Hirsch Gradenwitz

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Hirsch Gradenwitz , also Zvi Hugo Gradenwitz (born September 13, 1876 in Rawitsch , Posen province ; died November 19, 1943 in Auschwitz concentration camp ) was a German Orthodox rabbi who mainly worked in Hanau and was a victim of the Holocaust .

origin

Gradenwitz came from a rabbi family. The “forefather” of the family, Menachem Mandel, came from the Lublin area and in 1755 was appointed Rawicz's first rabbi. His personal nickname Gradenwitz , which serves the individual characteristics , became a family name that to this day only his descendants bear. Many of them became entrepreneurs and scientists, some of them bankers and real estate agents. They followed the typical migration pattern of Eastern European Jews by creating a material basis for themselves in Eastern Europe and then - as in the case of the von Hirsch Gradenwitz family - headed west into the German Empire at the turn of the 20th century .

education

The first son of (Meshullam) Joseph Gradenwitz and Channa (Johanna) Joffe was born in the city of Rawitsch, which was part of the German Empire at the time and which was home to one of the largest Jewish communities in the province of Posen. Gradenwitz obtained his higher education entrance qualification in 1896 at the royal high school there. At the time when the majority of the Rawitsch Jews migrated to the west, he moved to Berlin for his training . There he attended the rabbinical seminary Esriel Hildesheimer until his Semicha on June 29, 1903 and studied at the same time at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin and in the summer semester 1905 at the University of Erlangen . In Erlangen Gradenwitz was 1907 - when he rabbi had already become - a (initially by Paul Scheffer-Boichorst managed) economic history paper on fiscal policy Kaiser Ludwig of Bavaria Dr. phil. PhD .

Career as a rabbi

In June 1905, Gradenwitz was elected rabbi of the Tarnowitz synagogue district in Upper Silesia and took up this position on September 1, 1905. In 1913 he resigned from the General German Rabbis Association , because he no longer wanted to support its decisions, and joined the association of traditionally law-abiding rabbis in Germany. From January 1917 to 1918 he was field rabbi in the 9th Army in the Balkans .

In October 1921 he became a provincial rabbi in Hanau, where he shaped community life until 1938 - after his retirement. Gradenwitz was also involved in the German-Jewish public. He repeatedly wrote articles in the journal Der Israelit , the mouthpiece of the Orthodox Jews, and was a member of the Association of Rabbis of Upper Silesia and the Hanauer Ferdinand-Gamburg-Loge, a Masonic-like Jewish Association ( UOBB ). In 1927 he was accepted into the honorary committee of the welfare lottery of the "Working Group to Combat Tuberculosis Among the Jews".

family

He married Rosa Bondi, who came from a family of rabbis and entrepreneurs in Mainz, in 1908 in Vienna. They had four children. The older two survived the Holocaust, namely Sophie (June 3, 1910 in Vienna; December 6, 2003 in Berlin) and Rudolph (February 3, 1913 in Tarnowitz; August 6, 1999 in Tel Aviv ). Like their parents, the two younger siblings died in the Holocaust, namely Joseph (February 27, 1914 in Tarnowitz; March 31, 1944 in Auschwitz) and Bertha (December 24, 1916 in Tarnowitz; declared missing in Auschwitz in 1943). His younger brother Benno-Baruch Gradenwitz, who practiced as a family doctor and pediatrician in Berlin, was deported with his wife to Auschwitz in 1943 and murdered there.

Escape and death

Unlike the daughter Sophie, who went into exile in Paris in 1936 , and the son Rudolf, who emigrated to Palestine as an electrician in 1937 , the rest of the family did not initially think of leaving Hanau during the Nazi era . But after the private apartment was so badly devastated during the November pogroms on the night of November 10, 1938 that a couple heated their washing kettle for a year with the smashed furniture, and their son Joseph was interned in Buchenwald concentration camp for a few weeks , Gradenwitz fled with them his family to live with relatives via Frankfurt am Main in the Netherlands . The parents lived with Joseph (Bertha had gone to Paris) in Amsterdam and Hilversum , where a hidden stay can be proven in 1942. All three were deported to the Westerbork transit camp and from there came to Auschwitz in 1943 , where Hirsch Gradenwitz and his wife were murdered on November 19, 1943. He was 67 years old.

