Paul Yogi Mayer

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Paul Yogi Mayer (born September 8, 1912 in Bad Kreuznach ; † July 8, 2011 in London , England ) was an athlete, sports journalist and educator who, after emigrating to England, focused primarily on looking after refugee children from the German Reich and later looked after young Holocaust survivors.

Childhood and youth

Paul Yogi Mayer's father Albert Mayer (1877–1924) worked in Bad Kreuznach with his brother Gustav in the grain trade. His mother's name was Selma Mayer , née Löwenberg (1883–1919). In 1921 the father married a second time and moved with his family to Wiesbaden . He died in 1924 and the stepmother gave the twelve-year-old yogi into the care of the very religious and well-to-do Jewish family of doctors, Tendlau. He attended the Orange School in Wiesbaden and the Oberrealschule, today's Leibniz School .

Paul Yogi Mayer was very enthusiastic about sports; he was an active member of the Wiesbaden swimming club and mainly trained in athletics. In 1924 Hermann and Julius Baruch , two Jewish athletes from his native Bad Kreuznach, became European champions in wrestling and weightlifting. Paul Yogi Mayer remained a lifelong admirer of these two athletes and in the 1980s campaigned for a street in Bad Kreuznach to be named after the two athletes. In 1996 his wish came true.

During his school days, Paul Yogi Mayer was already active in the German-Jewish Wanderbund Kameraden , which he split off, the Black Fähnlein , in 1932. He is said to have been a group leader with his comrades , and he organized the Gau Taunus with the Black Fähnlein .

Between high school and emigration

In 1932 Paul Yogi Mayer passed the Abitur at the secondary school in Wiesbaden. He first went to Berlin and then wanted to continue his studies in Frankfurt am Main in 1933. As a Jew, he was refused a place at university after the seizure of power . As a way out, he was left with a visit to the German University for Physical Education in Berlin, where he could acquire a sports teacher diploma.

Paul Yogi Mayer was an active decathlete and trained, among other things, in the Berlin sports club , but as a Jew he was soon forbidden. He joins a Jewish gymnastics and sports club.

In 1934 Paul Yogi Mayer went as a teacher at the Jüdisches Landschulheim Herrlingen , where he only stayed for the summer. He does not mention how this came about, only that he taught sports and German for the youngest there and was also responsible for looking after the children in one of the houses during his time there. He did not adopt the Zionist ideals that shaped the spirit of the school: “The school had a lasting influence on many Herrlingers and led them to Israel; others felt their "Jewish consciousness" was only a passing phase. I learned to understand the meaning of Martin Buber's “Zwei-Völker Staat”, but for my own life I chose to exist in the diaspora and its values. ”Indirectly, he justifies his early departure from school by stating that he is involved in the German -Jewish youth movement, which made him travel to Berlin again and again.

The strong demand from the German-Jewish youth movement was probably due to the fact that Paul Yogi Mayer was involved in ideological disputes within the Schwarzer Fähnlein and split off with a group of like-minded people. This new group was henceforth called the Blue Flock . In 1935 he also became head of the youth department of the Reichsbundischer Jewish Frontsoldaten (RjF), an association that aimed for the majority of the assimilation of Jews into German society and, from 1933, also for cooperation with the Nazi system . Mayer was also head of the RjF's shield sports department . He was able to combine his great enthusiasm for the sport in 1936 during the 1936 Summer Olympics , where he was allowed to participate in qualification courses for decathletes without the prospect of participating in competitions, with a job as a journalist for Jewish organizations.

After the "Olympic Games" of 1936, the RjF said goodbye to its previous assimilatory position and publicized positions in favor of emigration from the German Reich . This explains why Paul Yogi Mayer now also took part in the preparations for an emigration course for non-Zionist youth. “According to Mayer, the 'Schild' was actively involved in the establishment of the non-Zionist training center in Groß-Breesen , which Curt Bondy directed . The difference to the aliyah and hachsharah of Makkabi was, according to Mayer, that the program was not fixated on Palestine from the outset. ”In fact, there were considerations at the time to settle graduates from Groß Breesen in Rolândia in southern Brazil .

In 1937/38 Paul Yogi Mayer taught at Jewish schools in Berlin, and he married Ilse Fabisch from Breslau, whom he had met in the youth movement. Son Thomas was born in Berlin, daughters Monica and Carol later in England.

In May 1939 Mayer received a visa for England for himself and his family. He began his journey into emigration as a supervisor for a child transport .

War and post-war periods in England

The Mayers left Berlin with a beautiful white stroller, cutlery and £ 20, according to an obituary. And in order to escape the impending poverty, Paul Yogi Mayer volunteered to join the British army . He was assigned to the pioneers and later assigned to the Special Operations Executive (SOE). At the SOE he was the superior of two old acquaintances who used to belong to his Jewish youth group in Wiesbaden.

Paul Yogi Mayer was demobilized in 1946 and settled with his family in the London borough of Hampstead .

