Gertrud holiday

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Gertrud Ferien (born July 4, 1890 in Berlin ; † May 1943 in Auschwitz concentration camp ) was a German reform pedagogue and founder of the Caputh Jewish children's and rural school home .

Publication by Gertrud Urlaub; archived in the Ida-Seele archive

Life

She grew up with her three siblings in a well-to-do, assimilated Jewish merchant family. She attended the Luisen School in Berlin from 1897 to 1906 . She then ran the motherless family household for five years. In October 1911 she joined the renowned Pestalozzi-Froebel-Haus , where she trained as a kindergarten teacher and youth leader. In the summer of 1913 she was an assistant and in the following summer of 1914 as the second director in the children's rest home UOBB Zion-Lodge XV. No. 360 Hanover active on Norderney . At Easter 1920 Gertrud Urlaubs took over the management of the children's rest home on Norderney, to which in 1921 a department for school-leavers for training in child care and housekeeping was attached. In 1929, in addition to her work in Norderney, she completed the course for working people (full course II) at the German Academy for Social and Educational Women’s Work . Gertrud Urlaub had already attended courses at this training facility in the winter months of 1924/1925, 1925/1926 and 1926/27.

Entrance to the youth welfare center Gertrud Ferien in Caputh, formerly the Caputh Jewish rural school

With financial support from her brother, she bought a villa in Caputh, surrounded by a large plot of land with old trees. There the pedagogue officially opened her Jüdisches Landschulheim Caputh on May 1, 1931, among other things in agreement with the Central Welfare Office for Jews in Germany , which she led according to the principles of reform pedagogy . Fridolin Friedmann was the school director from 1932 to 1936 and Ernst Ising from 1937 until it was closed . In the press there was repeatedly positive reports about the facility, which was consciously supported by a Jewish attitude :

“The focus of the education and teaching work is education to be Jewish, which is able to prevail in all subjects. Naturally, special attention is paid to actually Jewish subjects: Jewish history, which is taught in connection with general world history, Hebrew, which is devoted to four hours per week, Palestine studies, which is related to general geography, and Jewish contemporary studies, which especially the regular Oneg is dedicated to Shabbat. The general subjects contain English and French as foreign languages ​​”.

Great emphasis was placed on aesthetic education : drawing, handicrafts, declaiming poems, performances of music and theater pieces (in English and French) as well as many nature experiences in and around Caputh. A former student recalled:

“And then the interest in the culture, the music! We performed the 'Freischütz' and the 'David Copperfield'. Our music teacher played Mozart's 'Little Night Music' for us, and when I see 'As You Like It' in the theater today, I see Rosalind and Orlando in the forest of Caputh, because as a little girl I listened to Gertrud Urlaub, how she read to Shakespeare ”.

During the pogrom from November 9th to 10th, 1938 , the school home was attacked. The residents were asked to leave the villa immediately. Bank holiday bravely opposed the Nazi henchmen, filed a complaint and demanded more time and opportunity, as special attention had to be given to the frightened and sick children.

After the demolition of the Landerziehungsheim, public holiday worked in Berlin. There she supported Jewish aid organizations and was concerned above all with sending orphaned Jewish children to safe countries abroad. In this context she personally accompanied Kindertransporte to England. This would have given them a good opportunity not to return to Germany. But Holiday refused to flee because she felt deeply committed to her humanitarian task.

On May 17, 1943, Gertrud Urlaub was deported to Auschwitz on the 38th Eastern Transport of the Reich Security Main Office .

