a morte della resistenza europea - Letters from those sentenced to death from the European resistance , with a foreword by Thomas Mann, Giulio Einaudi publishing house, Turin 1954 (first edition)
  • Jean Lartéguy: Les jeunes du monde devant la guerre: documents . Gallimard, Paris 1955, ISBN 978-2-07-023750-0 , pp. 195, 200
  • Audio CD Luigi Nono 'Il canto sospeso', Berliner Philharmoniker, conductor: Claudio Abbado , speakers: Susanne Lothar and Bruno Ganz - Sony Classical 1993 (documentation booklet)
  • DVD Luigi Nono Il canto sospeso special edition EU 2013 for German schools abroad - Patronage: Guido Westerwelle , Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs © Fondazione L'Unione Europea Berlin ISBN 978-3-943933-00-0

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Lettere di condannati a morte della Resistenza Europea | Last letters condemned to death from the European resistance, edited by Piero Malvezzi and Giovanni Pirelli, foreword by Thomas Mann - Steinberg-Verlag Zurich 1955, p. 463 (also: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 1962)
  2. ↑ Esther Srul, Luigi Nono. Il Canto Sospeso
  3. ^ The nonoproject , Federal Agency for Political Education
  4. ^ The basis of the text of the composition Nonos are also the farewell letters published in the anthology by Anton Popov (Bulgaria), Andreas Likourinos (Greece), Eleftherios Kiossès (Greece), Konstantinos Sirbas (Greece), Chaim (Galicia) (Poland), Irina Malozon (USSR), Ljubow Grigorjewna Schewzowa (USSR), Eusebio Giambone (Italy) and Elli Voigt (Germany).
  5. ↑ Lettere
personal data
SURNAME Srul, Esther
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Holocaust victim
DATE OF BIRTH 19th century or 20th century
DATE OF DEATH September 15, 1942
Place of death Kovel