Quaker School Eerde
The Quaker Eerde was in April 1934, Eerde, a district of Ommen , Province of Overijssel , the Netherlands opened exile School for threatened in Germany by the Nazis children.
 
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Location of Eerde Castle in the Netherlands |
Eerde Castle and the van Pallandt family
The first known records date from the 13th century and mention a house Eerde , which was converted into a fortified castle in 1380 by the robber baron Evert van Essen. Van Essen soon gave up the castle again, and in the following years it was besieged, looted and burned down several times, but also rebuilt and rebuilt again and again. In 1521 the residents of Zwolle looted the castle. This looting was also overcome, and the castle has existed in its current form since 1715. The palace complex came into the possession of August Leopold von Pallandt (1701–1779) from the widely ramified van Palandt family. The park was redesigned in the English landscape style and an orangery was built.
Around 1900 the house came into the possession of Rudolph Theodorus van Pallandt (born 1868), who died childless in 1913. He left Eerde Castle to his distant cousin Philip Dirk Baron van Pallandt (1889–1979).
In 1924, Philip Dirk Baron van Pallandt handed over the palace and estate to the Indian philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti , who made it a center of the theosophical Order of the Star in the East . As a result, thousands of people from all over the world came together in Eerde to hear Krishnamurti here. For these annual meetings of the “Star Order”, a large number of wooden barracks were built near the castle for administration, kitchen, sanitary facilities and storage, which later formed the basis for the Erika camp set up by the Nazis .
In 1931 Krishnamurti, who had separated from the "Star Order" in 1929, gave Eerde Castle, which he had apparently no longer used, back to the van Pallandts, while the campground was used until 1939 for the "Star Order" meetings. The German-American historian Hans A. Schmitt, a former student of the Quaker School Eerde, provides some details:
“After the order was dissolved in 1929, the castle was briefly a holiday hotel, but when Kappers' search began it was empty. [..] Pallandt had worked with Quaker helpers after the First World War, especially in Austria; his friend Krishnamurti was not unknown at Friends House, where he had spoken in 1928; and finally Pallandt's wife was a graduate of the Odenwald School . "
According to Feidel-Mertz, however, it was not only van Pallandt's wife who had attended the Odenwald School, but also his brother-in-law and stepfather, and his mother Edith, an Englishwoman, was so child-friendly that she founded a foundation named after her. who ran a Montessori school. Thanks to these favorable conditions, Piet Ariëns Kappers, mentioned in the quote from Hans A. Schmitt, was able to take over Eerde Castle in 1934 - after examining 90 other objects in the Netherlands - to set up the Quaker school .
The history of the Quaker school in Eerde
The construction of the school at Schloss Eerde did not correspond to the original plan of the German Quakers, but was due to the political developments in Germany at the beginning of the 1930s. To understand this, it is helpful to take a look at the history of German Quakerism:
The Quaker community, which is quite small in Germany and numbered around 500 members in 1933, nevertheless decided at the end of the 1920s to found its own school. It was supposed to be a school for their own children, and the German Quakers got support from their British, American and Dutch friends. Hans A. Schmitt, who draws an inner connection from the first German Quaker school, founded by Ludwig Seebohm at the end of the 18th century, to the reform pedagogical approaches of the rural education centers , sees the motivation for such a foundation in the Quaker ideals (“competence, good sense, and service ") contrary German school reality:
“The Quakers were concerned about the discrepancy with their principles as manifested in the spirit of German public schools. Neither fraternity nor truthfulness appeared in the classrooms. Authority took precedence over 'friendly cooperation'. History books glorified military skill and the old German political system, in contrast to the more forgiving approaches taught in English schools. "
In 1931 the German Annual Assembly , the Quaker Organizational Forum, founded a committee to examine the feasibility of founding a school:
“The German annual meeting elected a special committee that considered the establishment of a Quaker school that would offer elementary and secondary education, including academic and manual training. Religious education should be non-sectarian, but should also include Bible study and the history of other religions. The goal was an educational community that formed a "social unit down to the lowest kitchen worker". The seriousness of the educational planning was reflected in the membership in the committee, which included the triumvirate of the Berlin Center - Hans Albrecht, Richard Cary and Corder Catchpool - as well as the most active educational reformers among the German friends, Wilhelm Hubben, Manfred Pollatz and Elisabeth Rotten. "
The report was positive and the search began immediately for a suitable location that would be suitable for day and boarding school students alike. Although a suitable location soon seemed to be found in the administration building of the former Leopoldshall salt works , the matter was delayed. Concerns spread that the project could not be implemented in view of the insufficient number of pupils or that a single central school location would not be reasonable for the parents living all over Germany. In October 1932 the opinion prevailed that the school could only be realized if it “could recruit a substantial portion of its enrollment outsiede Quaker circles”. And financial support from the American and British Quakers was now seen as essential.
The year 1933 threw all further considerations overboard. After the National Socialist seizure of power it quickly became clear that a Quaker school in the form discussed so far would no longer be possible in Germany. The belief in the necessity of such a school, however, was unbroken, and in addition, job opportunities had to be found for teachers who had lost their livelihood due to the new political conditions.
“So at the end of 1933 the focus shifted. A continental Quaker school, regardless of location, could be built as a refuge for children who are denied access to a good education by the new political order. Teachers in such a school would be recruited on the basis of talent rather than personal needs. "
Taking up this challenge meant a fundamental departure from the old school plans and had far-reaching consequences: A school initiated by the Quakers for the persecuted would possibly be a Quaker school in which there could be neither Quakers as teachers nor Quaker children. And, since the aim was to set up a German school, a German school outside of Germany had to be planned in the end. The original purpose of protecting Quaker children from a hostile educational environment now called for broader and more complex approaches. And, since, according to Hans A. Schmitt, Quakers were never primarily concerned with helping each other, but rather with those who were most in need, the goal was given:
"The new school on the continent should become a haven for gifted children whose families in Germany were faced with political ostracism or who were about to start a new career."
The Quaker School Eerde
The reasons for locating the school in the Netherlands are not documented. While the proximity to Germany seemed threatening to German emigrants in Denmark and they set off for new countries from there, for example Minna Specht with the successor institutions of the Walkemühle Landerziehungsheim or Max Bondy , for whom it was still too dangerous even in Les Rayons in Switzerland The proximity to Germany in 1933/1934 was apparently not a problem for the Quakers in charge. So it doesn't help if Claus Bernet says in retrospect: "If you had suspected the German Wehrmacht's invasion of Holland in May 1940, you would have chosen a location in Switzerland." However, there was still one in Les Rayons at the time quite generously equipped Quaker school, the International Fellowship School directed by the English Quaker Emma Thomas . It was closed in 1936 for financial reasons and then taken over by Max and Gertrud Bondy.
With the decision in favor of the Netherlands, Piet Ariëns Kappers, mentioned above, played an important role. He was a coffee importer and writer (an official Quaker office) of the "Dutch Yearly Meeting", which was also only founded in 1931, and had contacts in the Dutch Ministry of Education. This enabled him to clarify the conditions under which a school for foreign students was feasible and also the conditions for admitting Dutch students to such a school. At the same time, he carried out the previously mentioned location search and came to Schloss Eerde and the Baron van Pallandt after around 90 objects had been checked.
“Kappers knew about the earlier German school project and its intellectual ties to the German reform school movement. This knowledge contributed to giving the young company form and task. He was also familiar with British Quaker schools. Kappers also looked beyond the current emergency situation caused by National Socialism and saw the school in Eerde as an integral part of a not yet established network of continental Quaker schools, which reflects the best and latest developments in European educational reform. "
As precise as Kappers' ideas were, his preparatory work for founding the school was just as successful: the school itself was still on the brink in March 1934 because different interests were connected with the act of founding:
“The German Quakers continued to hope that the school would create lasting bonds between the young displaced persons and the local culture they had to leave behind, and that the achievements of the German reform school movement would continue in a more pleasant environment. The Dutch apparently preferred the prospect of a more balanced international Quaker school, while Bertha Bracey in London, who was the company's main fundraiser, reminded her continental partners that British financial support could soon stall if the British Quakers made theirs could not actively contribute extensive boarding experience to the design of the school. Their view was corroborated by the fact that of the roughly twelve hundred pounds raised by the school's opening in April 1934, more than 80 percent came from British donations. "
How the situation proceeded emerges from a document quoted by Budde, according to which the aforementioned Bertha Bracey pleaded on March 23, 1934 to give up the entire school project and to use the money raised for other German refugees. Only a few days earlier, on March 16, 1934, Katharina Petersen had given her promise to run the school. Her appointment was preceded by a no less confused and diverse selection process.
“The headmaster should be Quaker and educationally qualified. If he was not a Quaker, one could assume that in principle, due to his suitability, he already possessed 'Quaker qualities' that might not have been articulated yet. That turned out to be correct, not only the headmistress later became a Quaker out of conviction. If the headmaster was a man, he should be given a 'woman of equal training and personality as a supplement (!), And vice versa, of course,'. "
Against the background of this requirement profile, people were addressed who predominantly represented reform pedagogical approaches in school education or social pedagogy: Paul Geheeb , Elisabeth Rotten , Elisabeth Blochmann , Amalie Keller as well as Pastor Wilhelm Mensching and Rudolf Schlosser, who was very active in the German Quaker organization . They all canceled. At the suggestion of Schlosser, Katharina Petersen was then approached. Budde gives a much longer list of names that should be won for the school management, and then quotes the clerk of the “German Annual Meeting”, Hans Albrecht , who clarifies in a letter to Katharina Petersen, “that it is at the school itself, as with the work, is an 'adventure in the Quaker sense', which is why at least for the first year a mutual solution of the employee relationship should be possible at any time within four weeks, even in the interests of rebuilding it is necessary " .
Several imponderables also played a role in the appointment of the deputy headmaster:
“On the other hand, Kurt Neuse, whose extraordinary pedagogical talent quickly made Eerde a school of remarkable quality, was accepted by the board, 'to put it quite honestly, just because his wife is a member of the English [sic] annual meeting'. Before his discharge from the Prussian school service, Neuse had taught Latin and Greek, but was supposed to teach English in Eerde. The school founders only had the assurance of his wife that he was qualified for the job. Rose Neuse, who became the school's accountant and secretary, was the only British citizen and the couple were the only Quakers on the staff. "
The construction years
According to Hans Albrecht, no school was "opened" in Eerde, but simply started working according to Quaker style with the first steps. The first on-site teacher was Heinz Wild from March 1934, who was also a trained gardener. He was followed on April 4th by the first two students, the twins Bruno and Johannes Lüdecke. There they found empty rooms in Eerde without any furniture, and they spent the first night in the hallway. Katharina Petersen arrived on April 5th, accompanied by the future housekeeping manager Josepha Einstein from Hamburg and the kitchen chef Marie Kuck, who had previously worked with Rudolf Schlosser in the Saxon welfare and educational institution in Bräunsdorf (Oberschöna) . With Josepha Einstein's two children of her own, the number of students doubled.
These first residents of Eerde had to start immediately with what continued to shape the school: to combine theoretical lessons and practical work, an obligation to do practical work for everyone, whether teacher or student. "The first task of this mixed contingent was to clean house, set up beds, unload furniture, and begin work in a garden whose harvest of vegetables would become an important part of the school economy." Eduard Zuckmayer , who a short time later than Music teacher applied, held back, although he came from a country house, the school by the sea , and from there should have been familiar with certain necessities and constraints. But in the afternoon he just “went out into the garden, which had been neglected for five years, watched the work and in the evening let us sing the canon he devised on this occasion: 'Fight the couch grass, fight the couch grass, which are so deep in the ground ; Quaker school is ripping out all couch potatoes. '"He was not hired.
On April 7th, an hour to learn the Dutch language was held for the first time. For Katharina Petersen this served a double purpose: on the one hand, of course, to increase linguistic expressiveness, but on the other hand, in the chaotic early days, "to bring the children straight into spiritual discipline". On April 8th, the ritual that was henceforth part of the Quaker School was celebrated for the first time: the Sunday “silent prayer in the so-called Gobelinsaal”, to which “about two thirds of the students and teachers came regularly, while others went to the surrounding churches or were otherwise busy ”. “On Sunday, April 8, the weary band held the first Quaker meeting in the castle's great hall, where, surrounded by impressive Gobelin tapestries and portraits of wigged Pallandt ancestors, Piet Kappers invoked a God who knew no nations and no races, a fitting introit to a new life. "Katharina Petersen comments on this in her notes:" The short prayer by Piet Kappers: Father, we are your children. You don't know any peoples, you don't know any races - all people are your children, will remain unforgettable to all of us who come out of the German misery. "
For Schmitt, the silent devotions on Sundays are an important sign of how religion was dealt with at this Quaker school.
“Although Katharina Petersen, on her first visit to the UK after taking the helm, felt compelled to reassure British friends that religion was an 'important issue', it was not a visible part of the curriculum. Without any pressure, however, the Quaker tolerance triumphed when the silent Sunday services became 'an important part, perhaps even the center of community life'. Participation was voluntary, but almost unanimous, while some teachers and students prayed in the Catholic or Protestant churches in Ommen. "
In these early days, determinations were made about the curriculum design. In the first conference, on April 11th, it was decided to orientate oneself on the "course work in the sense of the Odenwald School ". But this should be done pragmatically, without a theoretical definition, in order not to get into dependencies that "threaten the creative power of design". Another landmark was the Dalton plan by Helen Parkhurst contribute. The possible disadvantage of this procedure, the one-sided verbal handling of learning objects, was countered by its interlinking with work school elements: “The Dalton plan, in conjunction with work school elements, the type of coexistence, the constant conversation, the arguments in the group and the extensive occupation with the work and musical content prevents one-sidedness. "
In 1938 there were 15 classes at the school, five of them German, nine Dutch and one German-English. In addition to lessons in the usual school subjects and homework supervision, practical work was an important element in everyday school life: making beds, sweeping, table service:
“The most popular was weaving. Later on, the wool from the sheep that it had raised itself since January 1936 was processed, spun and woven. So-called power work, building new paths or mending old ones, building a private swimming pool with drains, water pipes, and showers were also popular (girls also took part). [..] Right from the start, a balance should be established between practical and knowledge parts. [..] The pupils saw their own manual and musical abilities and skills, their ability to work and their attitude to it as a supplement or in part as a (desirable) substitute for intellectual ones. Or they could see both aspects as different manifestations of something. [..] These combinations of teaching and work were only possible in a 'short-distance' home school and formed the prerequisite for the development of an 'educational province', says Katharina Petersen later. "
The musical-cultural area was on an equal footing with the theoretically and practically oriented everyday school life:
“The performances, which ran alongside the music lessons prescribed by the timetable, determined the cultural face of the school: the performance of operas, choral plays, oratorios, masses, the cheerful evenings of a cabaret style, the dedication hours with poems and choral or solo music, whether they are Weekend afternoons or on parents' days, at Christmas around a candle-covered tree in the forest or on warm summer evenings outside on the grass in front of one of the pavilions - people were always proud of the privilege of being part of these festive activities. "
The person who was responsible for this musical and cultural education, of which Friedrich W. Buri left no doubt, was primarily William (Billy) Hilsley:
“Every Monday morning, all students ages fourteen and older gathered in the music room for Billy's musicological performances. Here we learned a previously unknown foreign language: music. [..] Sure of his cause, our music teacher wasn't a drill master. But he had a message to convey; he had a lesson plan that he never deviated from. What he actually taught us, of course, was the history of German music, plus Chopin. We came innocently from the Italians, Russians (except Stravinsky), Czechs, Northern Europeans and the French, both the Romantics and the Impressionists. But what was missing was substantial and exciting enough. We learned the vocabulary of Bach, Handel, Gluck, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and the German Romantics, including Wagner. [..] Conservative as he was, both as a classicist and as a German cultural chauvinist, he found little to praise in modern music. But he urged us to keep an eye on three contemporaries who wonderfully confirmed the standards by which he judged: Stravinsky, Béla Bartók [..] and Kurt Weill [..]. Billy didn't teach us everything, but he taught us very well. "
Hilsley's importance for this musical and cultural education is vividly demonstrated by the letters and diary entries of Enzio Meyer-Borchert, who passed his exam in Eerde in the autumn of 1940. He writes enthusiastically about music lessons, performances at school and for guests, or about encounters with different artists. He repeatedly emphasizes the commitment of individual teachers who were particularly formative for this tradition in Eerde: In addition to William Hilsley, his friend Friedrich W. Buri and Max Adolph Warburg. Buri himself describes the work of Hilsley ("Cyril") as follows:
“Cyril felt like the uncrowned king of the castle. Although he did not live much more spacious in his cellar than I did in the attic, all the threads of the Parzen came together in his hermitage . Here he planned and designed the serious hours of fire and cheerful celebrations, which not only formed the fixed climaxes for adults and schoolchildren, according to which the fleeing time was structured; The face of the castle community was also determined by Cyril's activities for visitors from outside. "
If the musical and cultural education was more of a return to German culture, the school also offered tangible opportunities to prepare for life in another culture. The pupils had an option that was particularly important for the children of emigrants: They were able to acquire the “Oxford School Certificate” and later the “ General Certificate of Education (GCE)” in Eerde , which is a study in Great Britain made possible.
