Margrit Rustow

Margrit Rustow , b. as Marguerite Wreschner , (* May 14, 1925 in Frankfurt / Main - December 19, 2014 New York) is a German-American psychotherapist and contemporary witness. During the time of National Socialism , she was arrested in the Netherlands because of her Jewish origin , deported to the Ravensbrück concentration camp and performed forced labor in the Siemens camp in Ravensbrück . After the war she emigrated to the United States and also works as a contemporary witness.

Life

The father was a partner in a metal and ore company. The children were brought up in strict Orthodox religious faith in the Jewish faith. The quotation by the law against overcrowding in German schools and universities put the transition of the ten-year-old daughter into question. In 1935 the family emigrated to Amsterdam . The father died and some family members continued to flee overseas. Margrit stayed in the Netherlands with her mother and siblings . The siblings were accommodated in different apartments and had to hide repeatedly to avoid raids.

Map of the Ravensbrück concentration camp around 1945

Site plan of the Siemens camp in Ravensbrück south of the main camp of the Ravensbrück concentration camp

Arrested and deported to the Ravensbrück concentration camp

After the occupation of the Netherlands by the National Socialists, all essential anti-Jewish measures and laws that applied in Germany were introduced by mid-1942. Marguerite's brother was deported to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp . Marguerite, her sister Charlotte and the mother Friederike were also arrested and taken to the Westerbork transit camp . At the beginning of 1944 they were transported by train to the Ravensbrück women's concentration camp. The women were given their prisoner number and blue and gray striped detention clothing with the identification intended for Jews . They stayed in the quarantine block in a separate barracks for four weeks.

Forced labor in the Siemens camp in Ravensbrück

Margrit volunteered to work at Siemens , where she worked in Hall 12 under the direction of Siemens employee Stöber. Their job consisted of making resistors out of coal dust, winding wire onto spools and then dipping them in varnish. In the Siemens workshops, Siemens employees were responsible for quality and the workload, SS guards supervised.

Her sister Charlotte also passed the aptitude test for work in the Siemens warehouse, but her mother did not. Charlotte worked the day shift from 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., Margrit, on the other hand, worked weekly, night and day. Marguerite also became a foreman because of her language skills. While the mother and sister were repairing SS uniforms that had been shot up, Margrit's job consisted of assembling electrical resistors.

Siemenslager Ravensbrück receives its own residential barracks

Since the main camp became more and more full due to the evacuation of the concentration camps in the east - the barracks were now occupied by around 500 concentration camp inmates instead of 100 - residential barracks were built next to the factory halls at the end of 1944. The living situation in the Siemens camp improved significantly compared to the main camp.

Late 1944, overcrowded barracks due to the evacuation of the concentration camps in the east

It was good for the sisters to be together and support one another. The inmates were allowed to write one letter per month, but were not allowed to share details or the truth about their condition. They were able to receive parcels, but these were checked by the SS guards and were often looted. A package of food for her sick, extremely emaciated, starving mother came too late. Before their death, Marguerite and Charlotte were allowed to see their mother, who died on January 8, 1945, again.

Theresienstadt

At the end of January 1945, when the German defeat in the war was foreseeable, the march to the Theresienstadt concentration camp was announced. The prisoners selected for this purpose were medically examined and Marguerite, Charlotte and three other prisoners were transported in normal trains and Wehrmacht trains via Berlin and Prague to the "Theresienstadt" camp. Here they were interrogated by SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann and four other SS officers.

Liberation and the return home

On May 9, 1945, Soviet soldiers liberated the Theresienstadt concentration camp and the Red Cross took over the camp. Marguerite and Charlotte made their way back to the Netherlands in the following weeks. Here they learned that their brother and his family had died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp .

They had to learn to lead a normal life again; her house became a meeting point and meeting point for relatives and friends who were returning from the concentration camps. Many of her school friends did not survive. Margrit received a scholarship to study for a year in Geneva and worked with Jewish children who had lost their parents in the war. In 1947 she visited her siblings in the USA; then Margrit and Charlotte emigrated to America. Here she continued her work with children and also her studies. In 1949 both went to Israel . Her sister later became the vice-mayor of Jerusalem . In 1956 Margrit returned to America, and after completing her studies she worked as a psychotherapist and psychoanalyst - also to come to terms with her past. She married a native of Berlin and lived and worked as Margrit Wreschner-Rustow in New York. She died there on December 19, 2014.

literature

• Hajo Funke : The other memory. Talks with Jewish scientists in exile . Fischer paperback, Frankfurt a. M. 1989, ISBN 3-596-24610-5 , Part III: Psychoanalysts who emigrated to America: Margrit Wreschner-Rustow (Frankfurt / Amsterdam / Ravensbrück / Theresienstadt / New York): We said to ourselves: We will make it , Pp. 264–294 (with short biography p. 264 and subsequent detailed questionnaire)

Web links

• Margrit Wreschner-Rustow. Werner-von-Siemens-Werkberufsschule - project siemens @ ravensbrück , accessed on October 4, 2015 (from 2010). 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hajo Funke: The other memory. Talks with Jewish scientists in exile . Fischer paperback, Frankfurt a. M. 1989, p. 264 (short biography) u. P. 272f.
2. ↑ Hajo Funke: The other memory. Talks with Jewish scientists in exile . Fischer paperback, Frankfurt a. M. 1989, p. 264 and P. 276f.
3. ↑ Hajo Funke: The other memory. Talks with Jewish scientists in exile . Fischer paperback, Frankfurt a. M. 1989, p. 264 and P. 280ff.
4. ↑ Hajo Funke: The other memory. Talks with Jewish scientists in exile . Fischer paperback, Frankfurt a. M. 1989, p. 264 and P. 282ff.
5. ↑ Hajo Funke: The other memory. Talks with Jewish scientists in exile . Fischer paperback, Frankfurt a. M. 1989, p. 264 and Pp. 291-294.