The Primrose Club

After his demobilization, Paul Yogi Mayer became a lecturer in sports and arts at Brady's Boy Club , a Jewish youth club in London's East End . At the time, a humanitarian aid campaign for young survivors of the concentration camps had already started.

“In the summer of 1945 the British government agreed to accept young Holocaust survivors. 732 children and young people - mostly orphans - are flown to Great Britain in the following months. Under the name of The Boys, they form a network that helps them to endure the loss of their family and home and to build a new life. They not only have to struggle with severe trauma, but also with the physical consequences of the brutal exploitation in the concentration and forced labor camps. "

In this context, the idea arose of founding a club in London that would serve as a meeting point for all those young people who had already found their way back to a normal life but were living isolated. The club was supposed to maintain the bond between the young people and provide a replacement for the family ties destroyed by the Nazi atrocities.

Paul Yogi Mayer was approached by the Jewish Refugees Committee (JRC) about this project and elected head. The JRC originally wanted a club just for The Boys , but Mayer didn't accept the concept.

“I believed in 'social group work', in the interaction between young people, in groups with different interests doing self-chosen activities. If the club wanted to help these young people overcome their concentration camp trauma and realize their potential, then it had to be 'open'. But that meant that the Jewish boys and especially girls from the area could become members. If this seemed unacceptable to the committee, then there would be no incentive for me to give up my youth work in the East End.
Leonard Montefiore was the first to understand the need for boys to get together with other boys, especially girls. Only a small number of girls had survived the camps. Meeting girls was an important step in the development of these adolescents. As luck would have it, most of the girls who were invited to the club had come to the country a decade earlier on the 'Kindertransport'. "

Paul Yogi Mayer was able to assert himself with his ideas and was in two old houses in the district of Belsize Park , where the club moved to its first domicile, the club leader to participate in the games of the young people, and the guardian, the school reports or apologies for school Had to sign absenteeism. And sport continued to play a major role in the coexistence of The Boys . Mayer played soccer with them, found a Viennese pastry chef who served them cakes in a coffee bar, and taught them to dance so they could meet girls. He taught them cricket in the park at Hampstead Heath and connected it with the intention of using this sport to make them part of the community in which they now lived. Ben Helfgott , who competed in the Summer Olympics in 1956 and 1960, had already founded a weightlifting group at the Primrose Club .

After two years, the club had to leave its previous domicile. The rescued children had meanwhile become young adults who stood on their own two feet. Paul Yogi Mayer looked for and found a new building and thought that he could end his work for the Primrose Club and go back to his old job at Brady's Boy Club . He did so too, but the Primrose Club later had to close for financial reasons.

The end of the Primrose Club did not mean the end of the boys' group cohesion . In 1963 they founded the '45 Aid Society , which was supposed to raise money for charitable purposes in order to be able to give something back to society, but also to look after each other. Today the association raises funds to support Holocaust education, support children's charities, and support survivors. Its members, now from the 2nd generation, are involved as contemporary witnesses at schools and universities and organize annual events such as the reunion dinner, the Hanukkah celebration or commemorative lectures, for example for Leonard Montefiore.

Further professional career

In 1949 Paul Yogi Mayer became a teacher at the Jewish Hasmonean grammar school in Hendon, London . On the side, he worked at the Brady Boys' Club in the evenings as a sports trainer and was soon named the successful club director. During his time there was also a club for girls, for which he was also responsible, and a hostel for the club was set up in Kent, for which Mayer was also able to raise the funds for the construction of a swimming pool. Sport continued to play a major role in the club's work.

In 1965 Paul Yogi Mayer moved to the school administration of the London borough of Islington , where he helped found the Islington Youth Theater and ensured the introduction of floodlights and artificial turf on school sports fields.

retirement

In 1980 Paul Yogi Mayer retired from active professional life. His energy was unbroken, he supported the youth and community study program at North London College and became an honorary member ("Governor") of Islington College .

From the mid-1980s, Paul Yogi Mayer was invited to Germany. “As a formerly active athlete, he had contacts with the sports university in Cologne from London and had already told his personal story there in front of students.” He was in contact with German sports historians, which also earned him invitations to Cologne, Berlin and Frankfurt.

As a contemporary witness who spoke to young people about the fate of the Jews during the Nazi era, he came to Wiesbaden for over 15 years from 1988 “and spoke to hundreds of schoolchildren. At the Siemens School, Yogi talks about his school life, about the decisive experiences after 1933, about his escape from Germany in 1939. “He gave his first lecture to students at his old school.

In 2007 Martin Gilbert's book about The Boys was also published in German. To make it better known to the public, Paul Yogi Mayer performed at events in Berlin and Potsdam in 2008.

