Memorial for the murdered Jews of Hanover
The memorial for the murdered Jews of Hanover was erected in 1994 based on a design by the Italian artist Michelangelo Pistoletto on Opernplatz, one of the central squares in Hanover . The memorial next to the opera house , erected on the initiative of the Memoriam Association from private donations , commemorates more than 6,800 Jews who were victims of National Socialism . To date, 1,935 names have been set in stone. The age at the time of deportation was noted for the names of the deportees , and the year of birth for the other victims. As far as is known, the further fate of each individual victim was listed. If the place of death could not be determined, " missing " was noted , as is customary elsewhere .
history
The history of Jews in Hanover until the end of the Third Reich holds a central inscription on the memorial as follows:
“This memorial was erected in memory of over 6,800 Jews in Hanover: many families have lived here for generations. From 1933 onwards, they were humiliated, disenfranchised, chased away, driven to suicide or killed by the National Socialists: The remaining Jewish children, women and men had to vacate their apartments in 1941 and were crammed into " Jewish houses " with the help of the city administration . From there they were torn out of the citizenry, deported and murdered without significant resistance from the rest of the population.
The transports went to Poland on October 28, 1938, to Poland on June 25, 1939, to Riga on December 15, 1941 , to Warsaw on March 31, 1942 , to Theresienstadt on June 23, 1942 , and to Auschwitz on March 2, 1943 , on March 16, 1943 to Theresienstadt, on June 30, 1943 to Theresienstadt, on January 11, 1944 to Theresienstadt, on February 20, 1945 to Theresienstadt. There were only a few survivors in Hanover: 27 were liberated by American soldiers on April 10, 1945 in the Ahlem assembly camp . The names of the murdered, as far as is known today, are recorded on this memorial. Erected 50 years later by a Hanover citizens' initiative , supported by many citizens and by the city of Hanover: Hanover, October 9, 1994 "
Among those deported to Poland on October 28, 1938 as part of the Poland campaign was the Grünspan family from Burgstrasse 36. The second eldest son of the family, Herschel Grünspan , was in Paris at the time. When he found out that his family had been expelled, he bought a revolver on November 7, 1938, drove to the German embassy in Paris and shot five times at Legation Councilor Ernst Eduard vom Rath , who happened to be there , and who died on November 9. This was hyped up by the National Socialists as an "attack on world Jewry " and used as a pretext for the long-planned November pogroms in 1938 , which were staged as "spontaneous acts of popular anger". The following night synagogues were set on fire throughout the German Reich, including the New Synagogue in Hanover on Bergstrasse. It burned out.
Before the building was erected, there were controversial discussions for years about the pros and cons of such a memorial. Finally, on the initiative of the Memoriam eV association, enough private donations were collected to be able to hand over the building to the public on October 9, 1994.
On the day of the inauguration, State Rabbi Henry Brandt offered the following prayer :
“We remember our brothers and sisters in the Jewish community of Hanover, who were driven to their deaths by arrogance , hatred and racial madness during the Nazi tyranny, or who were mocked or scorned from their homeland and driven abroad. We mourn for everything that was destroyed with them. Not only was their place of worship reduced to ashes by iniquitous hands, but their wisdom, goodness and righteousness, which could have saved worlds and healed many wounds, were destroyed. We mourn for skills and knowledge, for laughs and smiles that we lost with them. The world would become poorer and our hearts would freeze if we forgot the glory that could have been.
We remember her role model with thanks. They are like lights that shine over to us from the darkness of those years, and in their shine we can see what is good - and what is bad. May such bad times never return, so that their sacrifice is not in vain either. By remembering them we gain strength in our daily struggle against cruelty and prejudice, against tyranny and persecution. Amen . "
At the inauguration in 1994, the names of 1,890 victims were known. On the basis of further research , a further 25 names could be added in 1997, and another 20 in 2004.
In mid-2012, the memorial was smeared by strangers and carelessly dirty with chewing gum . Following a letter from the Chairman of the Jewish Community in Lower Saxony , Michael Prince , to the then Lord Mayor Stephan Weil and a more intensive cleaning of the monument to restore the dignity of the place was in 2013 set up a separate, both sides explanatory information board: During an event organized by the Department of Education and qualification of State capital, project remembrance culture, Ingrid Wettberg , chairwoman of the Liberal Jewish Congregation , together with culture and school department head Marlis Drevermann unveiled the table in front of numerous guests from politics, culture and history of the city of Hanover , including the Holocaust survivors and Contemporary witnesses Salomon Finkelstein and Henry Korman . During the event, students from the St. Ursula School remembered the fate of individual Hanoverians who had become victims of the Holocaust.
See also
- History of the Jews in Hanover
- Memorial at the Fischerhof train station
- Memorial to the memory of Jewish life on Ohestrasse
literature
- Memoriam eV (Ed.): A memorial for the murdered Jewish children, women and men in Hanover , Hanover 1994
- Peter Schulze : Jews in Hanover. Contributions to the history and culture of a minority. Texts and pictures from the exhibitions "Jews in Hanover" and "Historical Torah curtains from Hanover's former synagogues" in the Alte Predigthalle , Cultural Office of the City of Hanover, Hanover 1989 (= cultural information no. 19)
- Peter Schulze: Names and fates of the Jewish victims of National Socialism from Hanover , Association for the Promotion of Knowledge about Jewish History and Culture e. V., Hanover 1995
- Ulrike Dursthoff, Michael Pechel (editor): Memorial for the murdered Jews of Hanover / Opernplatz , in: Places of Remembrance. Guide to sites of persecution and resistance during the Nazi regime in the Hanover region , ed. from the network remembrance and future in the Hanover region, self-published, no year [2007], p. 84f.
- Network Remembrance and Future Region Hannover: Places of Remembrance: Memorial for the murdered Jews of Hanover , online
- Julia Berlit-Jackstien, Karljosef Kreter (Ed.): Deported into death. The deportation of 1001 Hanoverians to Riga on December 15, 1941 Exhibition catalog for the exhibition of the same name from December 15, 2011 to January 27, 2012 in the New Town Hall , series of writings on memory culture in Hanover, vol. 1, Hanover 2011, ISBN 978-3-7752 -6200-2
Documentary film
- A memorial for the murdered Jewish children, women and men in Hanover , NDR 1995 (45 minutes)
Press review
- Tobias Morchner: Memorial at the Opera / Fear for the dignity of the place in the Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung (HAZ) on August 10, 2012, last accessed on October 27, 2013
- Tobias Morchner: Memorial event / dispute over the Holocaust memorial escalates in the HAZ on August 13, 2012, last accessed on October 27, 2013
Web links
- Holocaust memorial , complete texts and all images from both sides of the information board can be downloaded as a PDF document from hannover.de , last accessed on April 19, 2017
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d Network Remembrance and Future Region Hannover: Places of Remembrance: Memorial for the murdered Jews of Hanover (see literature)
- ^ Photo of the burned out synagogue ( memento from January 31, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ a b c Ulrike Dursthoff, Michael Pechel (editor): Memorial for the murdered Jews of Hanover (see literature)
- ↑ Compare for example the section press review
- ↑ a b Compare the documentation at Commons (see under the section Web Links )
- ↑ Info sheet Holocaust Memorial / Unveiling of the information board for the event of the state capital Hanover, Department of Education and Qualification, Project Remembrance Culture from October 25, 2013
Coordinates: 52 ° 22 ′ 20.6 " N , 9 ° 44 ′ 27.5" E