Klara Caro

Klara Caro (born Klara Beerman on January 6, 1886 in Berlin ; died on September 27, 1979 in New York City ) was a German suffragette and social worker . In 1926 she founded the Cologne local chapter of the Jewish Women's Association and ran it until her deportation to the Theresienstadt ghetto .

Life

Klara Beerman grew up in modest circumstances in Berlin with three older brothers. The father had suffered a total economic loss during the founding period in 1871. Klara was brought up by her brother Max Mordechai, who was 13 years older and trained as a rabbi . At the age of eight, he placed her in a Jewish school taught by graduates of the Berlin rabbinical seminary named after Esriel Hildesheimer . At home she made the acquaintance of her brother's fellow students, Heinrich Loewe and Alfred Klee , who had a lasting influence on her. In her youth she met Ludwig Hardt , with whom she had a long friendship. At the age of 17 she became a member of the Zionist women's club, which was headed by Lina Wagner-Tauber. At the age of 18 she became engaged to Isidor Caro in Berlin , whom she married in 1909.

Cologne creative period

After her marriage, she moved with her husband to Cologne and moved into an apartment there on Ehrenfeldgürtel 171 in the Cologne-Ehrenfeld district . She joined the Israelite women's association and was soon elected to the board and later as chairwoman. Caring for the children Hermann and Rut did not prevent Klara Caro from giving well-attended lectures and from devoting herself intensively to voluntary work. She was involved in pastoral care for female Jewish prisoners in Cologne's Klingelpütz prison , the reintegration of released female Jewish prisoners and for patients in the psychiatric ward who were housed in the Lindenburg hospital . She fulfilled these tasks for over two decades until the National Socialists forbade her to do this on January 1, 1939.

Klara Caro became involved in the Jewish community for women's suffrage , which approved in 1925 by the Cologne church, the Prussian state , however, was blocked. After the founding of the Provincial Association of Jewish Women's Associations in Rhineland and Westphalia in 1921, she worked hard to establish the association. Conference trips took her through Europe, including in 1925 with Bertha Pappenheim , Hannah Karminski and Sidonie Werner to London , where they campaigned against modern slave labor together with Leo Deutschlaender. In addition, she was involved in the Women's International Zionist Organization . In 1926 Klara Caro founded the Cologne branch of the Jewish Women's Association and remained its chairman until 1938. In addition, she gave lectures at the adult education center in Cologne on the subject of Jewish traditions in Cologne as well as everyday Jewish life and religious life in Cologne.

After the seizure of power , she helped numerous Jewish citizens of Cologne with the preparations for emigration, helped Jewish community members survive in the city after the intensification of the reprisals against Jews and helped establish a national and international aid network. In 1933 the Caro couple sent their 18-year-old son to London, followed by his sister Rut in 1936. After a serious illness Hermanns the couple brought their son to the recovery in the psychiatric hospital Het Apeldoornsche Bosch , Apeldoorn (Netherlands). He was deported from there on January 22, 1943 and gassed on January 25, 1943 in the Auschwitz extermination camp after his arrival .

The Jewish community honored the couple in 1934 on the occasion of their silver wedding anniversary and for their 25 years of pastoral work with a ceremony and a trip to Palestine , which they began in 1935. The Caro couple did not use these and other opportunities to leave Germany out of a sense of duty to the Cologne Jewish community. In 1941, they had to leave their apartment in Cologne-Ehrenfeld and were forced to share the small apartment in the rear building of the Roonstrasse 50 synagogue with 13 other people . When the deportation of Cologne Jews to the so-called Theresienstadt ghetto began in the early summer of 1942, the Caro couple volunteered to be able to provide pastoral care to the Jewish community members in the ghetto. Isidor and Klara Caro were deported from Cologne to Theresienstadt on June 16, 1942.

Theresienstadt ghetto

After her arrival in the Theresienstadt ghetto, Klara Caro initiated and became involved in the Women's International Zionist Organization . In addition to readings on Zionist topics, she also co-organized cultural events such as theater, choir performances, operas and memorial services or Jewish festivals such as the Seder Festival , in which up to 4,000 prisoners took part. From July 1943 onwards she received intensive support in her work from Hannah Steiner , the founder of the Women's International Zionist Organization , in Czechoslovakia. At the instigation of Leo Baeck , who was active in the Jewish council of elders in Theresienstadt, Klara Caro was transported to Switzerland on February 5, 1945 , along with 1,200 prisoners, including Bertha Falkenberg . This transport was part of the release deals negotiated by Jean-Marie Musy with the National Socialists towards the end of the war , whereby only the Theresienstadt transport reached Switzerland. She was one of the 37 survivors of the first deportation train from Cologne to Theresienstadt, which transported a total of 962 people to the ghetto on June 15, 1942. Together with Bertha Falkenberg, Klara Caro was first housed in Les Avant Montreux and later in the refugee camp in Engelberg . The refugees chose her as their representative and so she was able to take part in Zionist meetings in Lucerne and Zurich . In the period that followed, Klara Caro had to fight for the right to stay for the Theresienstadt refugees who were to be deported to Italy . During this time she began to give lectures about the life of the Jewish prisoners in Theresienstadt and received numerous invitations to various places in Switzerland. She has received offers to engage in the Swiss refugee aid, which she refused because she to her daughter that she had seen the last time in 1936, in the United States wanted to move where she lived until her death.