Farewell to Katharina Petersen
Katharina Petersen returned to Germany exactly four years after the school was founded, in March 1938, and after good work had been confirmed by everyone. The reasons for this are unclear. Dühlmeier speaks of health reasons without substantiating it. However, his thesis is supported by Katharina Petersen herself. In March 1938 she wrote on the first page of the Eerder report sheets :
"Dear Eerder, when the report sheets come out this time, I will belong to the circle of old Eerder who are waiting to hear what has happened in the old house in the meantime. I had to relax for a few months for a cure and have to return to D. for a longer period of time. So I found it intolerable that the school should wait so long for someone who might be able to work again in 10-12 months, and I decided to step down from the management. But what I would like to do is come back later, every year for a few months and give lessons. I have been here for almost 3 weeks now, March is coming to an end, and have taken part in life here with great joy. Of course, we still don't have lots of angels in the house, (I don't want to) but we can look forward to a crowd of happy, healthy and by and large eager to learn children. The news from outside here also shows that it is not easy for you in many places, but that you are biting your way through. I can only say once again to everyone what I said in the devotion last Sunday: If you all want to feel it very deeply that to have gone through this house here means to have an obligation. We do not wish that you cling to Eerde in sentimental memories, that you feel it later, when life becomes difficult, like a lost paradise, and that this memory makes you demanding of the new and different that comes into your life. No, to be loyal to Earth means, everything that has been tried here to live with you and to teach you, to implement again in effect and power, means to live and to teach you, to implement again in effect and power, is all that you do was allowed to take in here, want to radiate again. I greet you all from the bottom of my heart. Good luck for! Your KP "
Hegner, on the other hand, claims that Katharina Petersen was "forced to give up her position by the German authorities", which he also does not prove. The most plausible seems to be Budde's assumption, which brings Petersen's move in connection with her leave of absence from the Prussian civil service in 1933:
“Katharina Petersen's departure from Eerde in 1938 appears abruptly, apparently due to the expiry of her temporary leave of absence. Her housekeeper Emmi Meyer, who was with her for a total of 34 years, received a request from Germany in the spring of 1938 to report to the German authorities despite her residence and work permit for Holland. She felt that this was an invitation to return, otherwise she should hand over her passport. She sees Ms. Petersen's position in a similar way - only that she received no invitation, but left Eerde in March 1938 for no external reason to be reported today. None of the numerous interlocutors so far can give more precise, concrete information about it. [..] At the time, Kahtharina Petersen - according to Ms. Meyer - had no firm ideas about a new job. While Emmi, then 32 years old, went back to her family in Hamburg, Katharina Petersen stayed with her sister Lene in Lünen for a while. Only then did she go to Hamburg. "
The German-American historian Hans A. Schmitt describes Budde's suspicions about Katharina Petersen's reasons for returning to Germany - the end of the leave of absence and the possible impending loss of pension entitlements - as a fact - but without substantiating it: “The Nazis imitated their pension from a return Dependent on Germany, and since she had no other source of income, she was forced to adhere to the regulations. "However: In an earlier book Schmitt had already given a completely different version:" I have already mentioned the head of the school, Katharina Petersen, an energetic humanitarian who came from Schleswig-Holstein. She had left Germany in disgust to help the persecuted, but in the late thirties, pressure from a brother, whose civilian career threatened her ostentatious exile, forced her to give up and return home. "
Whatever the reasons for Petersen's return to Germany: According to Budde, there is no evidence that she tried to get reinstalled in the state school service afterwards. She first worked at the Christian Elise Averdieck School in Hamburg , was bombed and moved to Berlin. There she became a private tutor for the son of a lawyer and his friend and looked after the two boys during the turmoil of the last years of the war. After several stops - from Berlin to the vicinity of Breslau and back again, then to Hamburg - Petersen finally landed in Hanover.
Whatever. In the Eerder report sheets already quoted , the editors comment on Katharina Petersen's farewell letter as follows:
“On a warm spring day, the gong and bell called everyone to the castle bridge to say goodbye to KP. When the car had disappeared from our sight, the crowd of those who stayed behind suddenly fell silent. This silence of an otherwise so happy youth expressed more heartily than big words the deep pain of our parting. "
The agricultural school
Only a few references can be found about another facility in Eerde, which is referred to in a comment on Klaus Seckel's diary: “With American help, the Quaker school rented a farm nearby in 1939 in order to build a farming school there. In this school, young people from Germany were able to receive thorough agricultural training. In later years this school turned out to be an ideal and completely safe place for those boys who, as students, ran the risk of being drafted to Germany as foreign workers. "Hans A. Schmitt describes this" agricultural annex "by Eerde in somewhat more detail:
“It started modestly with the renting of another hundred hectares of land from Philip van Pallandt, along with a request to the Dutch government - which was increasingly determined to curb the influx of German refugees - to allow fifteen young exiles to take in a two year old Should receive training before moving to other countries. One of the AFSC's agents , Robert Balderston, offered the school funds to fund the construction of a dormitory for twenty students, while promising to find graduate spots on farms in Australia, New Zealand and North America. A certified Dutch agriculture teacher took on this task, and when Eerde celebrated the fifth anniversary of its foundation, this expansion had become a successful fact and complemented the range of services offered by the Quaker School. "
This agricultural school project is somewhat reminiscent of the La Coûme project, which was also initiated by Quakers in southern France , where young German refugees were to be trained as farmers. However, this approach failed there. Schmitt, on the other hand, places the Eerde agricultural training center more in the tradition of Groß Breesen , a non-Zionist training facility for young German Jews.
By child transport to Eerde
As part of the Kindertransport , two groups of Jewish children left Frankfurt am Main on January 5, 1939. A larger group traveled to Switzerland through the mediation of Martha Wertheimer . Another group, 11 children, left in the opposite direction. The Frankfurt Quakers had organized places in Eerde for them. On January 12, 1939, the Eerde Quaker School registered 25 new students with the Ommen community, including the eleven children who had left Frankfurt on January 5, 1939.
The children who came to Eerde in this way also included the brothers Thomas (* 1925) and Gerhard (* 1930) Leo. Her parents were the Romanist Ulrich Leo , who had already emigrated to Venezuela , and his wife Helene. The two boys only stayed briefly at school and were able to travel on to Venezuela with their mother in August 1939. Others from this group followed their parents or relatives to England before the outbreak of the Second World War or were surprised by the outbreak of war and prevented from returning to Holland. This group includes the sisters Gisela and Alix Dorothea Feist (born May 13, 1927), Michael Rossmann (see below), Hilde Oppenheimer (see Rosemarie Oppenheimer), Anne Isaac (see Hermann Isaac) or Peter Miodownik
The time of the German occupation
After Katharina Petersen's return to Germany in 1938, her previous deputy, Kurt Neuse, became the acting headmaster. According to Max Warburg, it is mainly thanks to him that the school has retained its identity.
But the danger came from outside. The outbreak of war in 1939 meant that the number of students decreased. The main reason for this was that English children no longer returned to Eerde from their holidays. Claus Victor Bock's account shows that the school may not always acted happily in this situation . When the war broke out, he was also on vacation in England. A telegram from his parents to persuade him to stay in England was late. Instead, a telegram from the school reached his host parents requesting his return to the Netherlands. Against the will of his parents he ended up back in Eerde. Hans A. Schmitt also states that the school had no evacuation plans and was poorly prepared for a possible German invasion. The fact that the school exodus in the late summer of 1939 was not more drastic, he attributes to Newse's persuasive art, partly also to schoolchildren who opposed their parents' wish to return. Accordingly, 11 students had left school at the end of 1939, 8 were new, the total number of students was 85. However, it is incomprehensible that the historian Schmitt, even years later, the concerns of many parents about keeping their children in Eerde after the German invasion of Poland to be left as premature, because in autumn 1939 dire consequences for Eerde were not yet to be feared: “Such understandable concerns turned out, once again, to be premature, since it was to be while before the war and its consequences reached Eerde . "
On May 10, 1940, the Netherlands was occupied by German troops. But it is remarkable that little has changed for the school at first. There were financial bottlenecks that halved the pocket money for the employees, but the school went on, the exams for the "Oxford School Certificate" were held. The most visible turning point was the arrest of the British citizen William Hilsley on July 25, 1940 and the hiding of Friedrich W. Buri in September. At Christmas 1940/1941 30 children had to spend their holidays in Eerde because they no longer had a home or could no longer go to it. Hilsley's internment severely impaired the musical and cultural life at the school, which is why the 7th birthday of the school on April 4, 1941 could only be celebrated with a reduced program.
On June 13, 1941, the establishment of the Erika penal and labor camp officially began in the immediate vicinity of Schloss Eerde , something that was not hidden in the school, as a remark by Claus Victor Bock shows. The camp was closely connected to the Amersfoort transit camp and was used to intern the Dutch who were to be used for forced labor. Thirteen-year-old Klaus Seckel did not hide the camp either: "Where the Sterkamp used to be, there is now a Dutch SS camp called Erika."
Segregation and flight
The refused escape
In May 1940, when the German army invaded the Netherlands, there were still almost twenty Jewish children at the school. When the registration of Jews was ordered, 54 Jews were living in Ommen, 21 of them in the Quaker School: the teachers Elisabeth Schmitt , Otto Reckendorf and Heinz Wild and a total of 18 Jewish students. With the beginning of the school year 1941/1942, the school was prohibited from accepting new students. On September 1, 1941, what Hans A. Schmitt called "the heaviest blow" came: "18 remaining Jewish children were segregated in House 'De Esch' under the tutelage on a Jewish teacher, Elisabeth Schmitt."
Klaus Seckel, who, although baptized as a Protestant, was one of the children who had to move out of the castle due to his Jewish descent, first heard of these plans on August 30, 1941, which some of his comrades were already familiar with: “After supper , around 10 o'clock Ernst B. told me that Aryans were no longer allowed to teach non-Aryans. At first I didn't want to believe it and didn't realize what that meant for Eerde. When I went to the gym where Harald and Peter jumbled on the piano and told them they wouldn't believe it. I went to bed very late. The next day I was supposed to drive to Zeist, so the last night before the trip in my room. Was it the last night in the wing too? ”On September 7, 1941, Klaus Seckel returned to Eerde from his vacation in Zeist, where his friends first made him familiar with the new situation.
“After dinner I meet Rudolf and Ernst, they tell me how everything is organized. We come to the Esch and will have lessons there, and are only allowed to come over if it is absolutely necessary and if you are invited to a teacher. You may well come to the Esch. Mrs. Schmitt]. will be the head of this home.
Suddenly Mr. Wild called me. and I went into the garden with him. He told me what Rudolf and Ernst had already said and that we had to be very frugal over there because of the finances. He showed me the flowers in pots which I should take over with me. I immediately packed my things, Harald helped me. [..] Soon it was dinner, it was the last real meal in the castle, because from tomorrow we ate over there.
At 8 o'clock there was a meeting at Ms. Sch [mitt] .. Of all those who live in Esch, 16 children and 3 teachers. Mrs. Sch. kept mentioning that this is a big matter of trust. She also said that if anyone disagreed with anything or had a suggestion, they should just say so at meals. We eat in the big room. There are also the flower pots, which I will always water. At the end, the kitchen groups who set the table etc. were named. All warm food is brought from over there. (A wooden frame for the buckets is made in the red car). Thomas fetches the food. Everything else will be done here. That was the end of the meeting. "
The segregation of the Jewish students, their resettlement in the house "De Esch", was a highly controversial decision of the school administration and the Quaker board. In the first edition from 1961, it is still relatively cautiously discussed in an interlude to the diaries of Klaus Seckel:
“After long deliberations, the school management decided to comply with the German measures and to separate the two schools, whereby the income of the 'Aryan' school also covered that of the 'non-Aryan' school. Meals continued to be prepared in the castle. It was not an easy decision for the Quaker management of the school, they abandoned the path of Christian conviction and embarked on the slippery path of untruth, because in order to protect the children they often had to make false statements. "
In contrast, the allegations with Claus Victor Bock are more clearly formulated:
“The Dutch Quakers initially thought they could come to terms with the occupiers. When Wolfgang [Frommel] insisted in a conversation that the German-Jewish children should be taken away and distributed among Dutch families, the chairman of the school board of trustees forbade any interference: Illegal matters are not suitable for Christians who trusted in God's guidance. The teaching staff was (understandably) extremely nervous. If one of the children fled, wouldn't it inevitably endanger the others? A teacher who had initially taken Wolfgang into her confidence now threatened him with the police. But when things got really serious, it turned out that every teacher had long since made their arrangements. The children were abducted, the teachers survived. "
From today's point of view, what Heinz Wild writes - at that time uncontested by the two co-editors of the diary of Klaus Seckel, Werner Hermans (the former headmaster) and MR Bonnermann - in his preliminary remarks on section 7 is downright jittery of history:
“Serious attempts were made by both the school management and friends to accommodate the whole group with false papers and to withdraw the access of the German authorities. This attempt failed because of the refusal of the children. They had unshakable confidence in the protection of the Quakers right up to the end, and they feared that if they were discovered they would face severe punishment. They could not understand that any attempt to escape was better than the inescapable fate in the East. "
Even if Wild initially confirms the existing evacuation plans, he turns the situation upside down with his further arguments and declares the children to be the culprits of their own extermination - against better judgment. In the Exile Archive in Frankfurt there is a transcript of a conversation with Werner Hermans on March 28, 1980. In it he reports on an evening meeting shortly before the deportation of the Jewish students. There was a plan to let them go into hiding at Hellendoorn. Papers had also already been prepared. This plan failed because of Elisabeth Schmitt's violent opposition. She would have persuaded the children not to be hidden. Her position was that the authorities should be treated honestly and that they were all under the protection of the Quakers. Hermans saw this in 1980 in the context of a fundamental Quaker position: always telling the truth, even if it was to your own disadvantage, and he quoted from a conversation with Kappers, who at the time demanded that German laws be complied with one hundred percent. Hans A. Schmitt also refers to this when he addresses the discussions within the Quakers that continued long after the war. Following a statement by Kapper's wife Luise, who insists that she and her husband always acted honestly and sincere during the German occupation, he writes:
“How to remain 'honest and sincere' remained a point of contention among Dutch Quakers long after the war, and the occupation had ceased to be the subject of daily deliberation and deliberation. The group continued to be split between those who believed that a Quaker must always tell the truth - a position illustrated by Piet Kappers' dealings with the occupation authorities - and those who believed, especially when dealing with Nazis, that a compromise in dealing with the truth could be made if the truth could cost lives. "
One must therefore assume that there were very well-founded considerations and plans for the Jewish students to go into hiding, but that these rescue attempts all failed because of the rigid posture of some people. And that Elisabeth Schmitt has a great share of responsibility for the death of the fourteen Jewish students from Eerde from today's perspective can hardly be denied according to the sources:
“The teacher in charge of De Esch, Elisabeth Schmitt, who believed in Kappers' judgment as unconditionally as Kappers trusted his German contact, convinced her youngsters that escaping underground would be risky for both the refugees and the rest of both school communities as it would suspend any German retaliation. Discussions about the topic on in the castle led to the same result. In the end, of course, the skeptics were right. "
However, it would be wrong to declare Elisabeth Schmitt to be solely guilty, as suggested by Wolfgang Cordan, for example. Responsible for the handing over of the children to the Nazis was the legalistic behavior of the leading Quaker functionaries (Piet Kappers), to whom she uncompromisingly subordinated, and the sometimes absurd apolitical behavior on the part of some teachers. Peter Budde illustrates this with the example of Heinz Wild, whom he already characterized in the time of Katharina Petersen as headmistress as a protagonist of a "often tense-looking 'wanting to be apolitical'". The following episode shows how naive and dangerous apolitical behavior can be at the same time - accepting one's own destruction, as it were, giving in to fate:
“Laura [van Honk], a resolute Quaker, meets teacher Wild with a Jewish star on her suit, ready to be taken away on the platform. ,You come with me!' She pulls him into the toilet, removes the - mandatory - star and hides the teacher in a shed in her apartment for half a year - and laughs when she talks about his fear: She almost went to the camp before he did, had he been caught. "
Heinz Wild stayed temporarily with Laura van Honk in Hilversum and was then given papers that classified and protected him as a "half-Arab" because half-Jews in Holland did not have to wear the yellow star.
On September 29, 1994, Laura van den Hoek van Honk Ostend was honored as Righteous Among the Nations by the Yad Vashem Memorial. She also received this award for saving Heinz Wild - but also for saving many other people:
“Laura was a devout Dutch Quaker who was originally made aware of the plight of the Jews at a Quaker conference in Germany in 1937. Laura, although single and self-sufficient, decided to save Jews. She was just disgusted by the large-scale deportation of the Dutch population. Laura's funds were limited and she lived in a rented room in Amsterdam. However, she also owned a small weekend house in Putten, Gelderland, where she agreed to take in a couple who were engaged. During their six-month stay in the house, their strictly Calvinist-Dutch Reformed neighbors took care of the refugees. Later in the war, a half-Jewish teacher at the Quaker School in Ommen, Overijssel, needed a hiding place. Through an underground Quaker friend, Laura found a safe address in Hilversum, North Holland. Laura rented the apartment on her behalf, lived there for the entire six months the teacher was in hiding so as not to give herself away, and commuted to work in Amsterdam every day. Laura's connections with the Quakers led her to meet some 'good' German officials willing to help her in her endeavors. They provided her with a large house at 463 Prinsengracht that had belonged to a Jewish family. She actually used the property to hide people, including the Blumenstein Jolles, Paul Fischer, a German Quaker who had thrown his weapon away from protets against the Nazi atrocities, and several others. During this time Laura was considered German-friendly in the neighborhood, and the shopkeepers refused to serve her. As a result, she ventured far out to get food for the refugees she hosted until the end of the war. "
Submerged in the occupied Netherlands
Since Frommel and Cordan could not persuade the school management to help the threatened Jewish students to escape, they decided to act on their own, which meant only "to save our neighbors". A holiday home was rented as a shelter in the polder of Bergen, near the dunes. “The strategic location was ideal. There was only one entrance from the village, a narrow path through marshy marshland; For over a kilometer you could see everyone who approached the house. ”(Cordan, p. 186) Nearby was the house of the poet Adriaan Roland Holst (1888–1976), who was inaugurated and supported the project. In August 1942, the escapes from the “De Esch” house in Eerde began, each time individually and with fake farewell letters that were intended to lure people on the wrong track. The first was Thomas Maretzki, now Thomas Israel Maretzki, thanks to the school administration who had handed over the passports of the children and young people to the local commandant's office in Zwolle. Liselotte Brinitzer faked suicide and disappeared. This was followed by Claus Victor Bock and the last, but on his own, Clemens Michael Bruehl, who initially found shelter with a farmer, but then found an apartment on Amsterdam's Prinsengracht, from where he kept in touch with his friends at 401 Herengracht. Eva Kohn, who lived in the “Aryan” part of Eerde, also found herself in Bergen, where her brother, Johannes Piron, was a close friend of Cordan. Just like these two others left Eerde, but in the direction of Amsterdam: Manuel and Peter Goldschmidt, who were 'half-Jews' according to Nazi laws, were also students in Eerde. They belonged to the Frommel circle. Her non-Jewish mother obtained secure papers. Their non-Jewish appearance enabled them to leave Ommen without having to hide. Manuel lived in a guest house on the Singel in Amsterdam and, like his brother Peter, regularly visited Herengracht 401. In addition, Cordan mentions a boy who also fled from the house "De Esch" in the summer of 1942 and came to France. His identity could not be determined.
