Hilde Spier

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hilde Spier , née Wolff , (born June 18, 1901 in Cologne ; died presumably in September 1942 in the Auschwitz concentration camp ) was a doctor of German studies and journalism . After the entry into force of the Nuremberg racial laws Hilde looked Spier and her family forced Germany to leave and to Brussels to emigrate . After the invasion of the Wehrmacht after Belgium , the family had to go to France to escape, where they were forcibly interned in "foreigners camps." In September 1942 she was deported to Auschwitz and murdered.

In 2001 the publicist Olga Tarcali published the childhood memories of Hilde Spier's daughter, Marianne Spier-Donati, in the book Return to Erfurt. Memories of a broken youth .

Life

Hilde Wolff was born on June 18, 1901 as the daughter of Bernhard and Selma Wolff in Cologne. Her father Bernhard Wolff was established in Cologne as a specialist in internal medicine and nervous diseases . When Hilde Wolff was three and a half years, her mother died at the age of 26. The father married Ella Benjamin some time later. Hilde's half-brother Ernst was born in May 1908 .

After graduating from school, Hilde Wolff began studying language and literature at the University of Cologne . In 1923 she did her doctorate here on the subject of the representation of the child in German poetry of the late 18th century . After graduating, she worked as a journalist for various Cologne newspapers. In the following years she specialized in reviews of plays and was then editor in charge of the newspaper Mode und Kultur .

In 1921 she met the Jewish merchant's son Carl Ludwig Spier. Bernhard Wolff was strictly against the connection and the couple had to wait seven years for their father's permission to marry.

Thinking needle for Hilde and Carl Spier in Erfurt at the former residence of the family Friedrichstrasse 1

After the wedding, Hilde Spier gave up her journalistic activity in Cologne and followed her husband, who had taken over the management of the Eduard Lingel shoe factory in 1926 , to Erfurt . Their children Marianne and Rolf were born here in 1930 and 1932, respectively.

After the National Socialists came to power , Jewish citizens were exposed to numerous reprisals and humiliations. After the Nuremberg Laws came into force, the Spier family decided on November 19, 1935 to emigrate to Brussels, where Hildes' half-brother Ernst Spier already lived. A short time later, Bernhard and Ella Wolff also left Cologne and fled to the children in Brussels. On May 11, 1940, one day after the Wehrmacht invaded Belgium, Carl Spier was arrested and imprisoned in the St. Gilles prison in Brussels. The family fled from Belgium to France. Hilde's father Bernhard Wolff died on the run in Lille .

Hilde Spier and her children followed her husband, who was abducted to the Saint-Cyprien internment camp , to the south of France. She and her children were initially sent to the Gurs detention center . In July 1940 they were also interned in Saint-Cyprien. After Carl Spier was imprisoned in various camps in southern France, he was released in 1942 and lived for a short time with his family in Cap-d'Ail on the Côte d'Azur .

Here they were in mid-August 1942 during a raid by the police of the Vichy regime arrested from France reported and initially in the transit camp for foreign Jews to Nice deported. Here they separated from their children following advice from a police officer. Hilde Spier managed to send a postcard from the deportation train to her Cologne relative Ilse Klein, who was married to the Italian lawyer Piero Sacerdoti . A relative of Piero Sacerdoti, the diplomat Angelo Donati , initially brought the children to safety in Nice. During the last two years of the war, Donati hid the two Jewish children with one of his employees in the Italian mountain village of Creppo in the Ligurian Alps and adopted the children after the war.

After being deported from the Nice assembly camp , Hilde and Carl Spier were deported to Drancy on August 31, 1942 , from where they were deported to Auschwitz on September 2, 1942 with Transport 27. Since Hilde Spier was not registered in Auschwitz, it can be assumed that she was murdered immediately after arriving in Auschwitz on September 6, 1942. Carl Spier had to do forced labor in the camp for over two years and was killed on the death march to Buchenwald concentration camp in early February 1945 after the evacuation of the Auschwitz concentration camp .

Five days after his sister, Hilde Spier's half-brother Ernst was deported on Transport 29 from Drancy to Auschwitz and murdered there.

Commemoration

Stumbling stone for Hilde Spier, in Lindenthal, Gleueler Straße 163 (relocated on April 18, 2018).

In 1999 the Lord Mayor of Erfurt, Manfred Ruge , invited the children of Hilde and Carl Spier, Marianne and Rolf Spier-Donati to visit their parents' place of residence. In 2001 the publicist Olga Tarcali published the impressions of this visit as well as the childhood memories of Hilde Spier's daughter Marianne in the book Return to Erfurt. Memories of a destroyed youth , for which Serge Klarsfeld wrote the foreword and which has been translated into three languages.

On November 9, 2009, the first thinking needle was erected in Erfurt in memory of Hilde and Carl Spier. In 2014, a book with personal memories by Carl Spier was discovered in the old holdings of the Hamburg State and University Library and, after extensive research, handed over to the children Marianne and Rolf Spier-Donati.

On April 18, 2018, the Cologne artist Gunter Demnig laid two stumbling blocks in the Lindenthal district of Cologne as a souvenir of the couple.

Web links

Commons : Hilde Spier  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Olga Tarcali: Return to Erfurt: memories of a destroyed youth . Erfurt 2001, ISBN 3-89702-399-7 .
  2. ↑ a b Dr. Hilde Spier and Carl Ludwig Spier, Erfurt | Auditory stumbling blocks. Retrieved April 20, 2018 (German).
  3. ↑ a b c "DenkTag" - Remembrance means future, publications, Political Education Forum Thuringia. Retrieved April 19, 2018 .
  4. ↑ a b Jewish life in Erfurt: Hilde and Carl Spier. June 2, 2017, accessed on April 20, 2018 (German).
  5. ↑ Federal Archives: Memorial sheet for Dr. Hilde Spier. Retrieved April 20, 2018 .
  6. ↑ a b Single advertisement for closed cases ǀ Stabi Hamburg. Retrieved April 20, 2018 .
  7. ↑ a b NS Documentation Center Cologne | Carl L. Spier. Retrieved April 20, 2018 .
  8. ^ A b c "Return to Erfurt", publications, Political Education Forum Thuringia. Retrieved April 20, 2018 .
  9. ↑ https://yvng.yadvashem.org/ Hilde Spier. Retrieved April 20, 2018 .
  10. ↑ ksta.de of April 26, 2018: The children saved in the last distress , accessed on May 6, 2018.
  11. ^ Mémorial de la Shoah. Retrieved April 20, 2018 .
  12. ^ Mémorial de la Shoah: Ernst Wolff. Retrieved April 20, 2018 .
  13. ^ Central Council of Jews in Germany: Stumbling blocks: pinpricks of remembrance. Retrieved April 19, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Spier, Hilde
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hilde Wolff (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German doctorate in German and journalist
DATE OF BIRTH June 18, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne
DATE OF DEATH September 1942
Place of death Auschwitz concentration camp