Heinz Hesdörffer

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Heinz (Heinrich Ludwig) Hesdörffer (born January 30, 1923 in Bad Kreuznach ; died May 3, 2019 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a survivor of the extermination of Jews in the Nazi state and a contemporary witness.

Life

Hesdörffer was born in 1923 as the son of chocolate and sugar confectionery manufacturers Karl H. (1882–1934) and Johanna H. (1887) in Bad Kreuznach. In the spring of 1938 he had to leave the Bad Kreuznach high school as a Jew and attended the Jewish Philanthropin School in Frankfurt am Main until March 30, 1939 . During the November pogroms in 1938 , his father's factory and family home in Bad Kreuznach were destroyed. The sixteen-year-old fled to the Netherlands in 1939; his mother and later his younger brother Ernst Jakob (born April 18, 1926) were deported and murdered in 1942.

In March 1943 he was interned in the Westerbork transit camp, in February 1944 to Theresienstadt, and three months later to Auschwitz-Birkenau . There Hesdörffer first came to the Theresienstadt family camp (B.II.b). In July 1944, his transfer took place in the concentration camp Schwarzheide , its occupants forced labor in the reconstruction of the destroyed Hydrierwerks the BRABAG had to do (lignite gasoline AG). In mid-April 1945 he was transferred to Sachsenhausen concentration camp . On April 21, a death march of around 18,000 prisoners from Sachsenhausen began in a north-west direction. On May 2, 1945, Soviet troops liberated the survivors in Grabow-Below , where a memorial is now located.

In 1947 Hesdörffer emigrated to South Africa and built up a business there. In 1954 he married Lotte Mayer; the couple has a son. In 2009 he returned to Frankfurt am Main. In old age he became involved as a contemporary witness. In 2013 he shot the film Steps into the Unknown with young people .

Heinz Hesdörffer died on May 3, 2019 in Frankfurt am Main.

Awards

On December 14, 2018, Hesdörffer was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon for his life's work .

literature

  • Heinz Hesdörffer: You met many acquaintances ... Notes from a German Jew from the winter of 1945/46 . 3. Edition. Chronos, Zurich 2013, ISBN 978-3-905312-57-7 .
  • Heinz Hesdörffer (with Thus Dotan): Reshimot ʿ al yeme milḥamah: Ṿesṭerburḳ, Ṭerezienshṭaṭ, Oshṿits, Zaḳsenha ʾ uzen . Ed .: Yad ṿa-Shem . 2012, ISBN 978-965-308-429-2 (Hebrew edition).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Allgemeine Zeitung of May 4, 2019 , accessed on June 4, 2019.
  2. ↑ Heinz Hesdörffer: You met many acquaintances ... Notes by a German Jew from the winter of 1945/46 . 3. Edition. Chronos, Zurich 2013, ISBN 978-3-905312-57-7 , p. 7 .
  3. ↑ Thanks for a lifetime achievement , accessed on June 4, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Hesdörffer, Heinz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hesdörffer, Heinrich Ludwig (birth name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German survivor and contemporary witness of the Holocaust
DATE OF BIRTH January 30, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Bad Kreuznach
DATE OF DEATH 3rd May 2019
Place of death Frankfurt am Main