On the website “Gays and Lesbians in War and Resistance” a further refugee is mentioned: “Another Jewish student who also hid alone thought that Frommel and Cordan's contacts in Ommen were too much influenced by a gay atmosphere than that he wanted to take part in it. ”He could be Clemens Michael Bruehl (see below).
The presentation on the website “Jewish Students in Eerde” is somewhat different and differentiated. There is a distinction between those
- who managed to escape:
Claus Victor Bock, Clemens Michael Brühl, Liselotte Brinitzer and Thomas Maretzki; - who were initially able to go into hiding with relatives in Amsterdam:
Kurt Rosenthal, Otto Edgar Rosenstern, Steffi Pinner and Klaus Herzberg.
Kurth Rosenthal, Otto Edgar Rosenstern and Steffi Pinner were arrested during raids. Klaus Hertzberg voluntarily went to the Westerbork camp with his family . - who stayed in the “De Esch” house for the time being:
Ursula Lore Bein, Bernd Leffman, Rosemarie Oppenheimer, Klaus Metz, Walter Vohssen, Ernst Binswanger, Herman Isaac, Klaus Seckel and Ernst Rudolf Reiss. - Robert Wolf was caught on the run. But his fate was much more adventurous.
Robert's father, Otto Isidor Wolf, had “sent his younger son Robert Wolf (born 1922) [..] to an English-speaking Jewish boarding school in Eerde in Holland via the Quakers. After the German invasion of Holland (May 1940), he was arrested while crossing the border to Germany - he wanted to emigrate to England via Switzerland - and taken to a prison in Nordhorn. In January 1943 he was sent to the Osnabrück prison and was later deported to Auschwitz. In 1944, the death marches went to Stutthof, Stuttgart Airport Echterdingen and Ohrdruf, a subcamp of Buchenwald. On April 3, 1945, the prisoners were put on a march in the direction of Tyrol, Robert Wolf fled and was looked after by a peasant couple and hidden until they were liberated. He returned to Holland. He died on May 9, 1997. "
The fate of the deported Jewish children and young people
So a few students had managed to go into hiding outside of school. However, as Cordran and Frommel had foreseen or feared, only death in German extermination camps awaited the remaining Jewish children and young people in the “De Esch” house:
“On April 10, 1943, De Esch was evacuated. As agreed with Ariëns Kappers, the remaining residents went to Camp Vught by public transport 'voluntarily' . From there the group ended up in the Westerbork camp . They read together Latin authors like Tacitus and Sallustius and books by Fichte, Goethe and Tolstoy. Three of them were murdered in Auschwitz later that year, on September 24th . The last of them, Hermann Isaac, died when this camp was liberated on January 21, 1945. "
Whether different from Ariëns Kappers or additionally: Feidel-Mertz also points out that "Ms. Schmitt [..] caused the [..] children who remained in De Esch to go to the camp with good intentions and deliberately." What this “good intention” was is not known.
A memorial stone donated by former students of the Quaker School has stood in the park of Schloss Eerde since 1999. The names of 14 victims are recorded on it. In the Netherlands there are a large number of databases and websites that provide information about the fate of the Nazi victims and thus also about the fate of the fourteen children and young people from Eerde. Their fate is briefly outlined below. Unless otherwise stated, the detailed information is based on translations from the database of the Westerbork Memorial.
Kurt Rosenthal (* May 12, 1922 Arnsberg - † July 25, 1941 Mauthausen)
“Kurt Rosenthal, with full name Kurt Joseph Rudolf Rosenthal. He was born on May 12, 1922 in Arnsberg, Rhineland. Because he no longer felt safe in Germany, he fled to the Netherlands on September 3, 1936. On the same day he was enrolled as a student at the Quaker School in Eerde. His parents, Hugo and Gertrude Rosenthal, initially lived in Zurich. Kurt manages to get a visa and a ticket to America for a lot of money, although he would have had to travel through Germany to do so. But he never goes on this trip because he was arrested on June 11, 1941 during a German raid in Amsterdam along with 300 other Jews. They are deported directly to the Mauthausen concentration camp. He died there on September 4, 1941. He was 19 years old. "
Otto-Edgar Rosenstern (* February 1, 1922 - † September 18, 1941 Mauthausen)
Stumbling blocks for him and his parents are in Hamburg, Leinpfad 14 (Hamburg-Nord, Winterhude).
“Otto-Rose Edgar Stern was born on February 1, 1922 in Hamburg. From April 4, 1932 to December 20, 1936 he attended the 'Heinrich Hertz School'. On January 20, 1936 he went to the Quaker School Eerde. At the end of 1940 he moved to Amsterdam, where his parents now lived on Holbein-Strasse [..]. On June 11, 1941, he was arrested during a German raid and taken to the Mauthausen extermination camp. He died on September 18, 1941 at the age of 19 in Mauthausen. His parents did not survive the war. They died in Auschwitz at the end of 1944. The family had two other children. You survived the war. "
Steffi Pinner (born January 11, 1925 Berlin - † July 23, 1943 Sobibor)
“Steffi Pinner was born on January 11, 1925 in Berlin. She lives there with her father Werner, her mother Gisela Schneider and her sister Ruth. On April 7, 1938 the family moved to Amsterdam. Mother Gisela does not go with her because she is leaving for Palestine. In November Steffi goes to Eerde. Later she would rather go to America. Quartered in Haus Esch in Eerde, she thinks it wiser not to stay there. She goes to her father in Amsterdam. During a raid on March 16 [1943?] She was arrested and taken to Westerbork transit camp. From there she tries to go to her mother in Palestine. She got another letter from her and she also sent a telegram, but they didn't see each other again. On July 20, 1943, Steffi was deported to Sobibor, where she was killed immediately upon arrival. Steffi turned 18 years old. "
Ursula-Lore Bein (born May 26, 1925 Nuremberg - † September 24, 1943 Auschwitz)
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An entry for them can be found in the list of stumbling blocks in Hamburg-Eppendorf ; the Stolperstein was laid in front of the house at Eppendorfer Landstrasse 64.
“From September 7, 1939, 14-year-old Ursula Lore Bein Sare attended the Quaker School in Eerde in the Netherlands. Her education is paid for by her father. The training lasted until 1941. After that she would like to go to the United States. Ursula is a Quaker. She was born on May 26, 1925 in Nuremberg. She lives with her father Ernst Bein and her sister Erika Bein at Eppendorferstrasse 64 in Hamburg. Ursula is a very funny girl. She loves to draw a lot and write humorous stories. At the Quaker School she designed many small books, e.g. B. Love stories with funny drawings for her friend Mia Kunkel. She enjoys Quaker school with her friends. But on April 10, 1943, she had to leave Eerde for camp Vught. On July 7, 1943 she came to Westerbork. There she worked as a maid for the children's home. She has also tried to get baptismal certificates from Quakers. Unfortunately this did not work. On September 21, 1943, she was taken on a transport to Auschwitz, where she was murdered on arrival on September 24, 1943. Ursula turned 18 years old. Her father and sister were deported from Hamburg to Minsk and killed there. "
Bernd Leffmann (born September 20, 1924 Berlin - † September 24, 1943 Auschwitz)
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Bernd Julius Leffmann was the son of Rudolf and Edith Leffmann .
“On January 19, 1939, Bernd Julius Leffmann comes to the Netherlands. He can attend school in Eerde because his grandmother, who lives in Amstelveen, pays the school fees. He probably graduated from high school in 1942. Bernd was born in Berlin on October 20, 1924, but lived with his father in Brussels for a while before moving to the Netherlands. [..] After being in Vught for six weeks, Bernd was brought to Moerdijk on May 29th, to an external unit of the Vught camp. After another month and a half he has to go to Westerbork, where he arrived on July 17th. He comes to Barrack 61, where there is a linoleum factory and a [Patentruitenfabriek]. He had to go to Auschwitz on the September 21 transport. Presumably he was gassed on arrival on September 24, 1943. Bernd has turned 18. ”In Klaus Seckel's diaries he often appears as“ Bill ”.
In March 2012, three stumbling blocks were laid in front of the family's house in Cologne-Lindenthal at Gleuler Straße 192 in memory of Bernd Julius Leffman and his parents: List of stumbling blocks in Cologne's Lindenthal district .
Rosemarie Oppenheimer (born December 9, 1924 Mainz - † September 24, 1943 Auschwitz)
At Schillerplatz 5 in the old town of Mainz, a stumbling block reminds of Rosemarie Oppenheimer, who came to Holland in 1939 on a children's transport .
“Rosemarie Sarah Oppenheimer was born on December 9, 1924 in Mainz. Her father was Wilhelm Oppenheimer. He was born in 1888. Rosemarie and her family lived at Schillerplatz 5. Rosemarie no longer felt safe there, and on January 4, 1939, she flees to the Netherlands and goes to the Quaker School in Eerde. The costs for their training are paid by the company Hermandis Corriedor & Cie from Rotterdam. Rosemarie planned to go to the United States in 1941 to continue her studies, but the war prevented her. On July 17, 1943, she had to travel from Vught to Westerbork, and on September 21, 1943, she was taken by train from there deported to Auschwitz. Immediately after her arrival, on September 24, 1943, she was killed there at the age of 18. "
Rosemarie was one of the eleven children who came to Eerde on a Kindertransport from Frankfurt at the beginning of January 1939. Her sister Hilde (born 1921, later married Kane) was accepted as an apprentice (probably at the agricultural school). In the summer of 1939 she traveled to England with a group of students. The outbreak of the Second World War prevented her return to Holland and saved her life. The parents of the two, the Jewish wine wholesaler Wilhelm Oppenheimer (* 1888 in Mainz - † 1942 in Kosel) and his wife Anna (née Metzger, * 1896 in Mainz - † in Auschwitz), emigrated to Belgium shortly after their daughters left. Wilhelm and Anna Oppenheimer were deported from Mechelen in September 1942 ; he died during the deportation in Kosel , his wife was murdered in Auschwitz.
Klaus Metz (born August 12, 1922 Frankfurt am Main - † December 5, 1943 Auschwitz)
Because he was Jewish, Klaus Metz fled Germany in 1937. “At the time of his escape, Walter Klaus Bernhard Metz was 15 years old. He was born on August 12, 1922 in Frankfurt am Main. His mother Else worked for the Central Committee for Help & Construction [Central Committee of the German Jews for Help and Construction] and was able to pay for his training in the Netherlands. From January 1937 Klaus was a student at the Quaker School in Eerde near Ommen. In 1939 he was one of the students who went to the agricultural school. Later he wants to become a farmer in Palestine. Klaus has to go to Vught in April 1943. From there he was transferred to a satellite camp on May 29. A little later he has to go to the Westerbork transit camp, where he arrives on July 17th. Klaus was deported to Auschwitz on the transport of September 21, 1943. There he died of exhaustion, 21 years old. "
Walter Vohssen (* February 5, 1924 Keulen - † January 8, 1944 Auschwitz)
There is an entry for him in the memorial book for “The Jewish Victims of National Socialism in Cologne”; his relations with Cologne are not described there - as is the case with Bernd Leffmann. There is no reference to him in the database of the Westerbork Memorial, but it is possible to access a document on another website which contains the portraits of the 14 Eerde victims and is obviously based on the database from Westerbork. This document also contains a brief portrait of Walter Vohssen, the translation of which will be used below.
“Walter Vohssen is a Jewish boy who grew up in Cologne. He was born on February 5, 1924. It was not easy for him in his childhood because the German economy had deteriorated sharply after the First World War. After Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany, the family soon realized that Hitler wanted to destroy all Jews. In 1937 the Vohssen family fled to the Netherlands and lived in Amsterdam. When the Second World War broke out, Walter went to Schloss Eerde near Ommen. This is the Quaker School. Since Walter's parents couldn't pay for the training themselves, Hugo Kaufmann did so. He was a director of a bank in Amsterdam. The Quaker School trained Walter for a life as a farmer in Palestine. On April 10, 1945 [probably 1943] he had to go to the Vught camp. He spent a few months there before he was brought to Auschwitz via Westerbork, where he died in the gas chamber on January 8, 1944. Walter Vohssen was 19 years old. "
Ernst Binswanger (born August 16, 1925 Frankfurt am Main - † February 7, 1944 Auschwitz)
For him and his parents, the list of stumbling blocks in Frankfurt-Westend shows three stumbling blocks in front of Wöhlerstrasse 4. For Ernst, February 4, 1944 is noted as the date of death.
“When Ernst Binswanger was 14 years old, he fled to the Netherlands in the summer of 1939. His mother, Elisabeth Binswanger, stayed in Frankfurt am Main, Woehlerstrasse [1] 4. His parents could pay for his education. Ernst began his training in Eerde on August 25, 1939. He had to go to Vught, where he was imprisoned in April 1943 for more than three months. Then he is brought to Westerbork for two months, where he stayed in barracks 9. On September 21 [1943] he went to Auschwitz. He remained alive until February 7, 1944. Ernst Binswanger was 18 years old. "
Klaus Herzberg (born April 25, 1925 Breslau - † October 1, 1944 Auschwitz)
“Klaus Herzberg was born on April 25, 1925 in Breslau. He lived here until he was 12 years old. On February 21, 1937 Klaus fled to the Netherlands with his father Franz Herzberg, a locksmith, and his stepmother, Sarra Fainleib. They lived there at Deurloostraat 117 in Amsterdam. On September 8, 1937 Klaus became a student at the Quaker School in Eerde. Fortunately, his father can pay the school fees. The intention is for Klaus to go to the United States with 24 other Jewish students after his education. Klaus Herzberg does not stay on Esch in Eerde until the end of [his training]. He goes back to his family in Amsterdam. On August 5, 1943, he came to the Westerbork camp, where he met a few of his friends again. Together with Klaus Seckel and Ernst Reiss, he had to go on a transport to Theresienstadt on September 4, 1944. After three weeks he was deported to Auschwitz. There he was murdered on October 1, 1944. Klaus was 19 years old. "
Hermann Isaac (born April 8, 1924 Frankfurt am Main - † January 21, 1945 Auschwitz)
A stumbling block for Hermann Isaak is at Kettenhofweg 112 in Frankfurt am Main. There, January 1, 1945 is named as the date of death.
“Hermann Isaac was born on April 8, 1924 in Frankfurt am Main. In August 1938, all Jewish boys and men in Germany who did not have a recognizable Jewish name were forced to adopt the middle name Israel. From then on Hermann was called Hermann Israel Isaac. He is now 14 years old. Hermann came to the Netherlands on January 19, 1939. He reports to the management of the school at Schloss Eerde on the same day. His parents did not pay for his education, but the wealthy Quaker Martha Turk. His father, Simon Isaac, was already living in London, as was the rest of the family. Hermann had already applied for a visa to London in order to travel to the United States from there. But with the outbreak of war that was no longer possible. On April 9, 1943, Hermann boarded the train to camp Vught. He got there a day later. From Vught he wrote several times to Eerde and asked that he be sent Latin books, German classics and a copy of the Roland song. During his stay in Vught, Hermann was an apprentice tailor. Later he was taken to a field unit in Moerdijk, where he had to dig anti-tank trenches. On July 6, 1943, Hermann von Vught was sent to Westerbork. He stayed there for several months and was sent to Auschwitz on September 21 [1943]. There he tells many stories about Eerde and about German classics during the cold and hunger. He died on January 21, 1945 while being transported to Gleiwitz, a subcamp of Auschwitz III. ”Hermann's sister Anna was able to leave Eerde in time in 1940 and travel to England (see below).
Klaus Seckel (born November 27, 1928 at Gut Charlottenthal (Dorfmark) - † February 28, 1945 Auschwitz)
“Klaus Seckel was born on November 27, 1928 in Hanover. He later lived in Berlin. With the Nazis increasingly taking action against Jews, his parents found it better that he go to the Netherlands. On January 17, 1937, he came to Ommen. He is eight years old and goes to the Quaker school in Eerde. Since then he has kept a diary. After several years at the Quaker School in Eerde, the Second World War broke out. Klaus doesn't notice much about the war at the beginning, but when he is 12 years old, the Jewish students are no longer allowed to stay in the castle. You will be moved to the De Esch outbuilding. Klaus Seckel doesn't need a stamp in order not to be deported because he is still too young for an ID card. That's why he didn't need a Quaker baptism certificate. But he stood in a queue in Amsterdam with Ernst Reiss for a good half an hour for this stamp.
In March 1943 he did get a stamp [certificate of baptism?], But that didn't help him anymore. On April 10th he has to go to Vught. On May 20, 1943, Klaus was transferred to Westerbork. There he saw Klaus Herzberg and Rudolf Reiss again after a year. On September 4, 1944, Klaus was transported to Theresienstadt and on October 16 to Auschwitz. On February 28, 1945, Klaus died in Auschwitz. Klaus turned 16 years old. ”Since Auschwitz was liberated on January 27, 1945, it is unclear what happened to Klaus Seckel in the month before his death.