Honors

swell

Works

  • The Jewish Sports Book: Way, Fight and Victory. with the collaboration of Martha Wertheimer , Siddy Goldschmidt and Paul Yogi Mayer. Atid publishing house, Berlin 1937.
  • Draft cover for: Camilla Spira: Do you know Peter? Vorrupp, Berlin 1937.
  • Draft cover for: Hanns Reissner: Family on the move. (= Jewish reality today. Issue 3). Vorrupp, Berlin, 1938.
  • Black flag. In: Klaus J. Herrmann: The Third Reich and the German-Jewish Organizations 1933–1934. Heymann, Cologne 1969, ISBN 3-452-16922-7 .
  • Equality - Egality: Jews and Sport in Germany. In: Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook. 25, 1980, pp. 221-241.
  • Ideal German and Jewish youth movement. In: Lucie Schachne: Education for spiritual resistance: The Jewish Landschulheim Herrlingen 1933–1939. dipa-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1986, ISBN 3-7638-0509-5 , pp. 111-112.
  • German Jews and Sports. Your achievements - your destiny. In: Menorah. Yearbook for German-Jewish History. Piper, Munich 1994, pp. 287-311.
  • German Jews and Sports. In: Joachim H. Teichler (Ed.): Body, Culture and Ideology. Sport and zeitgeist in the 19th and 20th centuries. Philo, Bodenheim near Mainz 1997, ISBN 3-8257-0036-4 .
  • Jewish Olympic Champion. Sport - a stepping stone for minorities. Agon Sportverlag, Kassel 2000, ISBN 3-89784-173-8 . The book is also available in English:
    • Jews and the Olympic games. Sports: A Springboard for Minorities . Vallentine Mitchell, London / Portland (Oregon) 2004, ISBN 0-85303-516-4 .

literature

  • Lothar Bembenek: Werner T. Angress, Paul Yogi Mayer and Guy Stern. In: Barbara Stambolis (Hrsg.): Youth moved shaped. V&R UniPress, Göttingen 2013, ISBN 978-3-8471-0004-1 , pp. 69-88.
  • Martin Gilbert: They Were the Boys - The Story of 732 Young Holocaust Survivors. Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-86650-222-2 . Chapter 18 is entitled The Primrose Club and honors the work of Paul Yogi Mayer.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The name addition Yogi was a nickname from his youth, but it has become an integral part of the name in the traditions.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Dorothee Lottmann-Kaesele: Farewell to Paul Yogi Mayer
  3. ↑ According to Lottmann-Kaesele, Tendlau had his residential and practice building on Wiesbaden's Bismarckplatz. At the address Bismarckplatz 6 a Dr. Tendlau was listed as a full member in the report of the German Society for Internal Medicine on its 46th Congress from April 9 to 12, 1934 under consecutive number 1020. ( Dr. Tendlau in the report on the 46th DGIM Congress 1934 in Wiesbaden )
  4. ↑ a b c d e f Lothar Bembenek: Werner T. Angress, Paul Yogi Mayer and Guy Stern.
  5. ↑ On the history of the Baruch brothers: Jewish sports stars: Julius and Hermann Baruch
  6. ↑ Paul Yogi Mayer's commitment to the Baruch brothers
  7. ↑ Probably the "Jewish Gymnastics and Sport Club 1905" to which Lilli Henoch also belonged, who Mayer is said to have known well after Dorothee Lottmann-Kaesele.
  8. ↑ a b c P. Yogi Mayer: Ideals of German and Jewish youth movements. In: Lucie Schachne: Education for spiritual resistance: The Jewish Landschulheim Herrlingen 1933–1939. dipa-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1986, ISBN 3-7638-0509-5 , pp. 111-112.
  9. ↑ Walter Ludwig Tegel Beckers: Jewish sports in Nazi Germany
  10. ↑ Compare the statements about Hans Rosenthal in the WIKIPEDIA article about Heinrich Kaphan .
  11. ↑ a b Obituary: Death of Paul Yogi Mayer - teacher, author, and friend and mentor to a generation of refugee boys
  12. ↑ a b c d e Yogi Mayer obituary
  13. ↑ a b Martin Gilbert: They were the boys. P. 425.
  14. ↑ Martin Gilbert: They were the boys. Blurb on the back cover.
  15. ↑ The work of this committee seems to have been little researched to date. Its archive, previously managed by the Central British Fund (CBF), has been digitized with the support of AJR ( The Association of Jewish Refugees ).
  16. ↑ Paul Yogi Mayer, quoted from Martin Gilbert: They were the boys. Pp. 425-426. The here mentioned Leonard Montefiore belonged as well as Oscar Joseph, Elaine Blond, Lola Hahn-Warburg and Oscar Friedmann to the management team of the JRC; its history, like that of the JRC itself, has hardly been researched.
  17. ↑ a b Yogi Mayer: Primrose
  18. ^ The '45 Aid Society . The site offers a variety of materials on the history of the boys.
  19. ↑ Hasmonean History
  20. ^ About North London College
  21. ^ History of the City and Islington College
personal data
SURNAME Mayer, Paul Yogi
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-English athlete, sports journalist and educator
DATE OF BIRTH September 8, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Bad Kreuznach
DATE OF DEATH July 8, 2011
Place of death London