Josef Averesch

Josef Averesch CSsR (born April 1, 1902 in Hörstel (Westphalia), † June 20, 1949 there ) was a German Roman Catholic religious . As a pastor, he became a victim of National Socialism and died four years after his release from prison of severe liver disease, which he contracted as a result of malaria attempts by SS doctors in the Dachau concentration camp .

Life

Childhood and youth

Josef Averesch was born on April 1, 1902 and grew up as the oldest of the nine children of the married couple Karl and Johanna Averesch in Hörstel, Tecklenburg, near the city of Rheine . From April 1908 he attended the Catholic elementary school in his hometown for eight years . After his primary school completion (then after the 8th grade), he prepared himself for a year through private lessons for inclusion in the lower third of the school Dionysianum in Rheine ago. After graduating from high school, he first completed a year-long agricultural internship because he initially intended to become an agriculture teacher .

Entry into the order, study and ordination

On August 14, 1924, Josef Averesch entered the novitiate of the Redemptorist Order in Luxembourg . On August 15, 1925, he made his perpetual vow . He studied theology and philosophy for twelve semesters at the college of his order in the Geistingen monastery in Hennef - Geistingen . On April 27, 1930, he received the sacrament of ordination in the basilica of the Knechtsteden monastery in Dormagen .

Priest, religious and popular missionary

From 1931 Josef Averesch worked as an educator and teacher for Latin , Greek and Hebrew at the Collegium Josephinum Bonn . Since he was not a teacher and there were health reasons against this activity, he began his upcoming second novitiate from Easter 1932 instead of training as a high school teacher with preparation for his future assignment as a people's missionary . As a people's missionary, Josef Averesch belonged to various monasteries of his order in the years that followed, from which he and his fellow brothers held the parish mission in the respective surrounding Catholic parishes. In addition, he designed and led days and weeks of religious contemplation and reflection for interested believers. He lived in the convents in Glanerbrück (Netherlands) from October 1932 to July 1933, Bochum July 1933 to September 1933 and February 1935 to March 1937, Trier from September 1933 to February 1935, Rheine March 1937 to September 1939, and Heiligenstadt from September 1939.

Persecution by the National Socialist regime

In January 1941, following a three-day parish mission in the parish of Bischofferode in Eichsfeld, he took on a four-week representation of the local pastor. During this time, Father Averesch was denounced to the Gestapo in connection with the confession of a woman from this parish and arrested on February 6, 1941 in the Heiligenstadt monastery. In interrogation, they wanted to force Father Averesch to reveal the content of this confessional talk. The backgrounds of denunciation as well as the interest of the Gestapo at this Beichtgespräch were resolved never, as the Father Averesch nor later under pressure from the Gestapo after his liberation from the concentration camp this sacramental seal is broken. There are, however, indications that there were controversial inheritance issues relating to a piece of land in Bischofferode that the deceased husband of this woman had bequeathed to the Catholic sister house and to which members of the NSDAP may have made a claim. On the occasion of this arrest, Father Averesch was accused of having "been in constant advisory contact with leaders of the Center Party ", which he denied. Furthermore, according to the interrogation protocol, he was accused of refusing to testify . Before signing this protocol, Father Averesch noted in handwriting that he had refused to break the secret of confession. However, the Gestapo removed this addition from the protocol. In a letter to the Gestapo of 21 July 1941, his brother stated that Father Averesch "by order of the Secret State Police Office in Berlin for abuse of his duties as a priest in protective custody had been taken".

Until he was transferred to the Buchenwald concentration camp on July 19, 1941, Josef Averesch was held in the Erfurt police prison and repeatedly interrogated. In Buchenwald he was assigned to a detention team with quarry work . When he became seriously ill there, he was transferred to the Dachau concentration camp on September 17, 1941 , where his transport arrived on September 19, 1941. There he was housed in the pastor's block .