Ernst-Rudolf Reiss (born August 12, 1927 Hamburg - † January 26, 1945 Auschwitz)
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A stumbling block to Ernst Rudolf Reiss reminds of him in front of the house at Abteistraße 24 in Hamburg (Eimsbüttel, Harvestehude)
“Rudolf Reiss is only 11 years old when he arrives in Eerde. He was born Ernst Rudolf Israel Reiss on August 12, 1927 in Hamburg. The family is Protestant. But the Nazis make their life difficult for them. Rudolf was sent to the Netherlands in September 1938 for security. His mother, Mary May Reiss, the widow of Adolf Elith Reiss and mother of Ingeborg Reiss, could not pay all the costs for Rudolf's school attendance. Fortunately, the 'Messers Lippman, Rosenthal & Co. Banke' from Amsterdam took over most of the bills. In the Quaker school he is trained as a farmer so that he can later become a farmer in Palestine. In Eerde he is friends with Klaus Seckel. He sleeps with him in the same room. Klaus writes in his diary that he and Rudolf would have been a better match than he had previously thought. Like Klaus, Rudolf thinks a lot of reading. From Vught Rudolf came to Westerbork on May 20, 1943; he stays there in Barrack 37. On September 4, 1944, Rudolf is on a transport to Theresienstadt. From there he went to Auschwitz on October 28, 1944. Here he was shot on January 26, 1945. "
Ulrich Sander (born October 10, 1927 - † June 10, 1945 Enschede)
Sander's parents had come to Amsterdam from Breslau. He was half-Jewish and lived in Eerde from 1941. After the school closed in 1943, Ulrich returned to Amsterdam. In October 1944 he was arrested in a raid and deported to Germany.
After Ulrich Sander was able to flee twice and was beaten almost to death as a result, he died of the consequences of the mistreatment in the hospital in Enschede.
In June 2009 one of Ulrich Sander's former classmates revealed a secret: Hans Boevé (* 1927), a student at the Quaker School in Eerde from 1940 to 1943, presented a collection of drawings by Ulrich Sander to the International School Eerde . The drawings, which were made in 1943, show the daily routine of a school day, starting with breakfast and gymnastics. They also portray Hans Boevé listening to the St. Matthew Passion from a retractable case gramophone. The drawings were a present from Ulrich Sander to his friend on his sixteenth birthday.
Hans Boevé left Eerde together with Ulrich Sander, went to Rotterdam and survived there.
Escape or stay - a difficult alternative
In 1973 Wolfgang Frommel was honored by the State of Israel as Righteous Among the Nations in Yad Vashem . Rightly so, as Marita Keilson-Lauritz finds:
“Even if Frommel did not take part in the active resistance, a number of people undoubtedly owe their lives to the use of all their means and possibilities, and not least to his survival strategy, with the help of reading, writing, copying poems and other creative activities that threatened , but also to make difficult internal situations viable. "
But Keilson-Lauritz also addresses another side of the honored:
“But of course it is no coincidence that Frommel and Cordan from school in Ommen let young people go into hiding who were dear to them, who were dear to their hearts - at times also literally. They could only save 'those close to us', as Cordan put it. One can ask critically: Were only the darlings, the beautiful boys, saved in the end? (One of the survivors once explained a bit bitterly to me that Clemens Brühl had to go into hiding on his own: 'He was probably not beautiful enough.') After all, 'love that means friendship' saved people's lives. From the memories it becomes clear how the (homo) eroticism, inspired by Stefan George, played a role in survival during the occupation - more directly in the Frommel circle than in the Cordan circle, which was less geared towards George. "
Similarly, it is difficult to make a clear judgment about the conduct of the school administration and the Quakers. “Persevere or go to the camp: the Quakers had been treated well so far and had assurances from the Germans that Christians would not be deported, that the children should not endanger the others by any escape; or - flee and go into hiding: there were enough examples of successful escape and of the brutality of the German authorities. "Hans A. Schmitt, later American historian, himself an Eerde student and son of Elisabeth Schmitt, who was sharply criticized by Wolfgang Cordan, behaves scientifically- weighing up when he asks whether the decision to dissolve the entire school would have to be resolved by its sponsors when the Jewish students were resettled in the “De Esch” house: “From today's vista it is, therefore, possible to conclude that the school should have been disbanded. But at the time other considerations called the wisdom of such a retreat into question. ”What these“ other considerations ”were, he also says: Friedrich Wimmer , General Commissioner of Administration and Justice in the occupied Netherlands under Arthur Seyß-Inquart , the Reich Commissioner for the Netherlands, was a friend of Piet Kappers from his student days. Wimmer is said to have assured Kappers that Eerde could continue to work undisturbed as long as German decrees were followed there and no one was employed who was involved in illegal activities. The German occupiers would consider everyone living in Eerde to be a member of the Quaker community and therefore there would be no danger there for either Jews or Gentiles. How naive must Kappers have been to believe such “friendly” assurances - after the attack on the Soviet Union, the persecution of the Jews in the Netherlands, in the immediate vicinity of the Erika internment camp (see above) and his certain access to information beyond Nazi propaganda? "Whether these assurances should have been believed will likewise continue to be debated. In the end skeptics, of whom there were many, were proved right when the remaining Jewish Children at De Esch were taken to Vlught concentration camp on April 10, 1943, and thence to Auschwitz, where all of them perished. "
In Berthold Hegener's report about the meeting of former Eerden students in 2002, the positive memories understandably predominate. After all, an alumni quoted in the article confessed that “we survivors will always feel guilty about the dead”, but also has no answer to the question of what could and should have been done to better protect the Jewish students. At earlier old school meetings, however, the topic seems to have played a rather subordinate role - at least in the portrayal of Hanna Jordan. She reports on the considerations for an “art memorial for our children murdered in Auschwitz”, citing Klaus Seckel's diary very superficially, and then leaves the sensitive topic in the non-binding limbo: “The history of the school with all its context is hardly transparent not clearly recognizable until today. Statement stands against statement and assumption. How difficult or even impossible it is today to convey motives and decisions from the point of view of that time, I know from my own painful experience from my (over) life in war Germany. "
The diaries of Klaus Seckel
When the house "De Esch", in which the Jewish children were previously housed, was cleared by the German occupiers in 1943, the teacher Heinz Wild discovered Klaus Seckel's diaries in a cupboard and took them before he went to himself Wanted to make way to the camp (see above). In 1950, Wild first published parts of the seven diaries without knowing that Klaus Seckel's parents had survived the Theresienstadt concentration camp. They learned of the existence of their son's diaries from media reports and finally agreed to republish them in 1961. The book was published - certainly not by chance - by the Dutch publisher Van Gorcum in Assen, whose director was Henericus (Henk) John Prakke. "The publisher Prakke, which is connected to the Pallandts, for example, printed false papers by reprinting originals in different ways, turning non-Aryan grandparents into Aryan."
When the diaries were published, Klaus Seckel's parents asked not to make any “propaganda” for the book in Germany. There was at least one big newspaper article about the book. In the Saturday edition of the Frankfurter Rundschau of March 11, 1961, a full-page article by the editor Horst Hachmann appeared as the lead story of the weekend supplement “Time and Image” with the title: “I took the cross… The story of a boy who is no longer alive was allowed to because he was Jewish. ”At the time, Heinz Wild was the principal of a school in Frankfurt's Westend , contributed his own memories to the article and probably also the photographs that illustrate it. Feidel-Mertz goes into this article in detail, especially its title, and sees it in the context of a diary entry from the seventh, the last, diary of Klaus Seckel, which is also taken up again by the editors of the book in a follow-up note, “With which they are not the only ones to comment on his fate: 'On April 10, 1943, Klaus, the youngest, set out with his 11 comrades on the journey from which no one should come back. Like millions with him, he took his cross and carried it to the end. '
What, formulated in this way, may appear to be an impermissible appropriation by Christian symbolism, however, has a touching biographical background with Klaus Seckel, as the entry in the diary of March 20, 43 shows: 'Mutti sent me a small cross through Ms. Schmitt because she was so happy that I now always go to prayer. I took the cross, went out of the house, away from people, into nature and sat down on a bench, I almost cried again for a long time. '”However, regardless of this background, the title quote of the article would not have taken over a Jewish one Fate through a Christian symbolism means, because Klaus Seckel's parents had long since converted to the Christian faith and Klaus had been baptized and brought up as a Protestant.
Heinz Wild was not only the finder and keeper of the diaries, but also the initiator: “At that time, Heinz Wild also generally included writing diaries as a 'compulsory exercise' in lessons, which the eight- to nine-year-old boys and girls initially did not always like. For Klaus Seckel, of course, beyond elementary school age, writing a diary is more and more an inner need. On April 5, 1940, he wrote: 'I will probably continue to keep my diary even if it is no longer required from German lessons.' From now on, the diaries not only document his individual development history, but also the increasingly brutal historical framework conditions that intervene in them. ”The entries become more thoughtful, more reflective and replace - especially after the Jewish children were moved to House De Esch - missing conversation partners and contacts with Outside world. This becomes clear in an entry from the end of November 1942, shortly after Klaus Seckel's 14th birthday: “I am slowly discovering the meaning and purpose of a diary. Because in the beginning I only managed it because I had to, and then for a while I only managed it schematically. I don't like the name diary anymore, it's not true at all. Should I call it memories? "
Klaus Seckel's diary covers the period from 1937 to 1943, which he spent in Eerde. “In this boarding school, Klaus Seckel initially had a rich and carefree childhood with teachers of reform pedagogy who feel practically, artistically and intellectually committed to the entire personality of the children entrusted to them. The diaries are evidence of an increasing threat, from the carefree first years until the transport to Auschwitz. The book is filled with deep sadness: a gorgeous child, a clever, interested and generous youngster was murdered by hatred, a wonderful person was lost forever. ”In the foreword to the 1961 edition it says:
“In front of us are the childlike lines of an eight-year-old boy. What is happening outside and the needs of the world are completely unknown to him, and that is precisely why it is so moving to read the simple sequence of school experiences. Little by little the boy grows out of the child. He can hardly express his thoughts and feelings, but nature speaks to him in his joy in plants and animals. Gradually the bewitched world threatens; but the threat never speaks to him directly; its influence can only be felt in brief comments and small notes that the adult records. They also find their way into the school community: slowly separated from his non-Jewish classmates, more and more lonely, 14-year-old Klaus longs for his parents, for true friendship and for the end of the war, which he should not experience. "
After only a few diary entries in March 1943, Klaus Seckel wrote one of his longest entries on April 4, 1943. An old close friend has come back to school, and Klaus takes this as an opportunity to reflect on the nature of friendship and the changes in his relationship with formerly close friends: “I have friends here of very different kinds and different qualities, different Type and level.
That can mean a lot.
1,) That I join everyone. (But I don't think that's the case.)
2,) That I'm interested in so much (?)
3) Because I'm so superficial (but that's not the case either.) If at all, I would like to answer No. 2 in the affirmative . "
Immediately after this attempt to gain clarity about himself and his relationship with others, Klaus Seckel's penultimate entry in his diary follows seamlessly. As incidentally, it mentions the increasingly threatening outside world, but the danger it poses does not seem to be grasped by consciousness and is (still) of no importance in everyday life:
“On March 30th, we got the news, or it was in the newspaper, that the province of J. (udenfrei) would be made free and that they would come to Vught. We took note of all this and all with great calm. The atmosphere has rarely been as good here in the house as it was these days, everyone is nice, friendly and helpful. "
Klaus Seckel's last diary entry was made on April 7, 1943:
“There were a few cozy evenings in the common room. (Gramophone music). A feeling like before. My plants have grown a lot, they are drying up, little time. "
On April 10, 1943, Klaus Seckel was transported to the Vught camp with the other children from the De Esch house. One of their last signs of life is a postcard that they write to Werner Hermans, the headmaster, from the train. “Dear Mr. Hermanns, we would not like to let the opportunity pass by and send you our warmest regards. We have just left Zwolle, where we met Josi at the train station. The last bit of Eerde! “Josi was her teacher Josepha Einstein-Warburg.
employees
From the Quaker's point of view, the focus was initially on one question: "How could a school with a predominantly non-Quaker staff be a Quaker school?" The question lost some of its relevance when an English Quaker joined the school in the summer of 1934, and that between 1935 and 1937 five teachers joined the Dutsch Yearly Meeting . Katharina Petersen also became a Dutch Quaker in 1937.
Around 25 to 30 adults were constantly employed at Eerde Castle, half of whom were teaching staff and half were functional staff. In practice, however, this distinction was of no importance: “In order to be able to support themselves financially, all those involved had to do their own work - that is, the dual function of teachers and teaching assistance from practitioners - a prerequisite. The school should become largely autonomous through this work and not just be a school. ”Not all of these people have biographical data or testimonies of their work in Eerde. But some of them can be outlined briefly below.
Heinz Wild
Heinz Wild (* December 22nd, 2002 in Vienna - † 1972), grew up in Mainz from 1916. He completed an apprenticeship as a gardener and then trained as a teacher in Rudolstadt (Thuringia). At times he was a teacher in the Free School Community of Wickersdorf and in 1931 he sat in at the Odenwald School. Then he found a permanent job in the Thuringian school service, from which he was removed for "racial reasons" after the Nazis came to power. In 1934 he went to Eerde and was the first employee of the Quaker School. He worked there until the school closed, most recently as a teacher for the Jewish children in the house "De Esch". Before his voluntary departure to the Vlught camp, he was saved by an acquaintance, Laura van Honk, who then hid him with her. After the school reopened in 1946, he was again a member of the teaching staff. In 1952 he returned to Germany and worked as a teacher in Frankfurt, most recently as rector. On April 6, 1971, Heinz Wild retired from the Hessian school service.
As part of the series “Schule und Elternhaus” (Hessischer Rundfunk), there is a tape transcript from him of the program “Pedagogical Possibilities of the Modern Boarding School” on October 1, 1968, in which he draws on his experiences in Eerde. In 1966 he published the volume “Benelux” in the “Hirschgraben Reading Series”, which also contains diary entries from him for the years 1934–1949 on pp. 34–39 - but nothing that indicates existential experiences during his years in the Netherlands . Together with his wife, Wild is said to have been involved in setting up the Albert Schweitzer Children's Village in Hanau. “He was also committed to founding an Albert Schweitzer Children's Village in Hanau. A picture of Albert Schweitzer, whom he held in high esteem, was always on his desk. "
In the aforementioned tape transcript of a conversation with Laura van Honk, Heinz Wild outlines this as a very contradictory character: on the one hand, he was a self-sacrificing pedagogue, on the other hand, even in the days of the occupation of the Netherlands, he had become a conservative, national German known.
At the end of the 1960s, Feidel-Mertz invited Heinz Wild as a “contemporary witness” to a seminar she organized at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt. As a result he gave her “a suitcase with original documents on the history and pedagogical practice of the Quaker School in Eerde. [..] For me, this 'treasure' became the inspirational basis of my decades of research into the history of the impact of emigrated educators and still today, enriched by additional research, represents the extensive holdings of my resulting collection on 'Pedagogical-Political Emigration (PPE)' dar. ". This collection is now in the exile collections of the German National Library in Frankfurt am Main.
Kurt Neuse and Rose Neuse-Vickery
Kurt Neuse (September 30, 1897 - March 1978) was teacher of Latin, Greek, English and history and deputy headmaster since 1934. After Katharina Petersen's departure, he was appointed acting headmaster in 1938. His wife, the English Quaker Rose Vickery (August 4, 1902-1994), was the school's accountant.
In the Middlebury College campus newspaper of June 15, 1936, an announcement reads: “Prof. Werner Neuse will be on vacation in the first semester. Dr. Neuse plans to go to Germany with his family, where he will conduct research in the Prussian State Library of the University of Berlin. Ms. Neuse will do some literary work to complete her thesis that started when she received the Ottendorf Scholarship. The Neuses can also go to Austria and Switzerland for a short time. Dr. Kurt Neuse, who is currently teaching at a Quaker school for German refugee children in Ommen, Holland, will take his brother's place in the German department in the first semester. He is a graduate of the University of Berlin and is working on a thesis on the English language. ”It is unlikely that this substitute professorship would have come about, because an obituary dated June 17, 2016 for Kurt and Rose Newse's son Richard said:“ 1933 moved the family to Ommen, Holland, where the Quakers had started a school, Eerde (now Eerde International School). He, his parents and his three sisters lived here until the end of World War II. "
Rose Neuse-Vickery was a Quaker and came to the Quaker office in Berlin in 1928 . She graduated from Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Berlin, today's Humboldt University , with a diploma as a teacher of German for foreigners. During this time she also met Kurt Neuse. The two married in 1929 and went to West Prussia together, where Kurt taught at a secondary school in Schlochau. Son Richard was born here on February 24, 1931. In 1934 the family moved to Eerde, where three daughters were later born.
After the Germans invaded the Netherlands in 1940, Kurt Neuse had to resign from his position as headmaster, but he stayed at the school. After the deportation of the Jewish children in April 1943, he moved with his family to the “De Esch” house. At the end of 1944 he went into hiding, a World War I veteran, following a draft notice. “After his disappearance, Rose Neuse asked the German authorities to help find the missing father of their four children. The Germans were very puzzled by what we were saying, but they didn't seem to have put much energy into finding the fugitive reservist. What they didn't know was that Neuse had found refuge in the attic of his family's house, where he stayed until Canadian troops liberated this part of the Netherlands in April 1945. "
In 1946 Kurt Neuse emigrated to the USA and found a job at Cornell University in New York; his wife Rose followed in 1947 after having previously stayed in England for a year. A note in the Ogdensburg Journal dated September 19, 1959 stated that 11 “faculty members at St. Lawrence University began their college year 1959-1960 as scientists be appointed [...] to be promoted to associate professor [...] HL Kurt Neuse. ”Five years later it was published on April 1st, 1964 in the FRIENDS JOURNAL. Quaker Thought and Life Today published the following classified ad: “COLLEGE LEHRER, retired from June, ready to offer his services to an institution that teaches German (or Latin and Greek) here or English abroad. References available on request. HL Kurt Neuse, 10 Buck Street, Canton, New York. ”He was unlikely to have done this part-time retirement job, because in 1964 he and Rose returned to England.
