Margot Wicki-Schwarzschild

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Margot Wicki-Schwarzschild (born 1931 in Kaiserslautern , died on December 29, 2020 in Basel ) was a German survivor of the Holocaust and a contemporary witness . She survived two internment camps in France.

Life

Steinstrasse 30 Richard Schwarzschild.jpg
Stumbling blocks on Richard ...
Steinstrasse 30 Luise Schwarzschild.jpg
... and refer Luise Schwarzschild


Her father Richard Schwarzschild, born on December 12, 1898 in Kaiserslautern, was of Jewish origin, her mother Aloisia called "Luise", née Keim, was Catholic. She had a sister: Hannelore (1929–2014). The family celebrated both Christian and Jewish holidays . The family lived at Steinstrasse 30 in Kaiserslautern . In 1938 her father was sent to the Dachau concentration camp . When he returned, he was not allowed to speak about what had happened to him there. When she was seven years old, she was evicted from school. The synagogue , on whose organ her father regularly played, was destroyed.

In the early morning of October 22, 1940, the Gestapo deported the entire family to the French Camp de Gurs in the Pyrenees in the so-called Wagner-Bürckel action . "Hunger, lice, bugs, fleas and rats were just as much a part of everyday life as the omnipresent mud." In 1941 Margot Wicki-Schwarzschild was relocated to Camp de Rivesaltes with her mother and sister . In November of the same year the two sisters came to a home run by the Children's Aid of the Swiss Red Cross in Pringy in Haute-Savoie . The father was able to rent a small apartment in semi-freedom near Carcassonne and brought the family to him. But in 1942 they were again deported to Rivesaltes , where the family was separated. The father was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1943 and murdered there. With the help of Friedel Bohny-Reiter , a sister of the Swiss Red Cross, and with a photograph of her communion, the mother was able to save herself and her daughters from deportation. Bohny-Reiter, who had exceeded the requirements of the Red Cross regarding neutrality in order to save human lives, was recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations in 1990 . An article by Sister Hannelore about the conditions in the camp was sent to a Jewish newspaper in Switzerland. A Swiss teacher read this report and then sent the family food parcels. Schwarzschild also mentions Elsa Lüthi-Ruth in Rivesaltes and Ruth von Wild in Pringy as further saviors .

After the fall of the Nazi regime, Schwarzschild's mother and daughters went back to Kaiserslautern. The daughters would have preferred to stay in France, they hardly spoke any German. They went to the boy scouts and their stories impressed the young Erhard Roy Wiehn so much that he decided to study sociology and research the fate of survival. After school, Margot Schwarzschild trained as a translator and interpreter. She found work at the American headquarters , then in a Jewish agency in Geneva. She married Josef Wicki (her sister married his brother). The couple have children and grandchildren. In 1961 they moved to Reinach , where Margot Wicki was socially committed. She began to report on her experiences in schools and became a witness. She also accompanied school classes on the trip to Gurs, together with other contemporary witnesses such as Eva Mendelsson and Paul Niedermann . Margot Wicki-Schwarzschild also published a number of memorial texts.

Indulgence

The premature legacy Margot Wicki-Schwarzschild's located in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum , a copy of inventory is in the Archives of Contemporary History of the ETH Zurich kept.

Portraits

  • Jürgen Enders (director): After the dark comes the light. Reports of life and survival in the southern French camps of Gurs and Rivesaltes. Three fates. Three portraits of Hannelore and Margot Wicki-Schwarzschild, Paul Niedermann . Documentary, 84 min, format 16: 9, language German, PAL 2, DVD-Video, Hartung-Gorre Verlag, Konstanz 2011, ISBN 978-3-86628-394-7 .
  • Elske Brault: Stumbling block to read: Margot Wicki-Schwarzschild , SWR2 - Manuscript Service, editor: Johannes Weiß
  • Thomas Brunnschweiler : Holocaust survivors give horror a language , Basellandschaftliche Zeitung , October 22, 2015
  • Andreas Schuler: One night the time had come . In: Südkurier of July 14, 2017, p. 19. (Contemporary witness report by Margot Wicki-Schwarzschild)
  • Johanna Högg: I speak for millions . In: Badische Zeitung of January 28, 2012 (contemporary witness report by Margot Wicki-Schwarzschild)

