Gabriele Schwarz-Eckart

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Gabriele Schwarz-Eckart (* May 24, 1937 in Marktoberdorf ; † March 16, 1943 in Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp ; also Gabriele Schwarz and, forcibly, Gabriele Sara Schwarz ) was a German girl of Jewish origin who was sent to the Auschwitz extermination camp at the age of 5. Birkenau became a victim of the Holocaust .

origin

Gabriele's mother was called Charlotte Margarete (born April 26, 1904 in Augsburg; called Lotte ) and was one of three daughters of the Jewish couple Karl and Anna Schwarz, who ran a shop for hardware and household items in Augsburg. Her father died as a war invalid in 1926, her mother in 1939.

Charlotte Schwarz became pregnant in Liechtenstein in 1936 , but could not stay there and returned to Germany in 1937 . Because connections between Jews and " Aryans " were forbidden, she withheld the name of her daughter's father. Nothing else is documented about the identity of the father, who is said to have died earlier. Some sources speak of a German Gestapo man, others of a Swiss or Liechtenstein “Aryan”.

Cardinal Faulhaber from Munich, who was known with her , personally ensured that Charlotte Schwarz was baptized and also made her a recommendation to America. Daughter Gabriele was also baptized Catholic on May 25, 1937, one day after the birth, in the Markt Oberdorfer hospital chapel.

The farm of the Aicheles in Stiefenhofen-Moos

With foster parents in Stiefenhofen

Surprisingly, Gabriele came to the Einödhof of Josef and Theresa Aichele in Stiefenhofen -Moos (Westallgäu) after about a month as a foster child . The bearer was Rosalia, the sister of the farmer who had worked as a cook for the Schwarz family in Augsburg. When asked why Charlotte Eckart, geb. Schwarz left her child in foster care, one has to rely on guesswork. Possibly, despite Christian baptism, it was the concern for a safe place for a child of Jewish descent. Another reason could have been the professional demands, because Charlotte Eckart spent a lot of time abroad as a breathing teacher for actors, for example in the USA and in Liechtenstein, but kept coming back to Germany.

Your daughter had a carefree childhood on the farm in Stiefenhofen-Moos. The Aicheles took in little Gabriele, whom they later called "Papa" and "Mama", as their fifth child. Charlotte Eckart, known as “Mutti”, bought her foster parents a camera and asked them to send pictures of the child every few weeks. Photos of visits by mother Charlotte and grandmother from Augsburg have also been preserved. The village teacher at the time, Johann Pletzer, a socialist who had been transferred to punishment, also looked after the girl and described her as " a rarely beautiful, lovable and talented child ".

The Nazis decreed following the adopted 1935 Nuremberg Laws that all Jews, the other name than that of the Ministry of the Interior led specified, had also add the name "Israel" or "Sara" from January 1, 1939th Ms. Eckart complied with this on December 22nd by applying to the Marktoberdorf registry office (then Markt Oberdorf) in order to avoid the threatened punishment.

Then there was a first attempt to take Gabriele away from the foster parents, which the Aicheles fortunately managed to fend off. They tried hard not to attract attention and, as a precaution, did not redeem the food stamps marked with a “J” for “Jew” for Gabriele.

Violent death of the mother

In the increasingly threatening situation, Charlotte Eckart tried several times, but in vain, to emigrate to America. Finally, she came under the so-called Final Solution to the women's concentration camp Ravensbrück and then on May 8, 1942 in the Nazi killing center Bernburg killed an der Saale. A few days earlier, on April 27th, her sister Johanna had died there. Although she married a Christian, her son was sent to a concentration camp in Yugoslavia , went blind and only returned to Germany after the war. Only Sister Emmi had previously emigrated and thus escaped the Holocaust.

The administration takes action

After the so-called Reichskristallnacht in 1938, the two-year-old Gabi was registered by the administration as a fully Jewish woman with the addition of Sara. After the mother's murder in 1942, of all things, the house bank of the Jewish Schwarz family, the Bayerische Hypotheken- und Wechselbank , Augsburg branch, set a fateful event in motion: Charlotte Eckart had an account there from which she regularly gave 30 Reichsmarks to the foster parents of her child in Stiefenhofen. When the bank received news of the death of the account holder on June 17, 1942, it informed the asset management office of the Munich regional finance office on the same day and asked whether the transfer should continue to be made. This forwarded the request to the Gestapo on January 11, 1943 . There Johann Pfeuffer, SS-Hauptsturmführer and head of the department responsible for Jewish questions at the Gestapo control center in Munich, continued to deal with the matter. In a letter dated 10 February 1943, he rejected the district administrator in Sonthofen out that it was not feasible that a child is being raised by Jewish parents of German blood . Just three days later, on February 13th, Gabriele was picked up. Again shortly afterwards, on February 27, 1943, the Chief Finance President (Christian Weisensee at the time) wrote to the bank that maintenance contributions no longer had to be paid.