Miss K.
When thirteen-year-old Hans A. Schmitt set out on his trip to Eerde from Frankfurt in September 1934, he did so without being accompanied as far as Neuss . There he was met by Miss K. and spent one night in her parents' apartment before they continued their journey to Holland together. The secret of who Miss K. was is never revealed by Schmitt, but he mentions her several times in his memories. His first impression: “My travel companion looked younger than any teacher I have ever had. On our trip the next day, I would find out that she would be the new art teacher at my school. I saw from her passport that she was only twenty-three years old, so not really outside of the legal limits. After this revelation, she benefited from my favorable interpretation of the dubious circumstances, and I found her company much more pleasant than I expected. "
In 1938, Miss K., a practicing Catholic who regularly attended mass on Sundays, had to leave Quaker School. A married teacher had been seen sneaking out of Miss K.'s room that morning, and it turned out that she was pregnant. Schmitt justifies this expulsion by saying “that an educational institution with a college and a student body, both of which were predominantly foreign, could not survive any allegation of sexual looseness in puritanical rural Holland. Pregnant unmarried teachers or students would destroy the school. Anyone who broke the rules of celibacy or those of monogamy, from which married adults were affected, endangered the community and lost all claims to its tolerance. ”He also makes it clear that in the case of Miss K. an ambiguous morality prevailed: The The husband involved in the affair was allowed to keep his job despite his misstep.
Molly Swaart
Hans A. Schmitt mentions her as a "plump, rosy, little Dutch woman" who taught French.
Jan Boost
Jan Boost was the first full-time teacher for the Dutch students from October 1934. The reason for this was that the Quaker School Eerde had become increasingly interesting for Dutch students who had come into conflict with the rigid discipline at Dutch secondary schools. These students were important in stabilizing the school budget, but their parents also wanted their children to graduate from school in Holland. Jan Boost was responsible for ensuring this.
Boost had previously taught at the Swiss boarding school Le Rosey , where the last Shah of Persia, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi , and his brother were among his students. Schmitt cannot say why Boost, who described himself as a communist, left this school, but he suspects that "he was undoubtedly drawn to school by the egalitarianism of our community and the obligation to support the victims of Nazism" had been. The admirer of Tolstoy and Kropotkin never attended the Sunday meetings and was “the only teacher who demonstratively opposed Quakerism. I soon discovered that he loathed secular discipline as much as organized religion. "
Boost allowed his students to use his private library and introduced them to contemporary literature and theater. But also as a companion for longer bike tours, he was not too bad, so that Schmitt saw him as a warm-hearted friend and as one of the teachers who impressed him most in Eerde. However, Boost stumbled upon a scandal which - like the later case of Miss K. - put the school in danger in Schmitt's opinion. A fifteen-year-old student and a slightly older student were caught taking a nude shower together. This was a “violation of community rules for which both were immediately expelled from school. Boost had no direct reference to any of these events and potential scandals, but in a stormy quorum meeting he resisted the eviction of the two students. Not that he advocated promiscuity. His own monastic existence was proof of this. He simply believed that communities should reform themselves instead of throwing out the failures. ”As a result of these arguments, Boost's contract was not renewed - a decision that Schmitt, as in the case of Miss K., considers necessary in the interest of the school. Nonetheless, he mourns Boos: “He was replaced by a rather colorless Dutch couple who exuded little charisma and, in contrast to their desolate and abandoned 'chapel' [Boost's office and study room, which was always open to the students], not a suitable one intellectual stimulus. "
Hans A. Schmitt only found out about Jan Boost's further fate after the end of the Second World War. He was "killed in action against the Japanese in the Dutch East Indies [...]." I don't know how he came to such an end. Although one of his brothers was a regular army officer, the idea of Jan Boost as a soldier is beyond the imagination. One could have imagined that he threw himself into the thicket of resistance with untiring enthusiasm and suffered martyrdom in the hands of the Nazis. But to die for an empire that he despised and rejected was a terrible fate for the man who introduced me and some of my friends to our first acquaintance with magnanimous pacifism and the utopia of social justice. "
Evelyn Green and Betty Shepherd
Evelyn Green came from England in the autumn of 1934 to teach English and Betty Shepherd as a math teacher. As teachers with English as their mother tongue, they were also important for teaching in preparation for the English school leaving certificate. Evelyn Green was also a Quaker, which minimized Quakers' initial concerns that Eerde could become a Quaker school without a Quaker teacher. Schmitt writes about these teachers who arrived at the school after him: “One of the newcomers, Miss Green, a funny, cozy weirdo, also taught English, but always in the shadow of Mr Neuse, who, as I remember, rightly feared that it would be too tolerant of our imperfections. Nonetheless, she was important for our upbringing, because she didn't know any German word and so forced us to use her language and to feel at home in it. The other British woman, Betty Shepherd, who taught mathematics in English in high school, was also monolingual and very pious. Every Sunday morning, at dawn, she rode her bike to the Reformed Church in Ommen, and for the rest of the day she stayed invisible, reading and praying, of which there was no doubt for such miserable and frivolous students as me. [..] I suspect that Eerde was her first job. She was conscientious, but often with little understanding of why a subject as simple as hers bothered some of us. "
Thera Hofstede
Thera Hofstede Crull (born March 30, 1900 - † August 30, 1966) was a well-known Dutch artist who had her own studio on Eerde. From 1931 to 1958 she was married to:
Werner Eduard Albert Hermans
Werner Eduard Albert Hermans, who worked as a teacher in Eerde and in 1938 took over the management of the Dutch department of the school. “Hermans was [...] originally German; was briefly at the Odenwald School as an intern; went to Holland as 'Hermanns'; shortly before the German invasion, as a humorous comment in an Eerden school newspaper suggests, 'a -n- lost' "
Werner Hermans (February 4, 1905–1999) was born as Werner Hermanns in Dortmund. He studied in Heidelberg and worked in the Odenwald School during the semester break. He was also a trainee lawyer there for a few months, but was no longer hired in 1932 due to the political situation. After his marriage to Thera Hofstede, he made the acquaintance of the van Pallandts through her. From 1934 he was a teacher in Eerde and responsible for the Dutch students. After his naturalization as a Dutch citizen and the forced retirement of Neuse as headmaster, he took over the management in 1940.
Herman's role after the separation of the Jewish children is obscure. In autumn 1941, after the separation of the Jewish students, Wolfgang Cordan went to Hermans, who was not very happy about it. Cordan wanted to know what plans the school administration had for the safety of the children: “The headmaster, an honest but unimaginative man, spoke of the protection of the Quakers. 'We're a Quaker school. Nobody messes with that. ' It was hard to believe. Did the world never learn? ”And Hans A. Schmitt also paints a rather diffuse picture of Hermans:“ Director Hermans [..] left no doubt that the castle and its immediate surroundings were closed to Jewish children. The actual events reflect a less clear division. It is also known that Hermans himself admitted two new Jewish students to the castle school, completely disregarding the instructions of the board of directors to only accept applicants whose ID documents their Aryan descent. "
After the school was occupied by the Germans at the end of 1943, Hermans stayed in Eerde and worked with staff and neighborhood children. At the end of the war he was "appointed in command of an internment camp for Dutch Nazis: as a Quaker he guaranteed humane treatment of these collaborators, a promise that he kept fully". The “Internment camp for Dutch Nazis” that Schmitt mentions here was the Erica assembly camp, which was adjacent to Schloss Eerde .
After the new beginning of the Quaker school, Hermans was immediately back and also the headmaster of the new foundation until he was replaced in 1947 by the American Quaker Horace Eaton. In 1951 he left the Quaker School and worked from then on in an institution founded by the Pallandts. In 1959 he returned to Eerde, who had meanwhile married a Pallandt daughter, and became headmaster of the boarding school founded by the Pallandt family.
Titus Leeser
Titus Leeser (born October 14, 1903 Keulen (Germany) - May 3, 1996 Zwolle) was a Dutch painter and sculptor. “Leeser has a certain prominence in Holland with orders for the royal family; he was a close confidante of the van Pallandt family, often at home or at school; He taught sculpture for a few semesters with six girls, including Heilwig Einstein, the two Pallandt daughters Eriun and Irthe. ”Leeser gave a somewhat strange praise for Katharina Petersen:“ Professor Petersen was (became) a convinced Quaker. Oh fabulous! She just never had to wear shorts! The only thing missing! ... But: she wanted to align herself with the youth as much as possible - why did that have to be with shorts? But otherwise she was a fabulous woman! "
Edith and Otto Reckendorf
Edith Reckendorf was a weaver trained at the Bauhaus . The biographical data of her daughter, Verena Reckendorf Borton, reveal further details concerning herself: “Verena Reckendorf Borton represents the third generation of her family's weaving tradition, which goes back to the beginning of the last century in Northern Europe. She first learned her trade as a toddler in her mother's studio during World War II and later as a pupil in her mother's classes at an international school in the Netherlands. After she immigrated to the United States in the late 1950s, she finally completed her apprenticeship in the studios in Massachusetts and California of master weaver Edith Reckendorf. “The studio in Massachusetts mentioned here probably means the Windsor Mountain School , where Edith Reckendorf taught weaving in the mid-1960s. Edith Reckendorf was with the George circle belonging Wolfgang Frommel friends, like former Eerde students Claus Bock reported.
Edith Reckendorf's husband, Otto Reckendorf, taught mathematics and natural sciences in Eerde. Hans A. Schmitt, who came to Eerde in 1934, reports that Reckendorf was the only Jewish teacher at the school at the time. He was forced to leave the Odenwald School because of his Jewish faith .
The Reckendorfs lived outside the castle, as can be seen from the reports by Claus Victor Bock. They moved to the USA in 1952.
William Hilsley
Instead of Eduard Zuckmayer , who failed because of his unfortunate performance and who later built up the music teacher training course in Turkey very successfully, William Hilsley , known as Billy , came along . Since "the musical area [..] in Eerde was equally effective in its effect alongside the practical and the theoretical", it played a kind of key role.
Like his friend Buri, Hilsley was one of the closest circle around Wolfgang Frommel.
Friedrich W. Buri
Friedrich W. Buri, called Buri, worked as an assistant to a works teacher, of whom he only gives the first name "Mia" and that she will soon return to Germany. This craft teacher is probably the “Miss. Kemperdieck ”mentioned by William Hilsley in a tape transcript dated March 30, 1981.
Max Adolph Warburg and Josepha Einstein
Max Adolph Warburg (* July 10, 1902 in Hamburg - † October 22, 1974 in Epsom, Kent, England), a son of Aby Warburg , was a teacher in Eerde and has been married to Josepha Einstein since 1938 (* April 4, 1903 - † September 26, 1988 in London), who came to the school in 1934 with her children Hans (Hans E. Einstein, doctor and university professor) and Heilwig (Heilwig Dorothea Odlivak) and together with Katharina Petersen as housekeeping manager.
On September 11, 1945, Max Warburg applied in writing to the German Educational Reconstruction Committee (GER) in London to accept the group of German emigrants who wanted to return to Germany with GER's help. For this purpose he sent the following CVs of himself and his wife to London:
"Dr. MW, born July 10, 1902 in Hamburg as the son of Prof. Dr. Aby Warburg (his library is attached to the University of London as [..] 'Warburg Institute'). After finishing school, studies of classical languages and art history. Doctorate to Dr. phil. with Prof. Dr. Werner Jaeger in Berlin (now [..] Harvard). Later examination for the state teaching post for ancient languages, art history and philosophy. 1934 emigrated from Germany due to half-Jewish descent and political convictions. Went to the International Quaker School in Eerde near Ommen in Holland, worked there until it was closed in 1943 for the benefit of the Hitler Youth. I taught German literature, Greek, Latin, history, art history, geography and drawing. I had some games played with the children and took part in the practical organization.
In 1939 I married Josepha Spiero, b. in Hamburg on April 4th, 1903. Daughter of the writer Dr. Heinrich Spiero , an upright and active member of the Confessing Church. Like myself, my wife is half-Jewish. She attended the best school for social work in Berlin ( Dr. A. Salomon ) and has proven her skills for years in a workers' settlement near Hamburg. She was a hospital sister for a year. She also emigrated to Holland in 1934 and worked as a housemother in the Quaker School since it was founded. We have 2 daughters of 2 and 6 years old, the latter was born in London. "
This joint résumé is preceded by a letter that says a lot about the feelings and hopes of people who have lived in emigration for 12 years.
“Last year, under the pressure of the German occupation in this country, the problem of German re-education became an urgent concern for my wife and me. Our efforts to enter Germany have so far been in vain. As isolated individuals, we will have little chance of getting there without contact with the relevant authorities and organized groups working for the purpose we have chosen. Obviously, Holland is a dead end in this regard. Belonging to your association would free us from a feeling of isolation that is gradually overwhelming us here (although we individually meet with understanding and hope to achieve our goal before we become mad or blessed by the next war). "
After the occupation of the Netherlands by the German Wehrmacht, the couple tried in vain to emigrate to the USA, but "Max Warburg and his wife Josepha Einstein could no longer leave the Netherlands and survived in hiding." The couple had two daughters together who lived in Eerde, born Lux, and Iris, who suffered from Down syndrome , and had to take care of Josepha's daughter Heilwig Einstein, who, unlike her brother Hans, remained in Holland and was particularly at risk as a Jew. Heilwig had forged papers, but her parents were forced to find a total of 22 hiding places for her before the liberation of the Netherlands.
After the war, Max Adolph wanted to teach in Hamburg, which was the purpose of his application to the GER, which we have already quoted. For what reasons he was not given a job there, there is no record of Chernow either. In 1947 the family moved to Dulwich in England and was soon naturalized there. After his arrival, Max Warburg first worked at the Warburg Institute and from 1948 as a teacher at the reform-pedagogical-oriented Dartington Hall School , where Josepha also found a job as an administrator. In 1957 he founded the Department of History of Art at Liverpool College of Art , which he headed until 1966. His wife worked from 1957 to 1966 as an administrator at a college of the Church of England in Liverpool.
Max Adolph's time in England was overshadowed by the severe depression from which he suffered. He underwent psychoanalysis and electroshock treatment and spent the last years of his life "alternately inside and outside of sanatoriums".
Feidel-Mertz attests to Max Warburg that, together with Kurt Neuse, he shaped the spirit and character of the Quaker School Eerde .
Max Warburg is an older cousin of Eerde's student Noni Warburg (see below).
Elisabeth Schmitt
From 1935 Elisabeth Schmitt worked as a housemother at the school free of charge in order to finance the school fees for her son Richard. The older son Hans had already become a student in Eerde a year earlier.
Schmits role in connection with the darkest chapter of the school, the deportation of the Jewish pupils, is controversial to this day.
Wolfgang Frommel
Wolfgang Frommel was not a teacher at the school, but a frequent guest, as Claus Victor Bock reports: “He was often present at musical events, for example at Advent celebrations or at the dance pantomime composed by Cyril based on a text by Andersen [..] Also appeared he to a puppet theater for which Buri had made puppets with us. During such visits he would speak to the class at the invitation of a teacher, occasionally. I remember a lesson on 'Lord Byron and Goethe's attitude towards him' [..]. An event that was discussed for a long time was the lecture given in November 1939, “Friedrich Hölderlin's Brod and Wine as German Prophecy” [..]. In the first days of April 1940, Wolfgang was in Eerde again. His announced 'Introduction to Dante's Divine Comedy' did not attract me. ”Frommel must have lived in the castle during his visits, as can be seen from the following quote, in which Bock points out that this time Frommel was housed elsewhere:“ In April 1941 came Wolfgang again. This time he did not live in the castle, but a little bit outside as a guest at Edith Reckendorf's. ”Even at Christmas 1941, the first holiday, Wolfgang Frommel still spent in Eerde, as can be seen in Klaus Seckel's diary:“ There are a lot of old school students during the holidays Visit there. Mr F. talked about Homer and explained a few things. Then he read from Illias. "
Wolfgang Cordan
Like Wolfgang Frommel, his close friend Wolfgang Cordan also occasionally stayed in Eerde (Ommen) for readings and other events:
“In March 1941, Wolfgang Cordan also gave a lecture in Ommen. Now, as Keilson writes, another student is making a big impression: 17-year-old Johannes Piron (father's name: Kohn). A lifelong relationship emerges from this encounter. A second 'unexpected following' (Cordan) arose because of his friendship with Thomas Maretzki, a Jewish student at the school who was just graduating but had not yet found another apartment. After the introduction of the Yellow Star (May 1942) Cordan persuaded him to leave Schloss Eerde and join him in Bergen. First they found refuge with an old friend of Wolfgang, Theo van der Wal [..], later with the mother of Chris Dekker, who belonged to Frommel's circle of friends. "
Cordan himself goes into great detail on his visits to Eerde, his contacts with individual teachers, with students and his help in the escape of three Jewish students in his book Die Matte . “I was invited to Eerde to read my own poems. I made friends with the German and history teacher Dr. Warburg, and so the lecture turned into a series of cultural lectures. Again and again I went to Eerde, fascinated by a school that I would have liked for myself. ”Cordan's activities are seldom precisely listed in his book. It is therefore not possible to say when he first came into contact with the school. In 1938 he finally moved to Amsterdam, and in June 1940 he met Wolfgang Frommel. On the other hand, the fact that the momentous meeting with Johannes Piron took place in March 1941 does not say anything about whether Cordan had been to Eerde before.
Percy Gothein
Percy Gothein , who was arrested in Ommen on July 25, 1944, and died in Neuengamme concentration camp on December 22, 1944, was in various contact with Eerde and some of the students there, especially those who went into hiding with Frommel's help . He belonged to the George circle and was a close friend of Frommel's. Wolfgang Cordan linked Gothein's arrest to homosexual contacts, while other depictions linked it to resistance activities.