“A former student from Caputh, Tamar Berger , met her again in April 1943 in the assembly camp on Oranienburger Strasse and in Auschwitz in late summer of this year. She reported about it to IRMGARD KLÖNNE, Paderborn, in an interview. It was then that she found out that GERTRUD FEIERTAG was among those destined for the gas chamber: “I went to see her at the risk of my life. Of course I didn't tell her what was in store for her. Nice people kind of told her, but she asked me, 'What's wrong?' I said: 'I wasn't there, unfortunately I can't tell you. You belong in a hospital because you seem to be on the way to get typhus. That calmed her down because she now knew why she felt so bad, so powerless. She was already half unconscious. I did what I could for her. «[..] GERTRUD FEIERTAG, born in Berlin in 1890, probably died at the age of 53 shortly after this encounter. The exact date of her death is unknown: in the 'memorial book' of the Federal Archives Koblenz from 1986 it only says: "Lost in Auschwitz in 1943." "But," to quote SOPHIE FRIEDLÄNDER one last time , "Gertrud Urlaubs Caputh has lived on to this day." "

Honors & memories

Stumbling block
  • Sophie Friedländer recalls a special honor from 1970 : “The gift of a sailing boat to a kibbutz in Israel, donated by former Caputhers from all over the world on the birthday that would have been their 80th, is intended to express our gratitude for the 'soul of Caputh ' receive."
  • Today a children's home is housed in the former Jewish children's and rural school home, which was named after Anne Frank in 1986 . In November 2008, in commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the pogroms of 1938, the social institution was renamed the Gertrud Urlaub youth welfare center .
  • In Caputh a street was named after Gertrud Urlaub.
  • In 2009, a stumbling block was placed in the Potsdamer Straße in Caputh, at the entrance to the youth welfare center, to commemorate the Gertrud holiday.
  • Since March 26, 2013, a plaque of the project " FrauenOrte im Land Brandenburg" on the grounds of the Caputher youth welfare center reminds of Gertrud Urlaub.
  • On March 1, 2018, an exhibition about the Caputh school home designed by students from the Humboldt Gymnasium under the title “REMEMBERING REMEMBER” opened in Potsdam. 28 exhibition boards tell its story from different perspectives. This exhibition is also a reminder about an earlier exhibition that has disappeared: “The pupils wanted and want to present their research project in a sustainable and permanent manner and, above all, secure it. So that nothing can disappear again. Because in the mid-1990s there was already a similar exhibition by students from the college. It was only stored in the basement of the FH and one day simply disappeared under unexplained circumstances, says Hans Dieter Rusch. He was involved in the research at the time and even made a short film about it. Many original recordings, however, were lost. 'There was the exhibition itself, but also a number of tapes with interviews with contemporary witnesses - but no archive, no museum wanted it. Nobody felt responsible for something like that. ' This way of dealing with history frustrates him. [..] In Caputh and the community of Schwielowsee, however, the subject is still difficult, says Rutsch. Only after long persuasion was it possible to persuade the CDU mayor to do an interview. But then Kerstin Hoppe praised the students for their courage to tackle the topic. And said: 'Something that has been repressed will catch up with you at some point.' [..] Few people in the village know what happened there on November 10th, 1938: That Nazis incited the children of the local school and under the slogan 'It's so far, today we chase the Jews out!' stormed the home with them, devastated everything, chased the children into the forest. There are also reports from contemporary witnesses who participated here and from the displaced. And there are still families in Caputh whose ancestors were involved. It is an uncomfortable topic and people find it difficult to talk about it or they ignore it completely, so Rutsch's impression. Sometimes he has the feeling that the unspoken is still there: In many a house or attic there could still be things, furniture or toys that were taken from the home during the looting. "

Works

  • Lichtlein am Wedeweg, Bethel [1930]

