Moritz Henschel

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Moritz Henschel (* 17th February 1879 in Breslau , † 22. April 1947 in Tel Aviv ) was a German lawyer , last chairman of the Jewish Community of Berlin in the era of National Socialism and the last chairman of the National Association of Jews in Germany .

Life

Henschel visited a human High School and studied after high school law . After passing the state examination , he worked as a lawyer at the Berlin Chamber of Commerce from 1910 to 1938 , also acted as a notary from 1922 to 1935 and was a member of the board of the Berlin Bar Association from 1930 to 1933 . Henschel, married to Hildegard born in 1921. Alexander (* 1897) and father of two children, took part in the First World War as a soldier until 1915 . Henschel achieved the rank of deputy officer and was awarded the Iron Cross II. Class and the Cross of Honor for Frontline Fighters .

Henschel was a member of the board of directors of the Jewish Community in Berlin as well as of the Reich Association of Jews in Germany in Berlin. In March 1940, Henschel succeeded Heinrich Stahl as chairman of the Jewish community in Berlin. After the Jewish community was incorporated into the Reich Association of Jews in Germany at the end of January 1943 , he became the last chairman of the Reich Association from the beginning of February 1943. His predecessor in this position Leo Baeck was the end of January 1943 in the Theresienstadt ghetto deported Service. After the dissolution of the Reichsvereinigung in June 1943, Henschel was also deported to Theresienstadt together with his wife, where he arrived on June 17, 1943. In Theresienstadt he was a member of the council of elders , headed the post office and, from 1944, the leisure department. Henschel credibly testified that until 1945 he had never heard of the murder of the Jews.

After the Henschel couple were liberated by the Red Army in Theresienstadt on May 9, 1945 , they ended up in Palestine via a DP camp . In September 1946 Moritz Henschel wrote a five-page report entitled “The Last Years of the Jewish Community Berlin” for a lecture. He died in April 1947.

literature

  • Gudrun Maierhof: Assertion in Chaos: Women in Jewish Self-Help 1933–1943 ; Campus Verlag, 2002; ISBN 9783593370422
  • Esriel Hildesheimer: Jewish self-government under the Nazi regime ; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1994; ISBN 9783161461798

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ John F. Oppenheimer (Red.) And a .: Lexicon of Judaism. 2nd Edition. Bertelsmann Lexikon Verlag, Gütersloh u. a. 1971, ISBN 3-570-05964-2 , col. 657.
  2. ^ Entry from the celebrity album of the Jewish self-government in the Theresienstadt ghetto from January 1, 1944 Henschel, Moritz
  3. ↑ Beate Meyer: The inevitable dilemma: The Reich Association of Jews in Germany, deportations and the Jews in hiding. In: Beate Kosmala / Claudia Schoppmann (ed.): Survival in the underground. Berlin 2002, p. 291.
  4. ^ Gudrun Maierhof: Self-Assertion in Chaos: Women in Jewish Self-Help 1933–1943 ; 2002; P. 280f.
personal data
SURNAME Henschel, Moritz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Chairman of the Jewish Community in Berlin
DATE OF BIRTH February 17, 1879
PLACE OF BIRTH Wroclaw
DATE OF DEATH April 22, 1947
Place of death Tel Aviv