Confirmation of deportation from the Gestapo in Munich for Gabriele Sara Schwarz

Further way

Five-year-old Gabriele Schwarz-Eckart first came to Immenstadt , then to Munich . Shortly afterwards, the Aicheles received their protégé's suitcase back, including all the items they had given them. In Munich, the girl was briefly at the Berg am Laim Jewish assembly camp .

Foster father Josef Aichele did not want to give up the girl without a fight. He drove to Munich with the guardian Gabrieles, the lawyer Ludwig Dreifuss (from February 1945 himself a prisoner in the Theresienstadt ghetto and after the war mayor of Augsburg) and tried to get Gabriele released from several administrative offices. He even came close to her and could see her playing with other children through the keyhole. But the desperate rescue attempt failed. Shortly afterwards, a transport left for Auschwitz and five-year-old Gabriele was murdered immediately upon arrival.

In the official documents, this process reads macabre: Gabriele Sara Schwarz “emigrated” to Auschwitz on March 16, 1943. Her fortune, three thousand Reichsmarks in securities inherited from her mother, was transferred to the Reich Main Treasury.

In April 2009, the organizer of the exhibition Train of Remembrance summarized the short life of Gabriele Schwarz-Eckart as follows: three weeks in Marktoberdorf - five and a half years in Stiefenhofen - four weeks in the Munich Jewish camp (Berg am Laim) - four days on the train to Auschwitz - One hour in Auschwitz.

Memorial plaque Gabriele Schwarz
Plague Chapel Stiefenhofen, glass picture

memory

A memorial plaque, which was originally supposed to be installed in the parish church of Stiefenhofen and which now hangs in the small spinner chapel in the neighboring village of Oberstaufen , commemorates the fate of Gabriele Schwarz .

On the occasion of its renovation in the north wall, the plague chapel near Stiefenhofen received a five-part cycle of glass paintings by the Franciscan Sister Maria Ludgera Haberstroh from the Reute monastery near Bad Waldsee , from which a work is dedicated to Gabriele Schwarz and Father Maximilian Kolbe , who was also murdered in Auschwitz .

The director Leo Hiemer , whose mother had known little Gabriele herself, filmed the material under the title Leni ... must go in 1983 after meticulous research . The film received the rating of "particularly valuable" and many domestic and foreign awards.

literature

  • Gernot Römer : A persecuted child: Gabriele - The trace of a girl . In: Gernot Römer: For the forgotten. Subcamp in Swabia - Swabia in concentration camps . Presse-Druck und Verlags-GmbH, Augsburg 1984, ISBN 978-3-89639-047-9 , pp. 222-225.
  • Leo Hiemer: Gabi (1937–1943): Born in the Allgäu - murdered in Auschwitz . 2019. ISBN 978-3-863314-55-2 .
  • Karl Schweizer: Gabriele is not allowed to live . In: Persecution, Flight and Resistance in the Lindau District 1933-1945 . Publisher: Lindau District Office (Bodensee). Holzer Druck und Medien, 2016.

Web links

Commons : Gabriele Schwarz-Eckart  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Federal Archives: Memorial Book Victims of Persecution of the Jews under the National Socialist Tyranny in Germany 1933–1945.
  2. ↑ a b c d e Erich Neumann: Because not everything is right that is right! ( Memento of the original from September 6, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / access-neuemedien.de
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g Theodor Frey: Train of memory.
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g Gernot Römer: A persecuted child: Gabriele - The trace of a girl from: For the forgotten
  5. ↑ a b c vhs Kaufbeuren: From Paradise to Hell, Gabriele Schwarz (* 1937 Marktoberdorf † 1943 Auschwitz).
  6. ↑ The place has only been called Marktoberdorf since it was elevated to the status of a town after the Second World War. The Oberdorf hospital used to be where the district office is today. The house in which Gabriele's mother was registered at the time is still standing.
  7. ↑ administration manual.bayerische-landesbibliothek-online.de
  8. ↑ According to Gernot Römer, senior teacher Pletzer was also there
personal data
SURNAME Schwarz-Eckart, Gabriele
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Black, Gabriele; Eckart, Gabriele; Black, Gabriele Sara
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German girl, victim of the Holocaust
DATE OF BIRTH May 24, 1937
PLACE OF BIRTH Marktoberdorf
DATE OF DEATH March 16, 1943
Place of death Auschwitz concentration camp