Afterlife

His eldest daughter Sophie married Hans Karl Marum, the son of the SPD member of the Reichstag, Ludwig Marum . Her daughter Andrée Fischer-Marum read a declaration written by Sophie Marum at the inauguration of the memorial for 400 years of Jewish residence in Hanau in 2003; “They associate many positive things with Hanau, ... but also 'the very worst personal memories'. Until the end she suffered from the fact that the city had apparently forgotten the last rabbi and with it her father. But she still hopes that this could change. ”Sophie Marum died two weeks before the monument was inaugurated.

Fonts

literature

  • Sabine Hank, Hermann Simon , Uwe Hank: Field rabbis in the German armed forces of the First World War (= series of publications of the Centrum Judaicum. Volume 7). Hentrich and Hentrich, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-938485-76-7 , Art. Hirsch (Hugo) Gradenwitz , pp. 66–69 (see also the Gradenwitz register, p. 611).
  • Esriel Hildesheimer, Mordechai Eliav: The Berlin Rabbinical Seminar 1873-1938 (= series of publications by the Centrum Judaicum. Volume 5). Hentrich and Hentrich, Teetz, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-938485-46-0 , p. 126.
  • Katrin Nele Jansen: Gradenwitz, Zvi Hugo. In: Biographisches Handbuch der Rabbis. Edited by Michael Brocke and Julius Carlebach , Volume 2: The Rabbis in the German Empire 1871–1945. Edited by Katrin Nele Jansen, part 1: Aaron to Kusznitzki. Saur, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-598-24874-0 , p. 241 ( preview on Google Books ).
  • Elisabeth Marum-Lunau: On the run in France. Correspondence from a German family in exile 1939–1942 = “Boches ici, juifs là-bas”. Selected and commented by Jacques Grandjonc, translated and expanded for the German edition by Doris Obschernitzki. Hentrich and Hentrich, Teetz 2000, ISBN 3-933471-07-9 , pp. 18 f., 30, 51.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Term from Agnieszka Brockmann: The Kuczynski estate in the Central and State Library Berlin. Books on Demand, Norderstedt / Central and State Library Berlin, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-925516-39-9 , p. 16 .
  2. ↑ The private website of the descendant Claus Gradenwitz provides information on this .
  3. ↑ On this pattern and the migration history of the Hans H. Lembke family: The "Black Sheep" at the Gradenwitz and Kuczynski. Two Berlin families in the 19th and 20th centuries. Trafo, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-89626-728-3 , p. 42.
  4. ^ Genealogical entry about Hirsch's father and three siblings; but this is given a wrong date of death.
  5. ↑ See the depiction of Jewish life in Rawicz ( Memento of the original from March 13, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the Family Tree Expert website , according to which around 1,500 Jews had lived in Rawicz in 1835, about 50% of the population, in 1905 only 363. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.familytreeexpert.com
  6. ↑ See the curriculum vitae following his dissertation, Hirsch Gradenwitz: Contributions to the financial history of the German Empire under Ludwig the Bavarian. Noske, Borna-Leipzig 1908, p. 47.
  7. ↑ a b c Katrin Nele Jansen: Gradenwitz, Zvi Hugo. In: Biographisches Handbuch der Rabbis. Edited by Michael Brocke and Julius Carlebach. Vol. 2: The rabbis in the German Empire 1871–1945. Edited by Katrin Nele Jansen, part 1: Aaron to Kusznitzki. Saur, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-598-24874-0 , p. 241.
  8. ↑ See on the associations the website of the Central Council of Jews in Germany: History of Ordination. Rabbi training in Germany 1836–1942 .
