Georg Schlesinger (businessman)

Stumbling block for Georg Schlesinger in Cottbus

Georg Arthur Schlesinger (born February 26, 1870 in Frankfurt (Oder) ; † September 1942 in the Treblinka extermination camp ) was a German businessman. He was the last head of the Jewish community in Cottbus until it was re-established in 1998 by immigrants from the former Soviet Union .

Life

Georg Schlesinger was born in Frankfurt (Oder) as the fourth son of a factory owner and businessman. His mother died shortly after he was born. After graduating from high school, he completed a five-year commercial apprenticeship in a Berlin textile company. After completing his one-year voluntary military service in 1889, he joined his father's company in 1891 and took over management in 1896. In the same year he married his wife Olga.

In 1914 or 1915, Schlesinger settled in Cottbus . On March 10, 1916, he received the city's letter of citizenship. Schlesinger ran a furniture store at Bahnhofstrasse 51 in Cottbus . In 1917 he was drafted as a compulsory Landsturm for the First World War. Olga Schlesinger died in 1924. Schlesinger's older daughter also died at the age of 20. In 1930 Schlesinger gave up his furniture business and became commercial director of the Cottbus synagogue community . He also became involved in the German Democratic Party and the Jewish organization B'nai B'rith , to these organizations after the seizure of power of the Nazis were banned in the 1933rd In 1934 Schlesinger received the Cross of Honor for Frontline Fighters . In the following year he became head of the Jewish synagogue community in Cottbus. In this function he mainly helped Jews who wanted to flee abroad from the increasing persecution. The persecution also affected Schlesinger and his family. In 1937, for example, he had to give up his living space on Bahnhofstrasse and move to the house at Marienstraße 19, which belonged to a Jewish family. In the same year (according to other sources 1942) Georg Schlesinger married for the second time. His new wife Adele Behrendt was his former housemaid. Also in 1937, the authorities decreed that Schlesinger had to draw up a list of all the Jewish residents of Cottbus. This is probably one of the reasons why his daughter Josefine left Cottbus that same year with her husband Ludwig Gutkind and their son Hans Jakob, born in 1926, and moved to Berlin. However, her hopes of being better protected from persecution in the anonymity of the big city did not come true. From 1941 Josefine Schlesinger, her husband and her son were used as forced laborers in various factories, including at IG Farben in Rummelsburg .

In 1938 Georg Schlesinger and his wife had to move again. The new residence was at Roßstrasse 27 and belonged to the Jewish community. It was right next to the synagogue , which was set on fire during the Reichspogromnacht in November 1938 and burned down. At the beginning of 1942 Georg Schlesinger was called to the Gestapo in Frankfurt (Oder) together with the Jewish consul Hermann Hammerschmidt . There they were told that the emigration of the district's Jewish population was going too slowly. If this does not change, one would have "new areas in the east" to which the Jews could be moved. About three months after this summons, Schlesinger and Hammerschmidt were arrested and brought back to Frankfurt. There they had to stare at a wall for hours before they found out the reason for the arrest in the nightly interrogation. A Swedish newspaper had printed an article in which it was reported that the two of them were last summoned and the threat they contained. Therefore, they were accused of having contacts abroad. The two men were briefly released home the next morning, but had to serve a week's imprisonment the following day.

On August 8th, Georg and Adele Schlesinger had to move again. The “ Judenhaus ” at Münzstrasse 42 became her last place of residence in Cottbus. On August 24, 1942, they were deported from Cottbus, initially to the Theresienstadt ghetto . From there, they were taken to the Treblinka extermination camp in September and murdered there. Schlesinger's daughter, her husband and her son were deported to Auschwitz in December 1942 , where they were killed.

Honors

Street sign of Georg-Schlesinger-Strasse in Cottbus

In 1993, in the Cottbus district Sandow a street after George Schlesinger named , previously the Ströbitzer Communists and Mayor Michael Bey was dedicated. Since September 28, 2006, two stumbling blocks in Bahnhofstrasse 51 have been remembering Georg and Adele Schlesinger. These stumbling blocks were desecrated with tar and a swastika on November 14th of the same year. On April 23, 2008 there were further stumbling blocks for Schlesinger's daughter Josefine, her husband Ludwig Gutkind and their son Hans Jakob.

literature

• Helmut Donner: Cottbus street names explained . Euroverlag, Cottbus 1999, ISBN 3-933626-24-2 .
• Erika Pchalek: Stumbling Blocks: Living and Dying Cottbus Jews 1933–1945 . REGIA Verlag, Cottbus 2016, ISBN 9783869293417 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Schlesinger, Georg Arthur. In: Memorial book for the victims of the Nazi persecution of Jews in Germany. Retrieved November 29, 2017 . 
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Daniel Preikschat: Last place of residence before the ghetto and gas chamber. In: Lausitzer Rundschau . November 9, 2007. Retrieved November 29, 2017 . 
3. ^ Websites of the Jewish Community Cottbus. Retrieved December 4, 2017 . 
4. ↑ ^{a b c d} See Donner 1999, p. 27 f.
5. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Georg Schlesinger. In: Lausitzer Rundschau . February 27, 2010. Retrieved November 29, 2017 . 
6. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} See Pchalek 2016, p. 11 ff.
7. ↑ ^{a b} See Pchalek 2016, p. 15 f.
8. ^ Wolfgang Hammerschmidt : Search for traces. On the history of the Jewish Hammerschmidt family in Cottbus . Psychosozial-Verlag , Giessen 1996, ISBN 3-930096-49-8 , pp. 173-174.
9. ↑ ^{a b c} Wolfgang Hammerschmidt: Search for traces. On the history of the Jewish Hammerschmidt family in Cottbus . Psychosozial-Verlag , Giessen 1996, ISBN 3-930096-49-8 , pp. 179-180.
10. ^ Walter Schulz: After the liberation, mayor in Ströbitz. In: Cottbuser Herzblatt. April 2007, p. 15 , archived from the original on August 14, 2017 ; accessed on August 17, 2017 . 
11. ^ Stumbling blocks in Cottbus. In: Lausitzer Rundschau . September 27, 2006, accessed October 14, 2017 . 
12. ^ Wolfgang Swat: Vandalized memory. In: Lausitzer Rundschau . November 15, 2006, accessed October 14, 2017 . 
13. ^ A. Floß: Five new stumbling blocks in Cottbuser Bahnhofstrasse. In: Lausitzer Rundschau . April 24, 2008. Retrieved November 29, 2017 .