Paul Kreber
Paul Kreber (born April 10, 1910 in Diedenhofen , † September 25, 1989 in Immenstaad on Lake Constance ) was a German police officer who saved several families from the Porajmos .
Professional background
Paul Kreber grew up in Barmen . After attending a monastery school, which he completed with a high school diploma, he completed several years of military service and then worked for the Reichspost . In 1933 he joined the then banned Catholic journeymen's association . From 1941 he worked as a criminal investigation officer in the identification service and was responsible for monitoring and controlling the Sinti and Roma .
Rescuing Sinti
From 1941/42 onwards, Paul Kreber and his wife Margarete were privately friends with the Sinti Weiss family. On March 3, 1943 nine Sinti families were from urban shelters in the prison Bendahl and from there to the station brought to after Auschwitz deported to be. The Weiss family - parents Hugo and Antonie Weiss and their five sons Paul, Johann, Arnold, Rigobert and Helmut - were not included because Kreber had struck them and other Sinti off the list and warned them. He obtained false foreigner passports, left “presentation instructions” unprocessed or delayed them. He also organized escape opportunities abroad and personally accompanied some Sinti as far as France . Before that, because of the reduced rations for " Gypsies " and Jews, he had provided Sinti families with food. Kreber issued the Weiss family a favorable certificate of good repute “as a socially adapted gypsy” and was thus able to prevent deportation. Instead, an order was issued to forcefully sterilize the entire family .
The air raids on Wuppertal in May and June 1943 initially prevented these coercive measures. In the course of the attacks, Paul Kreber's family was bombed out and he was transferred to Metz , near his birthplace, where he brought the Weiss family up and provided them with an apartment and a job in a traveling circus . Hugo and Antonie Weiss were denounced , tracked down and still forcibly sterilized. The family survived the war by constantly fleeing; almost all relatives were deported to Auschwitz and murdered.
Honors
In 1964 Kreber, who had been nicknamed "Gypsy Paul" by colleagues during the Nazi era, left the police force for health reasons. In 1984 he moved to Lake Constance . In 1988, a year before his death, Paul Kreber received the Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon on November 24, 1987 at the endeavors of the Weiss family and the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma . Romani Rose , chairman of this central council, dedicated his book Civil Rights for Sinti and Roma, published in 1987, to Simon Wiesenthal and Paul Kreber.
On December 1, 2000, a memorial plaque for Paul Kreber was inaugurated in the Wuppertal police headquarters . Johann Weiss, Chairman of the State Association of Sinti and Roma in Baden-Württemberg , initiated the foundation of this plaque for “Uncle Paul” together with the Old Synagogue Wuppertal meeting place . He and his brothers Helmut and Paul were present at the inauguration of the memorial plaque and made music in Paul Kreber's honor. The Kreber and Weiss families are close friends to this day.
literature
- Michael Okroy : Whose friend and whose helper? Police in Wuppertal during the National Socialism . Materials for history lessons in grades 10–13 at grammar schools and comprehensive schools. Edited by the Wuppertal Initiative for Democracy and Tolerance e. V., Wuppertal 2004
- Michael Okroy: "... eight gypsy families picked up from the settlement". Fragments of a history of persecution of the Sinti and Roma from Wuppertal, in: Karola Fings / Ulrich F. Opfermann (ed.): Gypsy persecution in the Rhineland and in Westphalia. History, processing and memory . Paderborn 2012, pp. 279-301
Web links
- Paul Kreber at denkmal-wuppertal.de
- Frank Friedhelm Homberg: Rescue Resistance in Wuppertal during National Socialism . Diss., Pp. 188–191 on gelsenzentrum.de (PDF; 69 kB)
- Memorial sites for Sinti and Roma: memorial plaque in the police headquarters commemorates the detective Paul Kreber
- Sinti and Roma in Wuppertal on gedenkbuch-wuppertal.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ Office of the Federal President
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Kreber, Paul |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German police officer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 10, 1910 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Diedenhofen |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 25, 1989 |
| Place of death | Immenstaad |