Kitchen and house
There are very few references to the purely functional employees of the Quaker School, and Hans A. Schmitt also only outlines just under three people:
He writes about the employee who was responsible for the kitchen in the early years:
“The staff of the school included the mistress of the kitchen, a massive, unsmiling north German with the face of a pugilist, Frau Kuck [..], who commanded a team consisting of another German, her deputy Fräulein Emmy, and several Dutch girls, recruited in the surrounding villages. "
“One of the school employees was the lady of the kitchen, Mrs. Kuck [..], a tough, serious North German with the face of a boxer, who commanded a team that consisted of another German, her deputy, Miss Emmy, and from several Dutch girls recruited in the surrounding villages. "
Marie Kuck, had worked with Rudolf Schlosser in the Saxon welfare and educational institution in Bräunsdorf (Oberschöna) before her time in Eerde . Schmitt once describes her culinary skills as "solid, predictable, Teutonic cuisine"
"The garden was kept by a quiet, unobtrusive Dutchman, Paul Kruimel, whose skill as a soccer player never ceased to arouse our admiration."
"The garden was looked after by a quiet, inconspicuous Dutchman, Paul Kruimel, whose footballing skills never ceased to arouse our admiration."
“… The carpentry shop was supervised by Mijnheer Brouwer, a blond, handsome, but moody man. He was thin-skinned and quick to take offense at real or imaginary gestures of condescension from colleagues or students. But Brouwer was also a master of his métier, and whether he knew it or not, we liked and respected him. "
“The carpenter's shop was looked after by Mijnheer Brouwer, a blond, handsome but moody man. He was thin-skinned and easily offended by real or imagined condescending gestures from colleagues or students. But Brouwer was also a master of his trade, and whether he knew it or not, we liked and respected him. "
The student body
The social origin and social character
The question of how to deal with the different religious orientations of the children arose as early as the planning phase. Piet Kappers and some German Quakers advocated a liberal standpoint, each of which had an individual right to believe. Nonetheless, it soon became clear that, regardless of the very special Jewish dietary rules, Orthodox Jewish parents could hardly be convinced to send their children to a Quaker school. And so “Eerde consequently became a haven for children not Jewish by religion but affected by Nazi assumptions of Jewish racial identity, raised in homes either no longer Orthodox or converted to Christianity or without any organized religious affiliation. It was, of course, equally accessible to Gentile youngsters whose parents suffered persecutions on exclusively political grounds. The resulting population showed no disposition toward religious dogmatism. "
The pupils who came were therefore free of religious dogmatism influenced by their families, but they were also highly socially selected and, regardless of whether they were German émigré children or Dutch children, “came from the sometimes prominent educated middle class, their families represented personalities in science, art and politics ”. Friedrich W. Buri characterizes the students as "the quick-witted, quick-reacting and judgmental Jewish children [...] from mostly intellectual Berlin and Hamburg-Frankfurt families", and many of them came to drastic changes in the families until the outbreak of war School numbers led.
Enzio Meyer-Borchert's letters and diary entries clearly show that a relatively homogeneous social background does not rule out a diverse student body with diverging interests. First of all, he refers to the course system practiced at the school, which was apparently based on a division of students according to age and performance. He started in September 1936 in a C course “that suits me”, but within a few days he switched to another course and wrote: “But unfortunately my course is very silly. In the C-course, where I was first, it wasn't like that. "A few days later he reports:" Today the A and B courses, the biggest, went to Zwolle to see a film. It was played 'Modern Times' with Chaplin. The film is banned in Germany. "
But Meyer-Borchert's descriptions go far beyond these functional differentiations and describe a remarkable social distinction for a thirteen-year-old. After initially referring to a previous friendship, he continues: “I don't think this is an easy thing to do here. You just feel drawn to some. You then call them friends and you feel repulsed by some and you don't want to have anything to do with them. Then there is a middle class of people who are indifferent to you. You don't evade them, but you don't address them that way either. ”The apparent indifference towards certain groups of schoolchildren intensifies to an open aversion that moves along educated bourgeois attitudes:“ On the one hand, there is a group that is actually not clearly delimited but in which, to put it a bit pointedly, all decent people are and all nice people. (Again, humility forbids me to admit that I am one of them). The second group includes, to put it briefly, the criminals, the dregs, if not of the earth then of Eerde. The external characteristics of the two camps are that some like to listen to good music, Bach Mozart etc., like to read good books and poems, to look at beautiful pictures like we used to do with father, although not all of this together like a solid group, but simply that they are individually interested in beautiful things. The others prefer to listen to dance and jazz music, behave rowdy in class, introduce bad morals (including smoking, which was forbidden here in Eerde a long time ago) and spend the whole evening listening to loud screaming radio etc. Fighting has not yet come about. ”Of course, family influences of a young person through his parents are expressed here, he is the son of a country doctor, but here such attitudes could well manifest through belonging to the circle around Wolfgang Frommel, Wolfgang Cordan assumes that he has secret arrogance and secret mental reservations and that the world is only viewed as an unworthy scene for the execution of 'real life'. For Cordan, this is the hidden curriculum behind the much acclaimed and admired work - for example that of the quiet and friendly music teacher William Hilsley.
From the upper class child to the educated middle class
The predominant origin of the student body from the German educated bourgeoisie found its continuation in what they themselves have become. Hanna Jordan quotes Hans A. Schmitt, who stated on the occasion of the old school meeting in 1996:
“The participants looked cheerful and looked quite well preserved. They came from all over the world, USA, Canada, Netherlands, Israel, Great Britain, Sweden, Germany and Austria. Representatives of all professions, almost all of them retired or similar: journalists, entrepreneurs, bankers, archivists, university lecturers, a set designer, musicians, publishers, doctors, etc. Amazingly, everyone resumed the dialogue, which had mostly been interrupted for over half a century, after the war and the Holocaust had scattered people everywhere. "
Hans A. Schmitt points out elsewhere that 6 of the 14 former Eerde students who passed the Oxford exam together with him received their doctorate and many others were later able to take up positions at universities, including at Harvard University and at from Yale University .
"But what made the student body, in retrospect, as extraordinary as the faculty was the gifts and achievements of many of its members. As my contemporaries among the school population pass in review, I cannot claim to have lived among geniuses, but I remember an unusual number of successful talents. "
“But what made the student body so extraordinary in retrospect as the staff were the talents and achievements of many of its members. When my peers pass by among the student body in retrospect, I cannot claim to have lived among geniuses, but I do remember an unusual number of successful talents. "
The student biographies outlined in the following sections provide sufficient evidence for this thesis.
Development of the number of students
The school started its work with two students, but the number of students grew rapidly. "In the autumn of 1936, 1o3 students were in attendance: 96 boarders and 7 day students. The number of Dutch children had risen to 17. Shortage of space necessitated the opening of another dormitory, at the villa 'De Esch', where 18 students lived under the supervision of Werner Hermans and his wife, Thera. [..] By the end of 1938 the student body reached its prewar maximum, approximately 150, including 21 Dutch pupils and 15 offspring of faculty. Staff had risen to 16. By September 1939, 300 children attended or had passed through the castle's classrooms and, in many cases, completed an education from which German racial decrees would otherwise have excluded them. “At this time the money transfer for the German students still possible, so that the school's financial situation was secured.
Student participation
Both Feidel-Mertz and Hans A. Schmitt point to the strong position of student self-administration at the school. Schmitt sees in this - institutionalized in the school assemblies - a conscious reference to the concepts of the German rural education homes. "Periodic assemblies of the entire community made decisions about rules of conduct. The advice of teachers naturally carried uncommon weight, but teachers did not run this institution. The chair was always occupied by a student, almost invariably of the age group closest to graduation, elected for one term. Early in 1935 students also elected a committee of ten that applied and implemented school rules and had jurisdiction over all areas of community life, except instruction. The most visible aspect of their work was the sharing of responsibility with faculty for the supervision of the school after the evening meal, including the 'lights out' ritual for the different age groups. ”For Hanna Jordan, student participation manifests something that she paraphrases with the “Eerder Geist”: “The Eerder Geist made an early form of co-determination of students possible, except in questions of the curriculum, already in the thirties. This was later attempts, e.g. B. in the sixties, far ahead in quality. The unobtrusive Quaker background set standards here. ”In this context, she also describes some aspects that illuminate everyday school life from a student's perspective:
“Fortunately, there were no 'saints' in our midst. Nothing human was alien to us, we were not spared anger and grief. But that's it! Friendships between the older girls and boys e.g. B. with a clearly erotic component were observed with eagle eyes, but lovingly and inconspicuously by the teaching staff. Some parents, including mine, received status reports from time to time. One couple was actually expelled from school. A necessary measure of discipline was a matter of course for everyone, and when missteps were punished, this was usually accepted. A not insignificant point, even then a certain problem, was the question: To smoke, or not to smoke? During one of the famous 'standing meetings' after lunch on the outside staircase of the castle, led by students, it was decided: No smoking. On such an occasion, the teaching staff also had their say. "
Thirteen-year-old Klaus Seckel, who has lived in the De Esch house, which is reserved for Jewish children, since September 1941, judged the self-administration far more skeptically in December 1941, two years after Hanna Jordan's departure from Eerde: “Over there is Jochen, the former school community leader, who has been deposed a triumph wheel has been formed, consisting of Tom, Aneke and Peter. Every 2 weeks there are evenings where resolutions and the like are made. These evenings are compulsory. In between there are some discussion evenings which are not mandatory. Some (most of them Germans) are very pessimistic about this triumph wheel. I just think that it certainly can't get much worse than it was recently under Jochen's leadership. "
Student biographies
With several hundred students who have attended the Quaker School Eerde in the course of its existence, a biographical overview must be limited to individual cases. Before that, however, an overview by Hans A. Schmitt should be quoted, which highlights the successful work of the pre-war years:
“Earlier fears that the idyllic life within the moat could impair the ability of the students to find their way around independently in a foreign country also turned out to be unfounded. In the last two years before the war, success stories increased, confirming a much more encouraging result. Some Oxford School Certificate holders continued their education at St. Andrews University , Scotland, while five Eerde graduates resided in the United States attended colleges and universities from Swarthmore and Haverford to the University of California at Berkeley . Others have successfully completed vocational training. Gerda LeRoy became a kindergarten teacher in Amsterdam; Carl Jacoby, a particularly promising intern at Thera Herman's pottery studio, perfected his craft in New York; After completing an agriculture course in England, Peter Liebermann worked on a farm in Australia; and younger graduates from Heinz Wild's elementary school, reunited with their families abroad, were very successful in distant schools in Portugal and California. Some, who were forced to return to Germany by the circumstances, remained particularly determined to keep in touch with the school and wrote regularly to friends and teachers. They too made a name for themselves at school in this inhospitable climate to which they had to return. "
Nevertheless, of the many students, only a few have become publicly visible or are remembered - above all the Jewish children and adolescents presented above who fell victim to the Nazi terror. The following overview of individual student biographies can only offer a narrow and random selection, based on the most diverse publications about the school. The overview is also based on a three-way division: First and foremost are the names of those who could be identified as students from a wide variety of sources. Then there are two special groups: On the one hand, those who can be clearly assigned to the circle around Wolfgang Frommel, in which the two teachers William Hilsley and Friedrich W. Buri were also involved, also on the basis of their own writings, then those who - with similar background - tended more towards Wolfgang Cordan. For Keilson-Lauritz, Frommel and Cordan together are the “Centaurs” - referring to the two jointly published Kentaur prints: “What united them, however, was not just the publication project, but above all that 'higher' form of love , which has been called educational eros. That physicality was not spurned can be read in the memories of the younger ones at least between the lines, “in the case of Claus Victor Bock also quite directly.
General student biographies
- Bruno and Johannes Lüdecke, twins, were the first pupils at the school (above: years of development). For Hans A. Schmitt they were “archetypal for the kind of students who populated Eerde. Her half-Jewish father, who had been dismissed from his position as director of the Holzminden branch of the Braunschweiger Landesbank, had been forced to accommodate his family in the guest room of his wife's parents in Berlin. When the Lüdecke brothers arrived in Eerde, they did not find a school, just a collection of empty buildings. "
- The Einstein siblings
- Heilwig Einstein and her brother
- Hans E. Einstein (February 3, 1923 to August 11, 2012) were the children of Josefa Spiero Einstein (later: Warburg) and Fritz Einstein. The children spent their childhood in Hamburg. The parents were Quakers, but of Jewish origin. One year after Hitler took power in 1934, the mother left her husband and moved with the two children to Eerde, where she was responsible for housekeeping. Hans finished school in Eerde at the age of 16 and went to the United States as an exchange student. He attended Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina , where he studied medicine. He later became the leading authority on Valley Fever, a lung disease.
- Hanna Jordan became a committed Quaker under the experiences of the war she went through in Germany. Even as a schoolgirl, she was involved in setting the stage for school performances in Eerde and later became an important stage and costume designer.
- The Schmitt brothers
- Hans A. Schmitt (* 1921 in Frankfurt am Main - † 2006), son of Elisabeth Schmitt, also received American citizenship and became a historian.
He attended Eerde from 1934 to 1937 and then colleges in Washington and Lee. He studied history at the University of Chicago and graduated in 1943 with an AM (Masters). After becoming an American citizen, he joined the army and served in their intelligence service in Europe. After the war he married Florence Arlene Brandow and received his doctorate in 1953. Stations of his academic career were the University of Oklahoma , Tulane University , New York University and from 1971 to 1991 the University of Virginia.
He has described his own history and that of his family in the book Lucky Victim (see literature), and his study Quakers and Nazis also includes an examination of the history of the Quaker School Eerde (see below under literature). Further articles by him are available on the website VQR-Journal: Hans A. Schmitt . For proof in WorldCat see: WorldCat-Identity of Hans A. Schmitt . - Richard Schmitt (born May 5, 1927 in Frankfurt am Main) came to the USA in 1946 and was naturalized in 1952. There is only a brief reference to him and his time in Eerde in a publication by his brother. In connection with the catering for the Jewish children separated in the house “De Esch”, he wrote: “The kitchen staff at the castle continued to cook for the Jewish children, and Elisabeth Schmitt's son Richard - son of an Aryan father, who in clear violation of German instructions in De Esch lived - brought the food to this site with a cart attached to his bicycle. ”Like his brother Hans, Richard Schmitt had an academic career in the United States:“ At the end of the Second World War he managed to move to Chicago draw where he attended the University of Chicago. He went to Yale with an MA in philosophy . After completing his doctorate, he moved to Brown University , where he was responsible for philosophical traditions that were despised by his analytically oriented colleagues. He taught existentialism for many years and added Marxism to his repertoire in the late 1960s . He retired from Brown in 2000 and has taught at Worcester State University and other institutions in the Worcester area ever since. He has published books and articles on existentialism, Marxism, socialism and feminist theory. "
- Hans A. Schmitt (* 1921 in Frankfurt am Main - † 2006), son of Elisabeth Schmitt, also received American citizenship and became a historian.
- Kurt Aufrichtig later called himself Keith Andrews and became an art historian in Great Britain.
- Wulf Künkel was probably at the school from September 7, 1937 to September 29, 1941. It was very likely the son of Fritz Künkel and his wife Ruth. Fritz Künkel had "three half-Jewish (!) Children himself, whom he placed in a Dutch boarding school in 1934 for their own safety." Whether Wulf Künkel had actually been at school since 1934 or, as Feidel-Mertz suggests, only from 1937 , must remain open. Feidel-Mertz also lacks references to his siblings Peter and Ruth-Maria (possibly Eva-Maria, married Lipski) as pupils of Eerde. In turn, Wulf is mentioned in the report The first sign of life under construction from June 8, 1945 as being in Amsterdam. He is probably the physicist who died on September 3, 2013 at the “Berkeley Lab”.
- Peter Künkel is mentioned in the Eerder report sheets of September 1938 as someone who went to "Haverford (USA)", which could be a reference to Haverford College . Petra Bonavita white zuber layers about him that he was known in Eerde as Palma Kunkel - based on a character from the Gallows Songs by Christian Morgenstern . Together with his friend Fritz Hoeniger, he acquired the Oxford School Certificate in Eerde in the summer of 1938. In 1940 he tried to organize an affidavit for the USA for Fritz Hoeniger.
- Frederick J. David Hoeniger, also known as Fritz Hoeniger or David F. Hoeniger, * 1921 in Görlitz, attended school in Eerde and received the Oxford School Certificate in 1938. Hegner lets him tell his further story: “Life after my emigration in 1938 was very difficult at first. English Quakers placed me temporarily in an agricultural college for nine months. I later went to a Scottish university, but as a German I was interned there. All internees were taken to Canada by ship. ”He later moved to Toronto, where he attended Victoria College at the University of Toronto. In 1946 he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in English. He was a lecturer at the University of Saskatchewan from 1946 to 1947 and then returned as a lecturer at Victoria College for the years 1948 to 1955. During this time he received a Masters (1948) and a Ph. D (1954) from the University of London on a British Council scholarship from 1951 to 1953. In 1954 he married his first wife Judith FM Hoeniger with whom he had two children. After 1955, Hoeniger was appointed to many positions at the University of Toronto, including assistant professor in 1955, associate professor in 1961, full professor in 1963, director of the Center for Reformation and Renaissance in 1964–1969 and 1975–1979 and finally to Chairman of the English Department from 1969 to 1972. Hoeniger retired in the early 1990s and lived in Toronto with his second wife, Xu Xueqing. The fate of the Hoeniger family is documented in great detail by Petra Bonavita.
- A boy is not named who also fled from the house “De Esch” in the summer of 1942 and came to France.
- The sisters fame
- Beate Ruhm von Oppen (1918–2004) had been to Eerde in the early years of school and urged her parents to send her younger sister, Delia, to Eerde as well. Beate Ruhm von Oppen graduated from the University of Birmingham with a BA in 1939 and spent 9 / 1968–5 / 1969 as a “Member for Historical Studies” at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton . Beate Ruhm von Oppen has published books about the German resistance and the time of the occupation after the Second World War.
- Delia Ruhm (* 1925 - † September 2014, married Walker), who came to Eerde on the intervention of her older sister, stayed in England after the summer vacation of 1939 at the request of her parents.
