Helmut Fürst
Helmut Fürst (born June 28, 1922 in Hanover ; died November 15, 2012 there ) was a German entrepreneur and survivor of the Holocaust .
Life
Helmut Fürst was born in Hanover during the Weimar Republic a good year before the peak of German hyperinflation as the son of the merchants Max Fürst (born 1883) and Elise, known as Else Fürst (born in 1884 as Elise Jacoby). His parents ran their business in what was then Grupenstrasse 19 - today's Karmarschstrasse .
After the seizure of power by the Nazis in 1933, the parents sold their company in April of the same year, as the entire family of their emigration from the German Reich planned. At least Helmut's older brother Heinz Fürst (born 1914) was able to emigrate to South Africa in 1936 . In the same year, Helmut, who was only 14 years old at the time, left school to secretly begin training as an electrician.
As a result of the Lauterbacher campaign , the members of the Fürst family who remained in Hanover were forced to move into one of the so-called Hanoverian “ Jewish houses ”. Further considerations about emigration came too late: On December 15, 1941, Helmut, now 19, was deported to the Riga ghetto with his parents . From there he was - in the - without his parents Salaspils concentration camp sent, then into the SD - bearing Lenta , where he - was used in the local car repair shop for maintenance and repair work - due to its acquired during his training skills. From Lenta, Helmut Fürst was able to visit his parents twice in the Riga ghetto before they were subsequently considered missing - the date of their death could never be determined.
Before the Wehrmacht troops were withdrawn from Latvia in the course of the Second World War , “tips from two guards saved Helmut Fürst and some other inmates from the threat of being shot.” The small group managed to hide from the Germans in a hiding place it was finally liberated by armed forces of the Soviet Union .
However, Helmut Fürst felt "unbroken" with Germany and reached his hometown Hanover in August 1945, which was now in the British zone of occupation and 48 percent of which had been destroyed as a result of the previous air raids on Hanover . However, Fürst had made a conscious decision not to emigrate: He was involved in the Hanover Jewish Community, which was re-established in 1945 . In 1947 he founded a family with Annemarie, née Klimt: "The marriage resulted in sons Michael and Werner."
Helmut Fürst became one of the founders and responsible for the association Jüdisches Altersheim e. V. In 1952, together with Theodor Hohenstein, he bought a piece of land for him, on which the Jewish senior citizens' home in Hanover was then built.
Helmut Fürst testified in various war crimes trials and also acted as a contemporary witness for the confrontation with the past.
At the beginning of the 1960s, Helmut Fürst began to trade in real estate and eventually built up a corresponding company.
Helmut Fürst spent the last four years of his life in the Jewish senior citizens' home in Haeckelstrasse, which he helped initiate, before he died in November 2012 at the age of 90.
literature
- Martina Mußmann (editor), Matthias Horndasch , Helmut Fürst: I was German like everyone else! Matthias Horndasch in conversation with contemporary witness and Holocaust survivor Helmut Fürst (= series of publications by the Ahlem Memorial , Vol. 6), ed. from the Region Hannover, Team Culture, Hannover: Region Hannover, 2008, ISBN 978-3-00-024079-9
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e o. V .: Biographien / Helmut Fürst from Hanover / 1922 - 2012 / Persecuted as a Jew on the Geschichte-bewusst-sein.de page of the Lower Saxony Memorials Foundation [undated], last accessed on July 19 2018
- ↑ a b c d e f g h o. V .: Helmut Fürst sel. A. on the page juedisches-seniorenheim-hannover.de (new selection of the menu item house and portraits required) [no date], last accessed on July 19 2018
- ^ Peter Schulze : Action Lauterbacher. In: Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein (eds.) U. a .: City Lexicon Hanover . From the beginning to the present. Schlütersche, Hannover 2009, ISBN 978-3-89993-662-9 , p. 17.
- ^ Klaus Mlynek : Second World War. In: Stadtlexikon Hannover , p. 604f .; here: p. 605
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Prince, Helmut |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German entrepreneur and survivor of the Holocaust |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 28, 1922 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Hanover |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 15, 2012 |
| Place of death | Hanover |