At the malaria station of the Dachau concentration camp, Josef Averesch was abused for one year from August 1942 for by SS doctors under the direction of Claus Schilling , known as "Blutschilling", for human experiments. There, he and other concentration camp inmates were vaccinated with malaria bacilli because the SS wanted to develop a serum for German soldiers who had malaria in Africa.

Josef Averesch survived his imprisonment in the concentration camp, despite his health problems caused by this willfully induced illness, because he was able to get drugs illegally and his family and friends sent him food parcels to better eat. Together with 24 other religious prisoners, Josef Averesch was released from the concentration camp on March 28, 1945, shortly before the end of the war.

Continuation of pastoral work despite illness and weakness

After his release, Father Averesch was accepted for the first time by a confrere of his order in Freising. From April to August 1945 he then worked as a parish vicar in Tonndorf near Landshut. On August 11, 1945, he returned to his homeland in Hörstel and recovered there on his parents' farm. From November 1945 he resumed his work as a people's missionary in the Redemptorist monastery in Rheine, but he repeatedly suffered attacks of weakness and fever and had to stay with his family for weeks to recover. In December 1948 he held his last people's mission. He then became seriously ill in 1949. The chief physician of the Marienhospital Osnabrück who examined him found, in addition to a serious liver disease, other damage as a permanent consequence of the malaria attempts in Dachau as well as a permanent impairment of the body's immune system due to this disease. After further treatment in the Antonius Hospital in his home town of Hörstel, Josef Averesch died on July 20, 1949. He was buried in the cemetery in Hörstel.

Souvenirs and honors

The memory of Josef Averesch stayed alive in his homeland. His name is recorded on a commemorative mosaic in the old town hall in Rheine, next to citizens of the Rhine who were killed for racial ideological reasons and three other citizens who were persecuted and killed for political reasons. The wayside shrine on his grave in Hörstel bears the inscription “Witness for Christ”.

In 1999 the Catholic Church accepted Josef Averesch as a witness of faith in the German martyrology of the 20th century .

He has been the namesake of the Josef-Averesch-Haus of the St. Antonius Hospital Hörstel since 2013 . A memorial stone by Cologne artist Gunter Demnig commemorates Josef Averesch in Trier.

literature

• Christian Frieling: Josef Averesch. In: Priests from the Münster diocese in the concentration camp. Aschendorff Verlag, Münster 1992, ISBN 3-402-05427-2 , pp. 74-79.
• Rolf Decot , Art .: Father Josef Averesch. In: Helmut Moll (ed. On behalf of the German Bishops' Conference): Witnesses for Christ. The German martyrology of the 20th century. , Paderborn et al. 1999, 7th revised and updated edition 2019, Volume II, pp. 1020-1023, ISBN 978-3-506-78012-6 .
• Ulrich von Hehl : priest under Hitler's terror. A biographical and statistical survey. Matthias Grünewald Verlag, 1984, ISBN 3-7867-1152-6 .

Web links

• Father Josef Averesch ( Memento from May 22, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
• Short biography of Josef Averesch (Trier Memorial)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Bernhard Sacrifice man : shaping the calibration field. Religious images of life . Cordier, Heiligenstadt / Sankt-Benno-Verlag, Leipzig 1968, p. 142.
2. ^ Christian Frieling: Priest from the diocese of Münster in the concentration camp . Münster 1992, p. 74.
3. ^ Christian Frieling: Priest from the diocese of Münster in the concentration camp . Münster 1992, p. 75.
4. ^ Christian Frieling: Priest from the diocese of Münster in the concentration camp . Münster 1992, p. 76.
5. ^ ^{A b} Christian Frieling: Priest from the diocese of Münster in the concentration camp . Münster 1992, p. 77.
6. ^ Commemorative sheets of the Cologne Order Province of the Redemptorists , Vol. 2: 1981–1983 , Provincialate of the Redemptorists, Cologne-Mülheim 1983, therein No. 14 (October 1981), p. 51.
7. ^ Christian Frieling: Priest from the diocese of Münster in the concentration camp . Münster 1992, p. 78.