Publications

  • August Bohny : Unforgotten Stories. Community service, Swiss Children's Aid and the Red Cross in southern France 1941–1945 . Preface by Margot Wicki-Schwarzschild. Edited and introduced by Helena Kanyar Becker. Edited by Erhard Roy Wiehn. Hartung-Gorre Verlag, Konstanz 2009, ISBN 3-86628-278-8 .
  • Erhard Roy Wiehn (Ed.): Camp de Gurs. On the deportation of the Jews from southwest Germany in 1940 . With a foreword by Margot Wicki-Schwarzschild. Hartung-Gorre Verlag, Constance. Extended new edition 2010, 200 pages, ISBN 3-86628-304-0 .
  • Margot Wicki-Schwarzschild, Hannelore Wicki-Schwarzschild: Escaped Auschwitz as children, our deportation from Kaiserslautern to the French camps Gurs and Rivesaltes in 1940/42 and life afterwards in Germany and Switzerland . Anthology with texts, photos and documents. Hartung-Gorre Verlag, Konstanz 2011, ISBN 3866283393
  • Forecourt of extermination: diary of a Swiss sister in the French internment camp Rivesaltes 1941–1942. Introduction: Michèle Fleury-Seemuller, Margot Wicki-Schwarzschild, Erhard Roy Wiehn. Edited by Erhard Roy Wiehn. Hartung-Gorre, Konstanz 1995, ISBN 3-89191-917-4 .
  • Camp de Rivesaltes: Diary of a Swiss sister in a French internment camp 1941–1942 . Preface by Margot Wicki-Schwarzschild. Introduction by Michèle Fleury-Seemuller. With the collaboration of Helena Kanyar Becker ed. by Erhard Roy Wiehn. Hartung-Gorre, Konstanz 2010, ISBN 978-3-86628-291-9 (extended new edition of Vorhof der Vernichtung ).
  • Margot Wicki-Schwarzschild: «I only did what I had to do», Elsie Ruth (1909–2005). In: Helena Kanyar Becker (ed.): Forgotten women. Humanitarian aid to children and official refugee policy 1917–1948. Schwabe Verlag, Basel 2010, ISBN 3-79652695-0 . Pp. 186-206. (= Basel Contributions to History, Volume 182.)

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Margot Wicki-Schwarzschild has died. In: swr.de . December 31, 2020, accessed January 2, 2021 .
  2. ↑ Thomas Brunnschweiler : Holocaust survivors give horror a language. In: Basellandschaftliche Zeitung . October 22, 2015, accessed January 2, 2021 .
  3. ↑ Andreas Schuler: A picture and a Swiss woman saved them from the Nazis. In: Suedkurier.de. July 13, 2017, accessed April 1, 2018 .
  4. ↑ Helena Kanyar Beker (ed.): Forgotten Women: Humanitarian Child Aid and Official Refugee Policy 1917–1948 (= Basel Contributions to History; 182). Schwabe Verlag, Basel, 2010, ISBN 978-3-7965-2695-4 , pp. 186-206.
  5. ^ Melina Ness: Youth memorial trip to Gurs. In: Klartext - The official student newspaper of the Käthe-Kollwitz-Gymnasium Neustadt . November 24, 2015, accessed January 2, 2021 .
  6. ^ Daniel Nerlich, Franziska Schärli: Annual Report 2016. (pdf; 2.6 MB) ETH Zurich, Archives for Contemporary History, pp. 20, 28 , accessed on April 1, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Wicki-Schwarzschild, Margot
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schwarzschild, Margot (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German survivor of the Holocaust and contemporary witness
DATE OF BIRTH 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Kaiserslautern
DATE OF DEATH December 29, 2020
Place of death Basel