Life in america

The new beginning in America succeeded with the help of emigrated friends, including Otto Juliusburger , who introduced Klara Caro to the New York Theodor Herzl Society. She later headed the New York Habonim Sisterhood for twelve years and was a respected member of the Jewish community. She spent the last year of her life in a New York nursing home where she wrote her autobiography before she died at the age of 93.

Her written estate in the form of reminders and the autobiography written shortly before her death are now in the Leo Baeck Institute , in the Center for Jewish History in New York City.

Own writings

• A seder night to remember , 1976
• Autobiography , 1979
• Stronger than the sword. In memory of the martyrs of Theresienstadt , 1946
• The fall of German Jewry from 1941 to 1942

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Klara Caro . In: Ulrich S. Soénius (Hrsg.), Jürgen Wilhelm (Hrsg.): Kölner Personen-Lexikon. Greven, Cologne 2007, ISBN 978-3-7743-0400-0 , p. 98.
2. ^ Center for Jewish History Digital Collections: Autobiography, p. 2
3. ↑ Dr. Isidor Caro (1876-1943) . In: Kirsten-Serup Bilfeldt: Stolpersteine ​​- Forgotten names, blown traces. Guide to the fate of Cologne during the Nazi era . Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2004, 2nd edition, ISBN 3-462-03535-5 , p. 35
4. ^ Center for Jewish History Digital Collections: Autobiography, p. 3
5. ↑ Joseph Walk (ed.): Short biographies on the history of the Jews 1918–1945. Edited by the Leo Baeck Institute, Jerusalem. Saur, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-598-10477-4 , p. 53.
6. ↑ Center for Jewish History Digital Collections: Autobiography, p. 4ff.
7. ↑ joodsmonument.nl: Digital Monument to the Jewish Community in the Netherlands (Hermann Caro) , accessed on March 5, 2016
8. ^ Yad Vashem: Transport from Apeldoorn, Gelderland, The Netherlands to Auschwitz Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland on 22/01/1943. Retrieved May 28, 2018 . 
9. ^ Yad Vashem: Memorial sheet for Hermann Caro , accessed on March 5, 2016
10. ^ Bundesarchiv.de: Memorial Book - Victims of the Persecution of Jews under the National Socialist Tyranny in Germany 1933-1945 (Caro, Hermann) , accessed on March 5, 2016
11. ↑ destentor.nl | Holcaust victims from Het Apeldoornschen Bosch. Retrieved May 28, 2018 (Dutch). 
12. ↑ Dr. Isidor Caro (1876-1943) . In: Kirsten-Serup Bilfeldt: Stolpersteine ​​- Forgotten names, blown traces. Guide to the fate of Cologne during the Nazi era . Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2004, 2nd edition, ISBN 3-462-03535-5 , p. 37
13. ↑ Transport list of the deportation train to Theresienstadt, June 15, 1942, (III / 1), page 7, No. 139/140 , accessed on February 24, 2015
14. ^ Dalia Ofer, Lenore J. Weitzman: Women in the Holocaust . Yale University Press, 1998, ISBN 0-300-08080-8 , p. 319
15. ^ Gudrun Maierhof: Self-Assertion in Chaos: Women in Jewish Self-Help 1933-1943 . Campus 2002, ISBN 978-3-5933-7042-2 , p. 285
16. ↑ ghetto-theresienstadt.de: Transporte von Theresienstadt , accessed on January 13, 2015
17. ↑ holocaust.cz: Transport III / 1 ( Memento of the original from January 15, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed February 24, 2015 
18. ^ Center for Jewish History Digital Collections: Autobiography, p. 9
19. ↑ Center for Jewish History Digital Collections: Autobiography, pp. 10f.
20. ^ Center for Jewish History Digital Collections: Autobiography, p. 15
21. ^ Center for Jewish History Digital Collections: A seder night to remember
22. ^ Center for Jewish History Digital Collections: Autobiography
23. ^ Center for Jewish History Digital Collections: Stronger than the sword. In memory of the martyrs of Theresienstadt
24. ^ Center for Jewish History Digital Collections: The Fall of German Jewry in the Period 1941 to 1942