Hermann Schreiber (Rabbi)

Hermann Schreiber (born August 21, 1882 in Schrimm (today Śrem in Poland), † September 27, 1954 in Berlin ) was a doctor of philosophy, rabbi in Potsdam and a publicist.

Adolescent years

Grammar school in Schrimm, which Hermann Schreiber attended

Hermann Schreiber came from a family resident in Śrem who had already been assimilated in his day (the Jewish community in the province of Poznan in the second half of the 19th century mainly professed the German language and culture). Hermann Schreiber's father, Pedasur Schreiber, was a religion teacher in the Jewish school and rabbi assistant in Schrimm; his mother, Balbina b. Schreier, ran the household. Hermann was the youngest child and the only son in the family. After passing the Abitur examination at the grammar school in Schrimm in 1901, Hermann Schreiber studied at the conservative Jewish-theological seminar in Breslau , where he was ordained a rabbi, then at the university in Breslau, where he received his doctorate in philosophy. Approx. In 1910 he married Charlotte Neumann, who gave birth to their son Paul.

Activity in Germany

The interior of the synagogue in Potsdam, where Hermann Schreiber was a rabbi. The synagogue was destroyed in a bomb attack in 1945

Hermann Schreiber lived in Potsdam from 1912 to 1938 . He wrote articles in magazines (including Israelitisches Familienblatt ), translated the Pentateuch from Hebrew into German and was a rabbi in the Potsdam synagogue for many years . He was chairman of the Jewish Liberal Youth Association in Potsdam, founded in 1921, and was also active in the Schrimmer Association, which was founded in Berlin in 1902 by Jews who came from Schrimm and later emigrated to the German Reich.

Exile in Great Britain

Grave of Hermann Schreiber in the Jewish cemetery in Berlin-Weißensee

After the seizure of power by the Nazis in 1933 Hermann Schreiber was, like other German Jews persecuted by the Nazi regime. During Kristallnacht in 1938 he witnessed the demolition of the Potsdam synagogue. Soon after, he was taken to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp . At the beginning of 1939, after his release from the camp, he managed to emigrate with his wife and son to Great Britain , where he lived in London . There he continued his journalistic work, wrote articles in English and earned services for the construction of the Bet Din (court house of the Synagogue Association (Association of Synagogues) in Great Britain). He also participated in the life of the Jewish community in Amsterdam , and from 1952 he visited Berlin (West), where he participated in the celebrations of the Jewish New Year. On one of these visits he died during the celebration in the synagogue on Pestalozzistraße in Berlin, right after he had given a sermon there. Hermann Schreiber was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Berlin-Weißensee .

memories

First edition of the Schrimmer youth memories by Hermann Schreiber

On March 6, 1927, on the occasion of the 25th foundation festival of the Schrimmer Association, Hermann Schreiber gave a lecture, which was then published in print under the title Schrimmer Youth Memories . The memories are a valuable source for research into the history of the Jews in Poznan Province . In it, Schreiber tells about the daily life of his family and other Jews who lived in Schrimm at that time, about their traditions, customs and Jewish festivals, but also about the life of the Germans and Poles - the inhabitants of Schrimm. The memories were also translated into English. In 2008 the memoirs were also translated into Polish and edited by Krzysztof Budzyń in “Śremski Notatnik Historyczny” (Schrimmer Historical Notebook).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See the article by Julius H. Schoeps , Die Szene war schauervoll , in: "Spiegel special", No. 2/1993, 1000 years Potsdam , [1]
2. ↑ They were published as Schrimm - Memories from Our Youth (translated by Werner S. Zektiven) in No. 25 of the journal “Family Tree”, which is published by the Jewish Leo Baeck Institute in New York . The English text of the memories: PDF

literature

• Hermann Schreiber, Schrimmer Jugenderinnerungen , Schrimmer Association, Berlin, 1927
• Hermann Schreiber, Schrimm - Memories from Our Youth , (translated by Werner S. Zektiven), in: “Family Tree”, Issue 25, 2004, pp. 10–19, PDF (translation into English)
• Hermann Schreiber, Wspomnienia z mojej młodości w Śremie , translated by Danuta Banaszak, in: "Śremski Notatnik Historyczny", No. 2, 2008, pp. 37–73 (translation into Polish)
• "Śremski Notatnik Historyczny", No. 2, 2008, with contributions by Krzysztof Budzyń to Herrmann Schreiber (in Polish)
• Irene A. Diekmann, Jewish Brandenburg , Potsdam, 2008
• Harold Reinhart, In Memoriam - Hermann Schreiber , in: “The Synagogue Review”, volume XXIX, 1954, No 3, pp. 66–67