The two sisters were students at the first Berlin Rudolf Steiner School. “Both were of Jewish descent. You grew up in Berlin. Her father, Ernst Ruhm, worked as a lawyer and her mother, Hilde Isaac, was a well-known soprano singer. Delia switched from the unpopular elementary school to the Rudolf Steiner School, where she felt very comfortable. [..] When the National Socialists forbade schooling for Jewish students, Delia attended an international 'Quaker' school in the Netherlands. In 1939 she moved to England to live with her sister Beate, where she attended a school in Cambridge. A short time later the parents of the two girls were also able to emigrate to England. Delia has always been an avid flautist. After receiving a scholarship to the “Royal Academy of Music” in London, she was able to study this instrument and then start a successful career as a flautist. Delia married Harlan Walker, with whom she started a family in Birmingham. She died at the age of 89, leaving behind her husband, two sons, a daughter and seven grandchildren. Her sister Beate went to the USA and worked there as a historian and teacher. She died at the age of 86. Delia, her sister and her parents survived the Holocaust. Thanks to their financial means, they had reached exile. About 6 million Jews did not succeed: They succumbed to the cruel genocide. "
- Anna Isaac (born November 4, 1922 in Frankfurt am Main, later A (e) nne Alexander) came to the Quaker School Eerde from Frankfurt in 1939 together with her brother Hermann, who was later deported (see above). But in January 1940 she left school in good time before the German occupation and went to England.
The parents of Hermann and Anne Isaac were the internist Simon Isaak (July 3, 1881 in Cologne - † February 2, 1942 in London) and the Arabist Eveline Lypstadt (born September 10, 1898), like her husband, also of Israelite faith. From 1919 until his discharge in 1935, Simon Isaak was chief physician at the Jewish Hospital in Frankfurt and from 1921 ao professor at the university there. In 1935 his license to teach at Frankfurt University was withdrawn, and his license to practice medicine was withdrawn in 1938. In 1939 he emigrated to England with his wife Evelyn. - Noni Warburg, born March 15, 1922, was actually called Charlotte Esther, but was "only called Noni after a children's book with the title 'Noni, Loni only a girl'". After her marriage she was called Esther Shalmon and lived in Israel, in Bear Sheva-Omer. She had 4 children, eight grandchildren and eleven great-grandchildren.
Noni's parents were Anna and Fritz Warburg , a distant relative of the large Warburg family , whom Anna married in 1908. Both were prominent Jews in Hamburg and were involved in many social Jewish institutions before their flight to Sweden (1939). Noni Warburg is the sister of Eva Warburg and Ingrid Warburg Spinelli and a younger cousin of Max. A. Warburg, who teaches in Eerde (see section “Staff”). The teacher William Hilsley was a schoolmate of her sister Ingrid from the Schloss Salem school .
Noni Warburg came to Eerde in 1935 after being expelled from school as a Jewish student in Hamburg. After Chernow, her older cousin, Eric M. Warburg, supported the school financially.
In the school information "Quaker School Eerde", Vol. III, No. October 1, 1939, the house news section states that Noni Warburg went to Sweden to work as a kindergarten teacher after passing her exams. She left school at the same time as Hanna Jordan. In Vol. III, No 3, january / february 1940, Noni reported that she worked in a kindergarten that was part of a "settlement" founded by the Quakers in a very poor part of Stockholm. Possibly this activity also went hand in hand with an apprenticeship, because her sister Ingeborg Warburg Spinelli reports in her “Memories”: “Noni became a kindergarten teacher in Stockholm in the Pestalozzi-Froebel-Haus. She took her exams with Alva Myrdal , the wife of Gunnar Myrdal and then director of the Institute for Social Pedagogy. ”
An exchange of letters between Noni Warburg and William Hilsley is documented from the years 1944 and 1945 , which he carried out from the internment camp and during his Liberation from Italy continued.
Chernow tells about her life after the Second World War that she worked with deaf and blind children in Israel. Using the example of her son David, however, she also had to experience how part of the younger Israeli generation, “who cannot cope with the past of their parents and the confrontation with problems of the present, with National Socialism and Zionism, can find themselves in an ivory tower in closed, withdraws mystical-religious communities, which they protect with their dogmatics from really dealing with the present. [..] David [..] decided to become Orthodox and go to a yeshiva because he could not cope with Israel's problems. [..] This flight into the past or into religious orthodoxy leaves little room in the heart for a limited relationship with parents. With my sister Noni and her husband Seef, I was particularly impressed by their admirable calm, superiority and Noni's patience. " - Werner John Bing (born August 27, 1919) was also a student in Eerde and came from a family that was distantly related to the Warburgs . He and his sister Anneliese (born September 16, 1920, later married Ann Halstead) were children of the couple Ernst and Erna (née Stern) Bing. “The family was distantly related to the Warburgs. Ernest Bing and his brother-in-law Walter Stern owned a property and casualty insurance business. ”
In the early 1930s, Werner moved to Eerde because the school was considered a safe place for Jews. “In 1938 Werner traveled through Germany to take part in the 80th birthday of his grandfather Leo Stern in Switzerland. This was the last time he traveled through Germany before returning as an American soldier six years later. A few months later he moved to England with his sister Annelise. ”
Werner worked here in the office of a branch of his father's business. The parents emigrated to the USA in 1938, where they rebuilt their business. Werner and Anneliese followed them in 1939. “After America entered World War II, Werner John joined the United States Army and served initially as an artilleryman and later as an interrogator for captured Nazis. After his return to the United States, he married Maya Spiegelberg on February 9, 1947. “It is not known whether Werner's sister Anneliese was also a student in Eerde. - Peter West Elkington, born July 24, 1923 in Germantown (Pennsylvania) - † September 23, 2009 in Revelstoke (British Columbia), first attended a Quaker school in Germantown. In the school year 1938/1939 he attended the Quaker School in Eerde, while his parents worked for Quaker organizations in Berlin. He then spent a year at Westtown School in the United States before being drafted into military service in 1941.
What is not clear from this obituary: Peter W. Elkington was not a Jewish student, but the son of the head of the "International Quaker Office" in Berlin, Howard Elkington. Father Elkington, his son, and a friend of this set out on a trip through Germany in the summer of 1939. You visit Stuttgart and shortly afterwards you are surprised by the German attack on Poland. Howard Elkington telephones Berlin and learns that his British deputy had fled. He then decides to travel to Berlin immediately “and instructs his son and his friend to drive to Paris in the convertible and from there to Eerde. Without a driver's license and only with a few bits of French, the two youngsters embark on an adventurous journey through France, during which the troops are already being mobilized. ”What follows is a road movie: confrontation with the French gendarmerie, journey to Paris, separation of the two friends and return of the car, France and Great Britain declare war on Germany, closing the French borders. Peter W. Elkington is stuck and cannot continue to Eerde. With the last of his money he was able to pay for a ship passage to Great Britain, where he got a ticket for the last ship to leave for the USA, the Aquitania. “So that the Aquitania cannot be located, there is total radio silence during the crossing. You are heading for New York at top speed. So days later, the Aquitania appears out of nowhere in the port, where one had already feared the ship's sinking. The 16 year old's adventurous escape comes to a happy end. ”
Elkington also survived the Second World War. He studied history at Harvard and graduated in 1949. He then completed a Masters of Education at Temple University in the early 1950s and embarked on a long teaching career. After his first marriage ended in divorce in 1967, he married Mary Ruth (Sharum) Schwarz and moved to Canada's Yukon Territory. He became a Canadian citizen, and he and his wife lived in various cities in British Columbia. From 1977 the couple lived in Revelstoke. After retiring from school, he opened a computer business and began writing. - Guus Hollander is praised by Hanna Jordan as a great organizer of the old school meeting and as a banker in Holland who has set up a free account for the memorial stone in Eerde. In terms of age, he could be Guus Hollander, * December 25, 1925 - † April 9, 2016, from Emmen, about whom a brief obituary says: “In Emmen, Mr. Guus Hollander died at the age of ninety. In the early days of professional football [..], from April 1987 to 1989, he was a member of the board of the former club in Emmen. The bank manager had to reorganize the club's finances and did so with a hard hand. Guus Hollander became known as the man who put his hand on his wallet when it was threatened by irresponsible spending. "
- Hans Schneider , born January 24, 1927 in Vienna; † October 28, 2014 in Madison, Wisconsin, was a British-American mathematician born in Austria.
- Werner Warmbrunn, * 1920 in Frankfurt am Main; † July 19, 2009 in Claremont (California) , was the son of chemist David Warmbrunn, who owned his own commercial laboratory. In 1936 the Warmbrunn family moved to Amsterdam, where Werner Warmbrunn attended the Barleus Gymnasium. In 1939 his parents left the Netherlands and settled in the United States. Werner Warmbrunn stayed behind in Holland and attended the Quaker School Eerde (probably the agricultural school). In 1941 he came to the United States, where he lived with his sister on a farm near Cornell ( Ithaca (City, New York) ). In the same year he began studying at Cornell University and graduated in 1943 with a BA .
Werner Warmbrunn then worked as a teacher at schools in New Hampshire and Vermont before moving to California and earning a PhD in history from Stanford University .
Between 1949 and 1952 Werner Warmbrunn worked as co-director at the Peninsula School in Menlo Park, California. From 1952 to 1964 he was an advisor to overseas students and director at the Bechtel International Student Center at Stanford University.
In 1963 Werner Warmbrunn was appointed to Pitzer College by the then president to help redesign the academic programs. Here he retired in 1991.
Hildegard Feidel-Mertz became aware of him through Warmbrunn's book The Dutch under German occupation 1940–1945 and in 1981 conducted a lengthy interview with him about the Quaker school in Eerde . - Carl Jacobi, a former student from Eerde, who, according to the Eerder report sheets , had left for New York in February 1939, reported in a letter dated January 3, 1941 about an old school meeting in New York. The following took part in this meeting:
- Lore Dessauer attended the secondary girls' school in Offenbach, which she left after the lower secondary school due to her Jewish descent to change to a Jewish school in Offenbach, probably to the Jewish elementary school founded in 1935. Since no high school education was possible there, her parents sent their then 13-year-old daughter Eerde. Lore's father died in February 1939 as a result of his imprisonment in a concentration camp. Shortly afterwards, the mother managed to escape to England, where she was visited by Lore in the summer of 1939. Their return to Eerde was thwarted by the outbreak of World War II. Mother and daughter were able to emigrate to the USA in 1940.
- Peter Gruenthal
Hans A. Schmitt also mentions the future New York psychiatrist Ruth Gruenthal, born on August 28, 1922. She is probably the sister of Peter Gruenthal. - Stefan Ochs
- Richard (ox?)
- Halu Rose
- Hans-Bernd Elkan
- Gerd Alfred Elkan
- Stefan Kaufmann. He is probably the physicist Steven Kaufmann mentioned by Schmitt, who worked at the Argonne National Laboratory . Without naming his name, Hanna Jordan reports about him on the occasion of an old school meeting: “A boy from Wuppertal, with whom I played as a child and whom I last saw in 1937 (now he must be around 77) lives near Washington, has an adventurous profession and still does it. He invented a super machine that can test whether a nuclear facility can be broken or will withstand. Triggers insane artificial vibrations. "
- Fritz Kestner (born August 26, 1916 in Hamburg - † March 18, 2007 Dorchester-on-Thames) attended school in Eerde from September 1934 to January 1935. He was the first school community leader (student self-administration).
Fritz (Friedrich) Kestner was born in Hamburg in 1916. He was a student at the Lichtwark School . After graduating from school in Eerde, he received a draft order for the German Wehrmacht and did not return to Germany, but emigrated to England, the first student from Eerde to go to England. His parents Otto and Eva Kestner also fled to England a few weeks before the outbreak of World War II. - Michel (Michael) Schottlaender was a student in Eerde from 1937 to 1938. He was born in 1924 and died in 1989. Michael Schottlaender, who later called himself Scott, was the son of Rudolf Schottlaender and Hilde Marchwitza , the sister of Günther Anders .
- Peter Kaufmann is mentioned by Hans A. Schmitt in a letter written in 1940 to his father, who lives in Frankfurt: “I had a surprising encounter on campus with a classmate from Eerde, Peter Kaufmann, who runs the seminary of the Brethren Church on the west side of Visited Chicago. I strongly and intolerantly criticized his decision to become a pastor and viewed it as a betrayal of the enlightened teaching at our boarding school. My father condemned me for such disrespect for someone else's beliefs, and I defended myself by insisting that it was not my classmate's confession that repelled me, but the dogmatic bias of the clergy at the expense of ethics. "
- Marion Ballin (born April 5, 1921 in Hamburg - † May 30, 2009 in San Antonio ) is mentioned by Hans A. Schmitt as the first classmate in Eerde with whom he was in love. He describes her as the granddaughter of the Hamburg shipowner Albert Ballin , who attended school in Eerde in the mid-1930s and from there emigrated to Mexico with her family in 1935.
Marion Ballin was by no means the granddaughter of the famous shipowner. Her parents were Rosa Spiro Ballin (* May 18, 1895 - † May 9, 1932 in Hamburg) and Alfons Ballin, born in Hamburg in 1888. It is not known which branch of the extensive Ballin family Alfons came from.
Alfons Ballin, who also called himself Alfonso, actually emigrated to Mexico, but without Marion's mother, who had already died at the time of the emigration, and in this respect the second part of Hans A. Schmitt's memory of his school friend is correct.
Marion Ballin later immigrated to the USA from Mexico, where her first marriage was to Berthold Adler. In her second marriage she was with the American diplomat and scientist of German origin Dr. Herbert John Spiro (born September 7, 1924 in Hamburg - † April 6, 2010) married and carried the name Marion Ballin Spiro. It is unclear whether Herbert Spiro was related to the Spiro family, from which his wife was born on his mother's side. - Marianne Josephs is also mentioned by Hans A. Schmitt. She came to the school in 1935, acquired the “Oxford School Certificate” here and emigrated to Brazil with her family a year or two after him, in 1938/1939.
Marianne Josephs, with whom Schmitt had a long-standing friendship, confronted him in 1956 with a rejection of the culture of the country that he had not understood, which she had accepted as an emigrant. “I remember being struck by her complaint that immigrants like her could not become Brazilians like our family's survivors became Americans. Assimilating, she said, meant accepting a 'cultural level' to which she would not be willing to indulge. I was flabbergasted about this culture snobbery at the time, but in later years I have come to see this remark in a different light. The Josephs, like the Ballins - and also my own Jewish ancestors - had been Germans for generations and were completely unprepared for the sudden exclusion. Twenty years after our childhood friendship began on the way into exile, their eldest daughter was still unable to cope with this personal and collective catastrophe. German civilization was still the yardstick by which Marianne judged everything in her physical and spiritual realm. Her life too had been poisoned by Hitler. Nevertheless, her Jewish heart beats in Sao Paulo - where she lived her adult life - as she did during her childhood in Germany. ”
In the construction of July 3, 1942, Marianne Josephs and Dr. Rudolf Lanz, both living in São Paulo as fiancée. Rudolf Lanz (born July 18, 1915 in Budapest - † June 30, 1998 São Paulo), a lawyer, was like Marianne Josephs († 1987), whom he married in 1942, a European emigrant who found refuge in Brazil. There they both devoted themselves to anthroposophy and in 1956 were among the co-founders of the first Brazilian Waldorf school . “As the school grew, teacher training became more and more necessary. Initially, the future teachers attended the Waldorf teacher seminar in Stuttgart, Germany. With the introduction of the Portuguese language in main lessons, it became necessary to set up Brazilian teacher training. Introductory courses for parents, organized by the couple Rudolf and Marianne Lanz, have developed into a training center for Waldorf teachers since 1970. “Rudolf Lanz translated Rudolf Steiner's writings into Portuguese and also wrote writings on anthroposophy in Portuguese. His wife Marianne was "his faithful companion on all his journeys until her death in 1987". A Waldorf school founded in Sao Paulo in 1996 is now called "Escola Rudolf Lanz". - Klaus Werner Epstein , (born April 6, 1927 in Hamburg, † June 26, 1967 in Bonn), was a German-American historian.
- Karl Joachim Weintraub had been a student in Eerde since 1935. With the support of the Quakers, he was able to travel to the USA in 1948 and taught as a historian at the University of Chicago from 1954 to 2002 .
- Tatjana Wood , née Weintraub, is Karl Joachim Weintraub's sister and also a former Eerde student. It developed in the US to a known colourist of comics .
- Johan Hajnal-Kónyi (born November 26, 1924 in Darmstadt - † November 30, 2008 in London) was a Hungarian-British scientist in the fields of mathematics and statistics. He came from a Hungarian-Jewish family. His parents fled the increasing anti-Semitism in Hungary in 1924 and settled in Darmstadt. From here Johan came to Eerde in 1936, while his parents emigrated again, this time to Great Britain. In 1937 Johan followed his parents. From 1956 he had a job at the London School of Economics .
- Michael Rossmann . The future biologist Rossmann came to the Quaker School in early 1939. Like many other students, he left Eerde in the summer holidays of the same year to visit parents or relatives and was prevented from returning to Holland when the Second World War broke out. Michael Rossmann stayed with his mother in London and later continued his education at an English Quaker school.
- Barbara Seidler (* November 10, 1925 - † 2000 in England) was the daughter of Georg Seidler (* September 30, 1900 in Braunschweig - † 1943 as a soldier in the Crimea) and his wife Luise-Emma Bernstein (* December 21, 1900 in Braunschweig - † around 1975 in London).
While her father set off for Peru on the Montaña expedition in 1932 , Barbara attended the Eerde school after the Nazis came to power and then followed her father to Peru in 1934 with her mother. After his return from there - the exact time is not known - and his parents separated, Georg Seidler was able to look after his threatened daughter before his death in 1943. “She escaped forced labor and deportation in the deaconess institution Neudettelsau near Nuremberg, where her father hid her. After the war she followed her mother to England, she became a doctor and worked in a London hospital. ”She lived in South Africa for a long time and ran a clinic for the black population in KwaZulu-Natal . When she opposed the government's plans to relocate tens of thousands of Zulu to a homeland , she was expelled from the country and lived and worked in England again.
