Memorial for the victims of the November pogroms 1938 (Bremen)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Memorial to the victims

The memorial for the victims of the “Reichskristallnacht” from November 9th to 10th 1938 - the so-called Reichspogromnacht  - during which not only “crystal” and shop windows were broken in Bremen , but also five Jewish citizens were murdered by the National Socialists , has been located near the Landherrn-Amt building in Bremen- Mitte on Dechanatstrasse and the corner of Am Landherrnamt since 1982 . The memorial , built from simple black, panel-like cubes, was designed by Hans D. Voss and is made of black-painted concrete.

The November pogroms in Bremen in 1938

On November 9 and 10, 1938, numerous acts of violence up to and including several murders were committed in Bremen as a result of the measures of violence against Jews in Germany and Austria , which were centrally organized and directed by the National Socialist regime . Among other things, the synagogue in Gartenstrasse (in Schnoorviertel , today Kolpingstrasse) was set on fire by SA men - while the fire brigade only protected the neighboring houses - and the Jewish community hall next to it was looted, as was the Vegesack synagogue and a prayer house on Sebaldsbrücker Heerstrasse . The Jewish cemetery in Hastedt was devastated and many Jewish graves desecrated. The SA also looted and partly destroyed shops and private homes of Jewish owners and arrested the majority of male citizens of Jewish origin. During the night, more than 160 of them were rounded up in the schoolyard of the old grammar school on Dechanatstrasse and, after being imprisoned for one day in the Bremen penitentiary, transported via Oranienburg to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp , where they were held for a few weeks. Many of them later perished in the extermination camps in the course of the systematic murder of Jewish citizens by the Nazi regime .

Five people were murdered in the Bremen pogrom night: the chief fitter Leopold Sinasohn in Platjenwerbe near Bremen-Nord, and in the city of Bremen the medical officer Dr. Adolph Goldberg and his wife Martha in Burgdamm, the small trader Heinrich Rosenblum in Neustadt and Selma Zwienicki , the wife of a bicycle dealer in Hohentorstrasse. These aimless and arbitrary acts were only prosecuted after 1945 and were atoned for with moderate prison terms.

The trivializing expression “Reichskristallnacht” , originated in the Third Reich and benevolently accepted by the rulers, is avoided today because it does not do justice to the cruel historical reality.

The monument

Memorial plaque on the memorial

The erection of the memorial goes back to a private initiative. The “Reichskristallnacht Memorial” project was approved by the Bremen citizenship in 1978 and the Senate promised its support. The Reichskristallnacht Memorial Association, founded in 1980 . V. led by the businessman Dirk Heinrichs and the architect Fritz Busse organized a fundraising campaign and an artist competition. Its winner was the Informel artist Hans Dieter Voss (1926–1980) with the idea of closing off the space in front of the Landherrn-Amt building , not far from the site of the former synagogue and the old grammar school, with the simple, wall-like monument made of stacked cubes . Delayed by the artist's death, the memorial was not completed until February 24, 1982.

The memorial bears a plaque with the following inscription:

OUR JEWISH CITIZENS
MARTHA GOLDBERG
DR. ADOLF GOLDBERG
HEINRICH ROSENBLUM
LEOPOLD SINASOHN
SELMA SWINITZKI
WERE MURDERED IN THIS CITY ON THE
NIGHT OF November 9-10, 1938

Dr. Goldberg and his wife were also honored in Burglesum with a memorial stone and - against the protest of the retail trade - a place name.

literature

  • Wiltrud Ulrike Drechsel, Jürn Jacob Lohse: Holocaust memorials in Bremen 1945-2001 . In: Wiltrud Ulrike Drechsel (ed.): History in public space. Monuments in Bremen between 1435 and 2001 . Donat, Bremen 2011, ISBN 978-3-938275-84-9 , pp. 103-132, especially pp. 119-122 .
  • Rolf Rübsam: They lived among us. In memory of the victims of the "Reichskristallnacht" in 1938 in Bremen and the surrounding area . Hauschild, Bremen 1988, ISBN 3-926598-09-3 .
  • Ulrike Puvogel, Martin Stankowski : Memorials for the Victims of National Socialism. A documentation . Volume I (federal states of Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Bremen, Hamburg, Hesse, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland and Schleswig-Holstein). Ed .: Federal Agency for Civic Education . 2nd, revised and expanded edition. Federal Agency for Civic Education, Bonn 1995, ISBN 3-89331-208-0 , p. 208–209:  Memorial at the Landherrnamt ( digital version [PDF; 24.2 MB ] / reprint 1996).

Web links

Commons : Memorial for the victims of the November pogroms 1938 (Bremen)  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: Reichspogromnacht  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations
Wiktionary: "Reichskristallnacht"  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Wilhelm Lührs (author): "Reichskristallnacht" in Bremen. Prehistory, course of events and judicial management of the pogrom of 9/10 November 1938 . Ed .: Senator for Justice and Constitution of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen in conjunction with the Israelite Community of Bremen . Steintor Verlagsgesellschaft, Bremen 1988, ISBN 3-926028-40-8 .
  2. ↑ a b Herbert Black Forest : History of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen . Extended and improved edition. tape 4 : Bremen during the Nazi era (1933-1945) . Edition Temmen, Bremen 1995, ISBN 978-3-86108-283-5 , pp. 314-319 .
  3. ↑ a b c d Ulrike Puvogel, Martin Stankowski : Memorials for the victims of National Socialism. A documentation . Volume I (federal states of Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Bremen, Hamburg, Hesse, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland and Schleswig-Holstein). Ed .: Federal Agency for Civic Education . 2nd, revised and expanded edition. Federal Agency for Civic Education, Bonn 1995, ISBN 3-89331-208-0 , p. 208–209:  Memorial at the Landherrnamt ( digital version [PDF; 24.2 MB ; accessed on February 2, 2019] / reprint 1996).
  4. ↑ Wiltrud Ulrike Drechsel, Jürn Jacob Lohse: Holocaust memorials in Bremen 1945-2001 . In: Wiltrud Ulrike Drechsel (ed.): History in public space. Monuments in Bremen between 1435 and 2001 . Donat, Bremen 2011, ISBN 978-3-938275-84-9 , pp. 119-122 .

Remarks

  1. ↑ It should be more correctly "Adolph" and "Zwienicki". Platjenwerbe never belonged to Bremen, but Leopold Sinasohn's murderers came from Lesum, which was incorporated into Bremen in 1939.

Coordinates: 53 ° 4 ′ 26.2 "  N , 8 ° 48 ′ 33"  E