Oskar Singer

Oskar Singer (born February 24, 1893 in Ustroń , Austria-Hungary ; died December 31, 1944 in Kaufering ) was a Czechoslovakian lawyer, writer, journalist, chief editor of the Chronicle of the Lodz / Litzmannstadt Ghetto and a Zionist .

Life

Oskar Singer was the son of a textile merchant and grew up in Friedeck ( Sudetenland ). In 1911 he passed the Matura in the German-speaking Kronprinz-Rudolf-Gymnasium there. He then studied from the winter semester 1911/12 to the summer semester 1914 and in the summer semester 1918 at the Law Faculty of the University of Vienna. There he was on June 3, 1919 Doctor of the rights doctorate . In Neu-Oderberg he ran his own law firm. Later Singer was co-owner of a freight forwarding company.

Singer served as an officer in the Austro-Hungarian Army in the First World War . Singer wrote his first literary work during his military service: the drama "Landsturm". As a student he also published other texts, including the play "Jerusalem" and the comedy "Rosenbaum contra Rosenbaum". But these works remain lost. At the age of 40, Singer decided to start over and became a journalist. After moving to Prague he wrote for the “Prager Tagblatt”, for the weekly magazine “Der Montag” (from 13 July 1936 “The Prague Illustrated Monday”) and for the bilingual Prague newspaper “Jüdische Nachrichtenblatt / Židovské listy” (JNB). During the German occupation he was editor-in-chief of the JNB from December 22, 1939 to October 17, 1941.

On October 26, 1941 Singer was with his family in the Lodz ghetto / Litzmannstadt deported . There he worked in the statistical department of the Jewish elder Chaim Rumkowski and edited a. a. "The Chronicle of the Lodz / Litzmannstadt Ghetto". His secretary was Lucille Eichengreen . In August 1944 Singer was transferred via the Auschwitz and Sachsenhausen concentration camps to the Dachau concentration camp . According to the archives of the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site , Singer was then deported to the Kaufering satellite camp in Dachau , where he died on December 31, 1944.

plant

Singer's work includes at least four dramas, three of which are now unknown, as well as journalistic articles in Czech-German-language newspapers and recordings from the Lodz / Litzmannstadt ghetto.

Literary activity

Singer's first drama, “Landsturm”, was written around 1916/1917. The play, which was written during his military deployment and apparently a sensation, dealt with the conditions in the Austro-Hungarian Army and was banned about an hour and a half before the planned performance. Two other pieces, the drama “Jerusalem” and the comedy “Rosenbaum contra Rosenbaum”, like “Landsturm”, cannot be found.

Singer's only drama that is still accessible today and was reissued in 2001, “Herren der Welt: Zeitstück in Drei Akten”, anticipates the persecution and extermination of Jews by the National Socialists at the moment of its creation, in 1935: The Jewish engineer and inventor Dr . Walter Bergmann is fired from the Boese armaments company by the Nazis. He escapes to Prague, where he is followed by two agents. However, the agents who seek after Bergmann's life and are supposed to steal his building sketches for a war-decisive machine are finally exposed and arrested.

In addition to the persecution of the Jews, the motive of assimilation plays a major role. The brothers Robert and Walter Bergmann represent two opposing poles in this regard: Robert saw through National Socialism and even speaks of the "gassed air" of anti-Semitic hatred. His brother Walter embodies the nationally minded Jew who strives for complete assimilation. He served in World War I and still sees Germany big. He also believed almost to the end that he could dictate its conditions to the Nazi regime.

Several other aspects testify to the timeliness of the time piece. The piece is set “in the year 46 ndGF (after the birth of the Führer)”. The machine that Bergmann is said to have invented is used to eliminate enemy aircraft. Singer also speaks about the terrorist institutions, such as the Oranienburg concentration camp .