  9. ↑ Introduction of the new district rabbi Dr. Hirsch Gradenwitz. Article in the journal Der Israelit , October 13, 1921. Reproduced on the Alemannia judaica website .
  10. ↑ Monika Ilona Pfeifer, Monica Kingreen: Hanauer Juden 1933–1945. Disenfranchisement, persecution, deportation. Edited on behalf of the Evangelical Working Group "Christians - Jews" Hanau. CoCon, Hanau 1998, ISBN 3-928100-64-5 , p. 57.
  11. ^ To the lodge: Eckhart G. Franz:  lodges (3 lodges of the Jewish lodge association B'nai B'rith) (= Repertories Hessisches Staatsarchiv Darmstadt ) inventory N 11; P. 7 and 11 (PDF; 120 kB). In: Archive Information System Hessen (Arcinsys Hessen), as of December 2007, accessed on September 22, 2016.
  12. ↑ Personal information on the website of the Digitaal Monument Joodse Gemeenschap in Nederland .
  13. ↑ The Rabbi Handbook speaks of three children, Elisabeth Marum-Lunau of four children, see also this and this genealogical website.
  14. ^ Obituary notice in Neues Deutschland from December 13, 2003
  15. ^ Elisabeth Marum-Lunau: On the run in France. Correspondence from a German family in exile 1939–1942 = “Boches ici, juifs là-bas”. Selected and commented by Jacques Grandjonc, translated and expanded for the German edition by Doris Obschernitzki. Hentrich and Hentrich, Teetz 2000, ISBN 3-933471-07-9 , pp. 11, 18 f. and 30.
  16. ↑ John Green: A Political Family. The Kuczynskis, Fascism, Espionage and The Cold War (= Routledge Studies in Radical History and Politics. ). Routledge, London, New York 2017, ISBN 978-1-138-23231-0 , p. 53 .
  17. ^ Elisabeth Marum-Lunau: On the run in France. Correspondence from a German family in exile 1939–1942 = “Boches ici, juifs là-bas”. Selected and commented by Jacques Grandjonc, translated and expanded for the German edition by Doris Obschernitzki. Hentrich and Hentrich, Teetz 2000, ISBN 3-933471-07-9 , p. 18 f.
  18. ↑ See the article on the Hanau synagogue on the Alemannia judaica website .
  19. ↑ Monika Ilona Pfeifer / Monica Kingreen: Hanauer Juden 1933–1945. Disenfranchisement, persecution, deportation , ed. on behalf of the Evangelical Working Group "Christians - Jews" Hanau, Hanau 1998, p. 64.
  20. ^ Elisabeth Marum-Lunau: On the run in France. Correspondence from a German family in exile 1939–1942 = “Boches ici, juifs là-bas”. Selected and commented by Jacques Grandjonc, translated and expanded for the German edition by Doris Obschernitzki. Hentrich and Hentrich, Teetz 2000, ISBN 3-933471-07-9 , p. 19.
  21. ↑ Hiding information on the website of the Digitaal Monument Joodse Gemeenschap in Nederland .
  22. ↑ Information: On the history of the rabbinate in 19./20. Century in Hanau on the website Alemannia judaica .
  23. ↑ see for the history of this family Otto Langels: Impossible home. The return of Jewish emigrants to West Germany. In: Deutschlandradio Kultur , broadcast on January 30, 2008; Elisabeth Marum-Lunau: On the run in France. Correspondence from a German family in exile 1939–1942 = “Boches ici, juifs là-bas”. Selected and commented by Jacques Grandjonc, translated and expanded for the German edition by Doris Obschernitzki. Hentrich and Hentrich, Teetz 2000, ISBN 3-933471-07-9 , pp. 11-14, 18 f.
  24. ↑ Ceremony in Hanau on the occasion of “400 years of Jewish residence”. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , December 19, 2003.
personal data
SURNAME Gradenwitz, Hirsch
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gradenwitz, Zvi Hugo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German orthodox rabbi
DATE OF BIRTH September 13, 1876
PLACE OF BIRTH Rawitsch , Poznan Province
DATE OF DEATH November 19, 1943
Place of death Auschwitz concentration camp