Heinz Galinski

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Heinz Galinski in front of the Jewish Community House (January 1967)
His house from 1938 until his deportation in 1943
tomb

Heinz Galinski (born November 28, 1912 in Marienburg, West Prussia ; died July 19, 1992 in Berlin ) was the first and fourth chairman and first president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany . From 1949 to 1992 he was chairman of the Jewish community in Berlin .

Life

Galinski's father was a merchant and soldier in the First World War . After graduating from high school in Elbing , he completed an apprenticeship as a textile merchant, which he completed in 1933 and took up his first position in Rathenow . From 1938 he lived at Schönhauser Allee 31/32 in Berlin's Prenzlauer Berg . After Galinski already in 1940 forced labor had to do, he was in 1943 with his wife and his mother by the Nazis in the concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau deported , and later he had for the IG Farben forced labor in the concentration camp Auschwitz-Monowitz afford. His wife and mother were murdered in Auschwitz. In January 1945 Galinski was deported to the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp as part of the evacuation of the Auschwitz concentration camp and, after its evacuation, to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp , where he was liberated by British troops in mid-April 1945.

Galinski stayed in Germany after the end of the war and participated in the OdF committees and in the founding of the Association of Those Persecuted by the Nazi Regime (VVN) in Berlin, of which he was Vice Chairman until he left in 1948. From 1949 to 1992 he was the first post-war chairman of the Jewish community in Berlin . Between 1954 and 1963 he was the first chairman of the Central Council of Jews in Germany.

In the summer of 1975 he escaped unharmed from a parcel bomb attack in Berlin by unknown perpetrators . In 1987 he was made honorary citizen of the city of Berlin . In 1988 Galinski succeeded Werner Nachmann as chairman (from 1990 as president) of the Central Council of Jews in Germany and was again at the head of the most important Jewish organization in Germany until his death in 1992. Ignatz Bubis was his successor .

In September and December 1998, two bomb attacks were carried out by unknown perpetrators on Galinski's grave in the Jewish cemetery in Heerstrasse in Berlin-Westend . The tombstone was almost completely destroyed. His grave is dedicated to the city of Berlin as an honorary grave .

Galinski, who married his second wife Ruth (1921–2014) in 1947, is the father of Evelyn Hecht-Galinski .

Honors

Memorial plaque

In 1966 Galinski was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit for his services ; In 1979 he received the star and in 1982 the shoulder strap.

In 1995 a state-recognized all-day school sponsored by the Jewish Community in Berlin was named after him.

In 1998, a section of Schulstrasse in Berlin-Gesundbrunnen , where the Jewish Hospital Berlin is located, was renamed Heinz-Galinski-Strasse. The Heinz Galinski Prize was donated in his honor . A memorial plaque is now attached to his former home on Schönhauser Allee. The text says:

"Dr. hc Heinz Galinski - honorary citizen of Berlin, who was instrumental in restoring Jewish life and democracy in Berlin. He lived here from 1938 to 1943 and was deported from this house to Auschwitz. "

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Jens-Christian Wagner (ed.): Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp 1943–1945 . Göttingen 2007, p. 134.
  2. ↑ Outrage over the attack on Heinz Galinski . In: Hamburger Abendblatt, accessed on February 4, 2018
  3. ^ Attack on Heinz Galinski's tomb . In: Berliner Zeitung September 28, 1998
  4. ↑ knerger.de: Heinz Galinski's grave
personal data
SURNAME Galinski, Heinz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German businessman, President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany
DATE OF BIRTH November 28, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Marienburg (West Prussia)
DATE OF DEATH July 19, 1992
Place of death Berlin