Journalistic activity

After the occupation, Singer played an important role: from November 24, 1939 (proven from December 22, 1939) he was editor-in-chief of the only Jewish weekly newspaper "Jüdisches Nachrichtenblatt" that was still permitted. At the same time, Singer was a member of the leadership of the Jewish religious community and Adolf Eichmann's agent . He had to submit the planned draft of the JNB once a week. In his articles, Singer not only called for emigration to Palestine. He continued to criticize the attitude of anti-Zionist Jewish circles. He gave his readers courage a. a. through the memories of Theodor Herzl and through the fact that he mentioned him as an example of a prophetic greatness.

The letter in the Lodz Ghetto / Litzmannstadt: The "Chronicle" and the "Encyclopedia" of the ghetto

Soon after his arrival in the ghetto, Singer found a position in the statistics department of the Jewish elder. In this section, sources have been collected “for future scholars studying the life of a Jewish community in one of its most difficult times”. Above all, there is a parallel to the Oneg Shabbat Marigold Archive set up in the Warsaw Ghetto .

Since the end of 1942 Singer worked on the "Chronicle". After Julian Cerski, the main Polish chronicler and editor-in-chief, fell ill with tuberculosis, Singer took over his post on a provisional basis from January 1943. With its rise, an important change can be noted in the “Chronicle”: From September 1942, the daily reports no longer appear in Polish, but in German. Individual reports in Polish are rarely included. From January 1943, the texts are written down exclusively in German. It was also Singer who introduced the columnist column “The little ghetto mirror”: Here, miniatures depict life behind the wires for future readers. Singer was also involved as an author in the second major project of the statistical department, the “Encyclopedia”. Here personalities, facilities, events and objects from the ghetto were explained on individual index cards and prepared for readers from the future. The "Encyclopedia" is available as a manuscript in the archives in Poland , Israel and the USA .

Records from the ghetto

Oskar Singer's reports "'In a hurry through the ghetto day ...", oscillating between diary entry, essay, note and journalistic articles, were discovered in the Lodz State Archives during the edition of the "Chronicle of the Lodz Ghetto / Litzmannstadt". The main subjects of Singer's notes are reports on the activities of the ghetto operations: Above all, the will to live, human dignity and self-assertion come to the fore. Personal benefit and arbitrariness are pilloried even in the difficult living conditions. The Singer family's own physical needs and sufferings are often discussed. On the other hand, the author rarely speaks of the Nazi perpetrators, as he presumably does not consider them worth mentioning. The controversial Jewish elder Chaim Rumkowski is viewed very mildly: direct criticism of his actions is also avoided. In the essays “On the Problem East and West” Singer addresses the differences between East and West Jews.

Fonts (selection)

• “Clairvoyant Halmström” (radio play; broadcast on February 8, 1935 on the Prague radio).
• "Gentlemen of the World: Time Piece in Three Acts", Prague: Refta-Verlag, 1935. New ed. by Sascha Feuchert, Hamburg: Research Center for Exile Literature, 2001.
• "'In a hurry through the ghetto day ...' Reports and essays from the Lodz ghetto", ed. by Sascha Feuchert, Erwin Leibfried, Jörg Riecke and Julian Baranowski, Krystyna Radziszewska and Krzysztof Woźniak, Berlin: Philo-Verlagsanstalt, 2002.
• “'Przemierzając szybkim krokiem getto…'. Reportaże i eseje z getta łodzkiego “, Łódź: Oficyna Bibliofilów, 2002. [Polish edition of the previous title.]

