Jews in Hochkirchen
Jews in Hochkirchen describes the life of a religious minority in Hochkirchen , a district of the municipality of Nörvenich in the Düren district , North Rhine-Westphalia .
In the municipality of Nörvenich there were only two places where Jews lived , namely in the central town of Nörvenich and in the small district of Hochkirchen. The place has had an average of 350-400 inhabitants since the beginning of the 20th century, of which 13 were of Jewish faith . The closest synagogue with the Jewish cemetery that still exists today was in Lüxheim , about three kilometers away , which is now part of the Vettweiß community . Since when Jews lived in Hochkirchen can no longer be determined.
During the November pogroms of 1938 , on November 10, 1938, a Nazi group of destruction also appeared in Hochkirchen . The men raided the house of the Lachs / Haase family in Dorweilerstrasse. They smashed all the window panes and the interior. In addition, the goods (food, bakery, etc.) in the shop were destroyed. The residents were horrified, but, like almost everywhere, did not intervene out of fear. The other two Jewish families were spared the riots .
In 1941, the Jewish people received so-called relocation orders. Linked to this, on behalf of the Gestapo , was "the securing of the houses for complete registration and other allocation by the responsible authorities". This expropriation and the move affected the Lachs / Haase, Bertha Schwarz and Rosa Schwarz families.
The widow Rosa Schwarz was deregistered on October 14, 1941, in Lendersdorf , Schneidhausener Weg 15. The Thuirsmühle assembly camp was located there . Sophie Schwarz moved to Düren, Oberstrasse 76 b, to the Gerstenmühle assembly camp on October 3, 1941 . Bertha Schwarz moved to Aachen in 1941. This Schwarz family lived in their own house on Neffeltalstrasse.
Bertha Schwarz, the widow of the businessman Philipp Schwarz, who died in 1940 , and Emma Schwarz came to the Gerstenmühle camp in Düren on October 3, 1941 . Moritz Schwarz was already in the Walheim camp in Kornelimünster on July 2, 1941 . This Schwarz family lived for rent on Kirchstrasse.
The widow Bertha Lachs, her son-in-law Walter Haase and her daughter Martha Haase came to the barley mill in October 1941. From there Bertha Lachs had to move into the Villa Buth Jewish house in Jülich . On July 26, 1942, she was deported from Aachen via Düsseldorf to Theresienstadt. The family had lived in their own house on Dorweilerstrasse until 1941.
Irene Levi, Levi Hildegard and Lotte Levi Been in April 1939 for Manchester in England emigrated .
The widow Berta Kratz, born in 1879, was re-registered in the Gerstenmühle on October 14, 1941. She had only moved from Nideggen to the Lachs / Haase family a month earlier .
In July 1942, the teacher Ferdinand Schwarz noted in the school chronicle: In the course of autumn 1941 we in Hochkirchen finally got rid of the Jews who lived here. The apartments were assigned to people who lived in poor housing conditions.
Lotte Levy visited the Poensgen family in 1987, with whom she had lived. She and her sister Hilde stayed in contact with Hochkirchen for years. Everyone who was taken to assembly camps was murdered in extermination camps.
On November 18, 2012, a memorial for Jewish citizens was inaugurated at the confluence of Neffeltalstrasse / Dorweilerstrasse / Weidbergstrasse . The Nörvenich homeland and history association suggested and erected the memorial. The design comes from the artist Lajos Tar .
The only stumbling blocks in the community in memory of Emma, Berta and Moritz Schwarz are in Kirchstrasse .
Individual evidence
- ^ Karl Heinz Türk , Hochkirchen - 900 years of village history in brief , 2002
- ^ Villa Buth - stopover for the Holocaust. Monument active - project 2017/18. Heilig-Geist-Gymnasium Würselen, Würselen 2018, p. 160
- ^ School chronicle of Hochkirchen, started on September 2, 1876, ending on November 30, 1966
- ↑ Herbert Pelzer, Moritz, Martha and the others - When the Neffeltal became free of Jews. Nörvenich, Hahne & Schloemer 2012, ISBN 978-3-942513-04-3