Max Tschornicki

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Max Tschornicki (born August 9, 1903 in Rüsselsheim ; † April 20, 1945 in the Allach subcamp ) was a German resistance fighter against National Socialism . Besides Wilhelm Vogel, he was the only prisoner who managed to escape from the Osthofen concentration camp near Worms ( Rhineland-Palatinate ).

Life

Max Tschornicki grew up as the son of Russian immigrants. He was raised in a Jewish Orthodox manner and was a member of several Jewish youth associations. As a student he joined the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD). He later became a member of the SPD and the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold . He attended a grammar school in Mainz and then studied law . He worked as a lawyer in Mainz and the surrounding area and mainly defended SPD and Reichsbanner members.

Tschornicki was considered a committed fighter against the National Socialists. On May 24, 1933 he was arrested on the basis of the presidential decree for the protection of the people and the state and was sent to the Osthofen concentration camp , which was one of the first concentration camps established by the National Socialists. As a Jew and member of the SPD, he was doubly hated by the thugs from the Sturmabteilung and Schutzstaffel who formed the guards there. With the help of fellow prisoners, citizens of Osthofen and his fiancés, he managed to escape from the concentration camp on July 3, 1933. His escape had far-reaching consequences. Not only was the guarding of the concentration camp increased, a ban on visitors imposed and some prisoners severely punished, his family was also taken into “ protective custody ”.

Tschornicki first fled to the Saar area , which at that time was still administered as a mandate area of the League of Nations , and from there to Toulouse , later to Lyon . After the German occupation of France in 1940, he joined the French Resistance . He was arrested in 1944. On August 11, 1944, Tschornicki was taken to the Auschwitz concentration camp , followed by transfers to other concentration camps. On April 20, 1945, he died in Allach , a subcamp of Dachau concentration camp , to dysentery , just nine days before the liberation of the concentration camp by Allied troops.

Literary adaptations

Maybe this real escape from the Osthofen concentration camp in the Paris served emigration living Anna Seghers as a template for its world-famous novel The Seventh Cross , which she wrote between September 1938 and October 1939th Unlike in the novel, however, there was no mass exodus from the real Osthofen concentration camp. According to Erwin Rotermund's research results, there are some indications that Anna Seghers “was inspired by an incident that took place in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in November 1936 in the epic embodiment of this motif ”.

In 2013, the Chawwerusch Theater in Herxheim turned Tschornicki's life story into a play that works with texts by Seghers, Stéphane Hessel , Walter Benjamin and Wolf Biermann's transmission of the Yiddish workers' song Sol sajn . The piece was also performed in the Osthofen Concentration Camp Memorial.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Angelika Arenz-Morch: Max Tschornicki - a Mainz socialist from a Jewish family . In: Mainzer Geschichtsblätter sheets . Résumés of the dictatorship 1933–1945, Issue 15, 2014, pp. 71 to 97.
  2. ^ Rolf Müller: The way to Auschwitz . In: Badische Zeitung . March 2, 2013 ( badische-zeitung.de ).
  3. ↑ a b c Max Tschornicki. Project Osthofen, accessed on June 18, 2013 .
  4. ↑ a b Wolfgang Benz (Ed.): Early camp. History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. Volume 2. Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-52962-3 . Pp. 181-184
  5. ^ Klaus Drobisch , Günther Wieland : System of the Nazi concentration camps. 19331939. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-05-000823-7 . P. 163
  6. ↑ Angelika Arenz-Morch, Martina Ruppert-Kelly: The Osthofen Concentration Camp Memorial . Ed .: State Center for Political Education Rhineland-Palatinate. Osthofen 2010, p. 11 ( political-bildung-rlp.de [PDF]).
  7. ↑ In Drobisch, July 5th is mentioned, on July 6th the escape report appeared in the Mainzer Tageszeitung . Drobisch: System of the Nazi concentration camps , p. 163
  8. ^ Sven Langhammer: Escape from concentration camps from 1933 to 1937 . In: Resistant ways (=  information no. 68 ). November 2008 ( resistance-1933-1945.de [PDF]).
  9. ^ Klaus Drobisch, Günther Wieland: The system of the Nazi concentration camps: 1933–1939 . Akademie Verlag, 1993, ISBN 978-3-05-000823-3 , pp. 169 .
  10. ^ Bernhard Spies: Commentary , to: Anna Seghers: Werkausgabe. The seventh cross , construction, Berlin 2000, pp. 445–496
  11. ↑ Erwin Rotermund: Seven refugees and seven crosses . In: Argonautenschiff , Volume 10, p. 253
  12. ↑ Ulrike Schäfer: The Osthofen concentration camp memorial commemorates a Jewish lawyer. (No longer available online.) Wormser Zeitung , June 4, 2013, formerly in the original ; Retrieved July 22, 2013 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.wormser-zeitung.de  
personal data
SURNAME Tschornicki, Max
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German resistance fighters against National Socialism
DATE OF BIRTH August 9, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Ruesselsheim
DATE OF DEATH April 20, 1945
Place of death Allach subcamp