literature

  • Ingeborg Pauluhn: Jewish migrants in the seaside resort of Norderney 1893–1938 with special consideration of the children's rest home UOBB. Zion Lodge XV. No. 360 Hanover and Jewish businesses , Igel-Verlag Literatur & Wissenschaft, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86815-541-9 . Online: Ingeborg Pauluhn: Jewish migrants in the seaside resort of Norderney 1893–1938 on Google Books .
  • Manfred Berger : "An island of love, humanity and spiritual effort". Research on the Jewish country school and children's home (country education home) in Caputh near Potsdam, in: Zeitschrift für Erlebnispädagogik 2000 / H. 2
  • Ders .: Gertrude holiday. A pioneer of modern experiential education. Lueneburg 2003.
  • Ders .: Oasis in the desert. Gertrud Ferien and ih Children's and Country Home in Caput, in: Berlin aktuell 2000 / No. 66
  • Ders .: Leading women in social responsibility, in: Christ und Bildung 2001 / H. 7th
  • Rosemarie Braun: Gertrud Urlaub and her "Jewish country school home for children in Caputh". A forgotten chapter in educational reform (Jewish) school history from 1931–1938. Cologne 2002.
  • Hildegard Feidel-Mertz , Andreas Paetz: A lost paradise. The Caputh Jewish Children's School Home 1931–1939. Frankfurt 1994.
  • Hildegard Feidel-Mertz: »Working with children was her life«. Gertrud public holiday 1890–1943. In: Sabine Hering (Ed.), With Sandra Schönauer: Jewish welfare in the mirror of biographies. Series of publications: History of Jewish welfare in Germany, 2nd ed. Hering, Gudrun Maierhof, Ulrich Stascheit. Fachhochschulverlag, Frankfurt 2007 ISBN 3-936065-80-2 , pp. 152–159 (with photo on public holidays).
  • Hildegard Feidel-Mertz (ed.): Schools in exile. The repressed pedagogy after 1933. rororo, Reinbek, 1983, ISBN 3-499-17789-7 .
  • Inge Hansen-Schaberg, Christian Ritzi: Paths of pedagogues before and after 1933. Baltmannsweiler 2004, pp. 21–31.
  • Hildegard Feidel-Mertz : Holiday, Gertrud , in: Hugo Maier (Hrsg.): Who is who of social work . Freiburg: Lambertus, 1998 ISBN 3-7841-1036-3 , p. 170
  • Joseph Walk : Jewish School and Education in the Third Reich. Hain, Frankfurt 1991.
  • Ilse Meseberg-Haubold: The Jewish children and rural school Caputh. In: Helge-Ulrike Hyams , Klaus Klattenhoff, Klaus Ritter, Friedrich Wißmann (eds.): Jewish children's life in the mirror of Jewish children's books. An exhibition of the University Library of Oldenburg with the Marburg Childhood Museum. BIS-Verlag, Oldenburg 2001, ISBN 3-8142-0766-1 , pp. 109-114.
  • Hildegard Feidel-Mertz: “With an eye for the big picture”. The social pedagogue Gertrud Urlaubs (1890 - 1943) , in: Inge Hansen-Schaberg and Christian Ritzi (eds.): Paths of pedagogues before and after 1933 , Schneider Verlag Hohengehren GmbH, Baltmannsweiler, 2004, ISBN 3-89676-768-2 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. Braun 2002. p. 5 ff.
  2. ↑ Hildegard Feidel-Mertz; Andreas Paetz: A Lost Paradise , 1994, p. 21
  3. ↑ Quotation from Berger 2003, p. 47.
  4. ↑ Quotation from Berger 2003, p. 22.
  5. ↑ cf. Braun 2002, p. 167
  6. ↑ Hildegard Feidel-Mertz: “With a view for the whole” , pp. 29–30.
  7. ^ Sophie Friedländer: Memories of a Lost Paradise. The Jüdisches Landschulheim Caputh 1933-1938, in: Hildegard Feidel-Mertz (ed.): Schools in Exile , p. 51
  8. ↑ The youth welfare center "Gertrud Ferien" at Social Aid in Berlin and Brandenburg
  9. ↑ T. Lähns: Stolperstein for Gertrud vacation main committee for memorial plaque in Caputh in Potsdamer Latest news of December 5, 2008
  10. ↑ Short biography and blackboard illustration. FrauenOrte im Land Brandenburg, accessed on August 13, 2020 .
  11. ↑ Steffi Pyanoe: REMEMBER THE REMEMBER. Inconvenient Past , Potsdam Latest News, February 28, 2018
personal data
SURNAME Holiday, Gertrud
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German reform pedagogue
DATE OF BIRTH 4th July 1890
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH May 1943
Place of death Auschwitz concentration camp