literature

• The Chronicle of the Ghetto Lodz / Litzmannstadt , 5 volumes, ed. by Sascha Feuchert , Erwin Leibfried , Jörg Riecke , Göttingen: Wallstein, 2007.
• FB: Singer's 'Lords of the World' , in: "The Critique", 10/1935, p. 14
• Sascha Feuchert : Oskar Rosenfeld and Oskar Singer. Two authors of the Lodz Ghetto. Studies on Holocaust literature, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2004 (= Gießener Papers on Modern German Literature and Literary Studies, 24).
• Carsten Jakobi: The small victory over anti-Semitism. Presentation and interpretation of the National Socialist persecution of the Jews in the German-speaking period of exile 1933-1945. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 2005 (= studies and texts on the social history of literature, 106). [on 'Lords of the World': pp. 197–208]
• Kronika Getta Lodzkiego / Litzmannstadt Ghetto 1941–1944. Opracowanie i redakcja naukowa Julian Baranowski, Krystyna Radziszewska, Jacek Walicki, Ewa Wiatr, Piotr Zawilski u. a. 5 volumes. Łódź: Archivum Panstwowe w Lodzi / Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Lodzkiego, 2009. [Polish edition of the "Chronicle".]
• W. Sternfeld : In search of a diary , in: "Aufbau", April 26, 1946, p. 33.
• Andrea Löw: Jews in the Litzmannstadt ghetto. Living conditions, self-perception, behavior . Göttingen: Wallstein, 2006. ISBN 978-3-8353-0050-7

Web links

• Oskar Singer at the Holocaust Literature Department at the Institute for German Studies at the Justus Liebig University in Giessen .
• The German-speaking chroniclers and ghetto authors at the German Department of the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Cf. Feuchert, Sascha: “Oskar Rosenfeld and Oskar Singer. Two authors of the Lodz Ghetto. Studies on Holocaust Literature ”, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2004 (= Gießener Papers on Modern German Literature and Literary Studies, 24), pp. 170–174.
2. ↑ See Feuchert 2004: 170–173f.
3. ↑ Cf. Feuchert 2004: 174; 186-198. The inventory of the JNB cf. on deposit.d-nb.de - Jewish magazines in Nazi Germany
4. ↑ Cf. Feuchert 2004: 199 as well as “Oskar Singer and his texts from the Ghetto - an introduction”, in: “'In a quick step through the Getto Day…' reports and essays from the Lodz Ghetto”, ed. by Sascha Feuchert, Erwin Leibfried, Jörg Riecke and Julian Baranowski, Krystyna Radziszewska and Krzysztof Woźniak, Berlin: Philo-Verlagsanstalt, 2002, pp. 9-25, here p. 22.
5. ↑ FRONTIER project “Writing in the Holocaust” at Heidelberg University - literature, footnote 23
6. ^ Janina Reibold: FRONTIER project "Writing in the Holocaust" - The German-speaking chroniclers and ghetto authors. German Department - Heidelberg University, accessed on September 14, 2018 . 
7. ↑ See W. Sternfeld: "In search of a diary.", In: "Aufbau", April 26, 1946, p. 33.
8. ↑ Singer, Oskar: "Lords of the World: Time Piece in Three Acts", ed. by Sascha Feuchert, Hamburg: Research Center for Exile Literature, 2001, p. 48.
9. ↑ Cf. Feuchert 2004: 179f.
10. ↑ See Singer 2001: 36f.
11. ↑ Cf. Feuchert 2004: 187.
12. ↑ See Feuchert 2004: 189–192.
13. ↑ Cf. Singer, Oskar: “Theodor Herzl. For the eightieth anniversary of his birthday. (May 1860). ”, In: JNB, April 26, 1940, p. 3.
14. ↑ From a speech by Henryk Neftalin, the founder of the archive, to which the statistical department also belonged; quoted from: "The Chronicle of the Lodz Ghetto", ed. by Lucjan Dobroszycki, New Haven / London: Yale University Press, 1984, p. X; translated by Sascha Feuchert for Singer 2002.
15. ↑ Cf. Feuchert, Sascha: “The Ghetto Chronicle: Origin and Tradition. A project sketch. ”, In:“ The Chronicle of the Ghetto Lodz / Litzmannstadt ”, 5th vol., Ed. by Sascha Feuchert, Erwin Leibfried and Jörg Riecke, Göttingen: Wallstein, 2007, here vol. 5: “Supplemente”, pp. 167–190, here p. 180.
16. ↑ See Singer 2002.
17. ↑ See "Oskar Singer and his texts", in: Singer 2002, p. 9.
18. ↑ See Singer 2002: 177–206.
19. ↑ See "Oskar Singer and his texts", in: Singer 2002, pp. 2–16.