The circle of friends around Frommel, Hilsley and Buri
In 2017 the newspaper Vrij Nederland published an article by Frank Ligtvoet, a former member of the circle around Frommel and the Castrum Peregrini . Ligtvoet was not a student in Eerde, but knew many of the people named below, and above all of course Frommel, Hilsley and Buri. He makes serious allegations of abuse, especially against Frommel and Hilsley, and assumes that Hilsley not only acted as the celebrated young music teacher in Eerde, but also as a sexual offender who found his first victims here:
"Hilsley, who ook na zijn dood in 2003 nog altijd een reputatie heeft as leraar op Beverweerd, had al eerder slachtoffers made tijdens zijn leraarschap op de kostschool Eerde in Ommen, waar hij vanaf 1935 lesgaf. Frommel was op uitnodiging van Hilsley een voortdurende aanwezigheid op Eerde. The school is spoedig een 'visvijver' voor Frommels kring: de first generation Frommelianen van tijdens en na de oorlog bestond voor het overgrote deel uit scholieren en oud-scholieren van Eerde. "
“Hilsley, who even after his death in 2003 still enjoys a good reputation as a teacher in Beverweerd, had already produced sacrifices while teaching at the Eerde boarding school in Ommen, where he taught from 1935. At Hilsley's invitation, Frommel was always present in Eerde. The school soon became a 'fish pond' for Frommel's circle: the first generation of Frommelians during and after the war consisted largely of pupils and former pupils from Eerde. "
Ligtvoet writes that he himself had contact with two Hilsley victims from his time in Eerde, but they could no longer or did not want to speak publicly about their experiences, and he mentions a third victim who is said to have committed suicide. These allegations cast a further shadow on the history of the school and also affect the successor institutions after the end of the Second World War. Here, too, they are closely connected to the circle around Wolfgang Frommel and in particular to William Hilsley.
- Claus Victor Bock, born May 7, 1926 in Hamburg - † January 5, 2008 in Amsterdam.
His book “Untergetaucht unter Freunde” (see literature), published in 1985, is an exciting document about the fate of the students at the Quaker School in Eerde, who opposed the Quaker dictum not to go into hiding and who survived the German occupation in hiding places in the Netherlands. Bock's book is also a document about the role that Stefan George-inspired (homo) eroticism played in the circle around Wolfgang Frommel in surviving during the occupation. Together with the books by William Hilsley, Friedrich W. Buri and - with reservations - Wolfgang Cordan, it broadens the view of the Quaker School Eerde beyond a more reform-oriented reception.
- Liselotte Brinitzer, * 1921 - † 1945, “from Hamburg was one of the oldest alumni, she was already a young woman. She had long since passed her Oxford exam, but she couldn't get away. Rather, the parents were content to send the pension money somewhere far in the world. They must have waited for the times to pass. [..] Liselotte belonged to the George group, apparently as a kind of vestal virgin . ”Liselotte Brinitzer was the daughter of a Jewish merchant family from Hamburg and came to Eerde in the 1930s. Here she also met Wolfgang Frommel. In the 1940s she went into hiding - whether with Frommel's or Cordan's help cannot be decided. In any case, she kept in contact with the Herengracht, stayed temporarily at the Polderhof with Wolfgang Cordan and also had a hiding place in Hilversum. “Liselotte was housed in Hilversum, where Eva Piron made herself useful for the first time. She finished in Eerde and was now studying biology in Amsterdam. Liselotte had been the good spirit of the Polderhof. In spite of all her determination, she had a feminine charm that enchanted everyone. In the garden, between the bushes, there was a little wooden house that I had set up as a studio. I wrote there when I stayed with the young people for a week. Then she came in noiselessly, put down a blue plate with a few raspberries on their leaves. That was Liselotte's gestures. "
" She survived the war, but died in August 1945 in the North Sea near Groet after being caught in a current while swimming. "Wolfgang Cordan sounds more dramatic:" There were also real tragedies in the wild ones Days. Liselotte, the clever, beautiful girl, already a young woman, came out of her hiding place in Hilversum. She drove to Bergen, walked around the polder house, sat under a large tree near the entrance gate. Then she drove to the beach, threw off her clothes and ran into the sea. She threw up her arms. 'Free' she called. ,Free!' And then it went under. The next tide threw her body on the beach. She was buried in Bergen. ”What neither Bischoff nor Cordan mention: Brinitzer did not go swimming alone, she drowned while swimming with Wolfgang Frommel. “That was a typical Frommel situation: he often crossed borders. The day was stormy, the beach empty, it is a dangerous stretch of sea, as Dutch people know that. Frommel, intoxicated with something, went into the sea and took the girl with him, both of them untrained. It wasn't on purpose, it was an accident. Normally one buries such a dead person - Frommel, however, made her a cult founder. Like Percy Gothein and Vincent Weyand, who were killed by the Nazis - he based the castrum myth after 1945 on these three dead. ”Haverkorn describes this“ cult foundation ”or instrumentalization for a new cult elsewhere as a result of the memorial book, which was published on Liselotte Brinitzer's death. “In the memorial book that appeared in 1945, you are remembered through text and poetry. And it is represented there as one of the three corner stones on which the Castrum Peregrini building, W.'s dream of a society of friends, was to rest. The other two important personalities are Percy Gothein and Vincent Weyand. ”For Anaïs Van Ertvelde, this commemorative book for Liselotte Brinitzer laid the foundation stone for the founding of the magazine Castrum Peregrini .
For Claus Victor Bock, who at times had a relationship with Brinitzer that went against the chastity of the Vestals ( Hiding among friends, p. 85), Brinitzer's death was “the gruesome grip of an alien violence. On August 10 [1945] I was stunned with my friends at their open grave. We had carried her coffin out of the morgue on our shoulders. A pen drawing by Gisèle preserved the desolation of the dune path, which connects the beach, on which Liselotte washes up, with the village of Catrijp, where the 24-year-old was buried by us. ”
Brinitzer is often mentioned as“ Liselotte von Gandersheim ”in the writings of Castrum Peregrini . She was part of “a spiritual-erotic men's society [...] - with a few submissive women for the practical things in life.” Keilson-Lauritz proves how much Brinitzer had internalized this role of subservient woman on the fringes of a men's society with a quote from her : “A woman has to have her fixed place in life, in the background of the game, which she is never allowed to leave. It has to be celibate, patient, measured, selfless, without any claims of its own, so that it becomes an apartment for the man, which he can enter if he wants, and which he will leave again as soon as the time comes is. ”Interesting parallels to Brinitzer's role in this male society emerge from the memories of Joke Haverkorn, who ten years after Brinitzer's death saw herself chosen by Frommel to“ realize a dream of W. and a young girl, Liselotte, ”and the report by Christiane Kuby , who lived in Quastrum Peregrini for 15 years in the 1970s and 1980s , among other things as a secret lover of Wolfgang Frommel. The servant woman was also allowed to have her own wishes, hopes and expectations with an erotic connotation; However, they had to be fitted into the language game commonly used in Frommel's environment: “Now that this day is running out for me, I would like to send you, dear, words of thanks that emerge from being overflowing again. Oh, we would like to become people who embody the beautiful life of deity in mortal form. And this is where my thanks, my dear fellow, aim for you for holding me again and again through your messengers and for shining on me with the rays that point the way to the center sanded new ones, so that they outshine me again with their glow and brightness. But I know that the rose can only bloom when everyone is crying and everyone is singing. And maybe, when she is awakened to life, a god can weave us as pure the crown. ”Liselotte Brinitzer wrote this to Wolfgang Frommel on the evening of her 23rd birthday in June 1944.
- Clemens Michael Bruehl, born April 10, 1925 in Berlin - † June 7, 1986 in Amsterdam, “was the son of Ernst Brühl and his wife Hedwig, b. Water. In 1939, when he was thirteen or fourteen, he was still able to travel to the Netherlands and was accepted into the international quaker school Kasteel Eerde at Ommen. "Wolfgang Frommel's influence on Bruehl, who was close friends with Manuel Goldschmidt," is evident, but also his strangely isolated position in Frommel's circle. Again it remains unclear whether he did not include him in the circle of the most intimate or whether Clemens Bruehl rather kept aloof; possibly the one also caused the other. Perhaps he was also isolated by his somewhat stronger scientific orientation, which did not go well with the atmosphere prevailing in Frommel's circle. ”
“ Clemens Brühl, like Liselotte Brinitzer, went into hiding on his own, but remains in contact with Frommel and his friends. Of the students from Ommen in the Frommel area, he is the one who is most involved in the active Dutch resistance and who criticizes the attitude of the school management most sharply. ”For which he had every reason, if one would believe Claus Victor Bock:“ The teachers from the Quaker School had asked Clemens to make a declaration on his honor that he would not 'go into hiding'. When Clemens refused to sign, it was said that it would be easier for him to get away from school. Clemens hired a farmer. At five o'clock in the morning he was standing in the barn milking cows. But he saw no concrete future for himself. His will to live was already weakened by the death of his mother. Nevertheless, he decided to evade the set deadline. The deadline for Jews in Ommen was April 10, 1943. It was also Clemens' 18th birthday. Clemens came to Zeist via a contact address, where he had to
look after children in hiding. ” After the war, Bruehl studied comparative religious studies in Amsterdam, Erlangen and Tübingen and was in close contact with Hans-Joachim Schoeps , whose son Julius H. Schoeps he he temporarily gave Latin lessons. The latter remembers Bruehl as one “who staged himself in clothes and flowing curls in the style of Stefan George, adopted the ornamental font of the George circle and furnished his student room with casts of Greek heads. [..] Bruehl also joined the Bubenreuth fraternity in 1951 and in the 1950s he tried to avoid suspicion of his homosexuality even with good friends. "
" Bruehl did not complete the dissertation he started with Schoeps , but published a number of scientific publications, many with an ancient thematic background. Stefan George's work was also still the focus of his interests. From 1964 until his death he was secretary of the critical complete edition of the works of Erasmus von Rotterdam, published in The Hague. Since the end of the war he last lived in a 'Hofje' on the Prinsengracht in Amsterdam, together with the artist Stanley Buter (1937–2008), later with Herbert Post. " - Manuel Goldschmidt, * 1926 in Berlin - † March 2012, was originally called Fritz by first name. Like his three years older brother Peter, he came from an upper-class and art-loving family in Berlin. The father was Jewish, the mother was not. He left Germany in 1937 and came to Eerde, where he later met Wolfgang Frommel. As the son of a non-Jewish mother, he was “not in direct danger and, after coming to Amsterdam from 1942 at the instigation of Wolfgang Frommel, he was able to actively contribute to the care of his friends in hiding.”
After the war, Manuel Goldschmidt worked in his brother's architecture office before he then devoted himself to the magazine Castrum Peregrini , whose editor and editor he became. In an obituary for him, Tilman Krause wrote in Die Welt on March 9, 2012: “Discreet and energetic at the same time: This is how Manuel Goldschmidt's character profile can be described. The trained interior designer, initially “closest to Frommel's heart”, soon grew into the role of operational magazine maker. He put his stamp on the sheet. When he gave up the 'editorship', as they still said on the Herengracht, in the mid-1990s, the magazine fell into disrepair, from which it could no longer recover. In 2008 she was discontinued after 56 years. It had been a generation project. She announced the will to survive and the urge to cope with life of a group of people who were committed to the spirit of friendship and the mediation of spiritual values. ”
Manuel Goldschmidt also had a close relationship with Claus Victor Bock, about whom the correspondence published in 2017 provides information, and Joke Haverkorn, who valued him as a loyal and loving friend, confessed: “For a while there was even a top secret love bond between W. [Frommel], Manuel and me. As always, W. in his limitless imagination knew how to put this relationship into the world of the West-Eastern Divan with a magic spell . Many a letter from Hatem (W.) is addressed to Saki (Manuel) or Suleika (to me) or to both during this period. " - Peter Goldschmidt, * 1923 - † 1987, was an architect, painter and graphic artist. When he came to Eerde is not documented, but there he, like his brother Manuel, belonged to the circle around Wolfgang Frommel. He also stayed in the Netherlands after the Second World War and in 1956 married "the Swiss Katharina Gelpke, who followed Frommel to Amsterdam at the age of 19 and was part of the founding editorial team of Castrum Peregrini." The couple moved to Tuscany in the 1970s with their two sons, where Peter Goldschmidt died at the age of 64. In 1988 the Federal Archives in Rastatt opened the exhibition “Peter Goldschmidt. The graphic artist. 1923–1987 ”. In the same year and under the same title, a book was published by Castrum Peregrini Presse.
- Kurt Meyer-Borchert, called Enzio, * 1923 - † 1995, "who returned to his parents in Germany at the beginning of 1941 after graduating from high school and experienced the war as a German soldier", lost another leg at the end of the war, and then began training as a book graphic artist studied with Erich Heckel in Karlsruhe. Meyer Borchert returned to the school in Holland as a teacher and finally spent the second half of his life as an art teacher in Göttingen, where he died in 1995. Meyer Borchert's father was a country doctor from Delligsen near Ahlfeld an der Leine, his mother half-Jewish. Enzio was married to Nenne Koch and the couple had two children. Melchior Frommel , Wolfgang Frommel's nephew, published a book about the life and work of Meyer Borchert in 2000 (see literature). He deals in great detail with the stages of Meyer-Borchert's life and also publishes a wealth of letters and diary notes, which, among other things, enable a deep insight into life in Eerde. But the focus of the book is on Meyer-Borchert's artistic work.
Buri devotes several pages to Enzio. “When I came to Eerde at that time, there was one of the German students who particularly struck me. [...] I found him among the quick-witted, quick-reacting and judging Jewish children from mostly intellectual Berlin, Hamburg, and Frankfurt families as an anachronism from the country, a deeply innocent boy from the Eichendorff sphere of good-for-nothing with a benevolent touch dreamy handicraft-fellow frenzy. ”(p. 163) A close artistic-literary relationship developed between Buri and Enzio, in which William Hilsley (“ Cyril ”) was also involved before his arrest. Enzio played and danced the main role in a musical fairy tale dance game, written and composed by him, based on a fairy tale by Andersen, “which was tailored to his dreamlike, untouched nature and movement. Due to the seamless merging of his reality with the fairy tale figure to be represented, the open-air performance on the lawn in front of the pavilion, in whose open door Cyril directed the piano, became the unforgettable poetic-musical event of the year. ”(P. 165)
Buri goes extensively on Enzios War injury, which led to the amputation of his left leg, and quoted from a letter by Wolfgang Frommel, which the latter had written from Enzio's sick bed. On his first trip to defeated and defeated Germany, Frommel managed to visit Enzio in Delligsen: “Enzio is completely and completely unchanged from the old one: the brown shining forest eyes, the wonderful mahogany colored hair, the archaic mouth and everything glows through his soul. We sank against each other and cried and kissed like dead who have risen again. Everything is spring, everything is happiness and surging life and heart-melting delight. I can't tell you! A thousand dark winter nights were not too high a price for this hour of rediscovery. ”(P. 167, orthography based on the original) According to Buri, Enzio has come to terms with his disability very well:“ He has come to terms with his lot and his new form in such a way that he was perceived as an equal among equals by all of us, even secretly admired: as someone who was not impaired by fate. ”(p. 168)
Buri also reports on the strong impression Enzio made on Percy Gothein (p. 163), and Claus Victor Bock also writes of heartfelt nocturnal reading hours with Enzio and of the loss his departure meant for him. William Hilsley writes a very soulful letter to Enzio from the Schoorl camp on July 24, 1940: “Not a day goes by without my thoughts rushing to you - and especially to you - my dear fellow. [..] Your fragrant lavender bouquet was your outer sign. How happy I was! I held it in my hand for a long time and its color and fragrance evoked many an image before the inner eye. [..] I saw you walking across the meadow yourself, saw the birch in front of our friend's pavilion and you in front of it in a golden robe, I saw the spots of light in the darkness of our secret forest paths and the Sunday twilight hours deep down in the castle ... And in the Inside, the verses we read and the words of Porzia and Empedocles began to resound. [..] The hours with you - with you - are among the most beautiful things that have been given to me. They are sacred to me, and the memory of the grace granted me carries me even in darker hours. [..] Do not let go of your thoughts of me. Pray that the deity will be gracious. May we meet again soon. ”It is obvious that a closeness and familiarity are required here that go beyond a normal teacher-student relationship. Rather, it becomes clear how the (homo) eroticism, inspired by Stefan George, is hidden behind “love, which is friendship” - but also allowed a spiritual community to survive, which offered strength to survive in times of war and occupation.
From the letters and diary notes published by Melchior Frommel, however, it emerges that the addressee of Hilsley's letter at the time still had a more distant relationship with his former music teacher and still mentions him by his German name as "Herr Hildesheimer". Friedrich W. Buri has long since been the "Buri" with whom a very friendly relationship seems to have existed. And while Wolfgang Frommel is mentioned in a letter of October 11, 1940 (and earlier) as “Mr. F.” who invited him, Enzio to Bergen for the weekend, Frommel is now referred to as “mine” in a letter after this weekend Friend W. "praised:" I was extremely happy and happy to be able to see my friend W. again, and now that I have said goodbye to him, little keeps me here in Eerde. "
How close the bond a letter from Frommel dated January 2, 1941 on Meyer-Borchert's departure from Eerde clarifies the “circle” within a short time: “ONE thing is certain: the 'colchia terrestrae', the Eerder colony of our family will be, which will also be time may bring, form a special and indissoluble whole in the circle of those connected to us! - Now you are returning to the kingdom as our messenger, show them there that they can be proud of what we are building and continuing to do here and that here from Bill to V. [Vincent], everyone in every situation, the holy image noble humanity and that we know that those who stayed at home also have a chair and table ready for us, and should the separation continue for a generation. I am glad to have so much beautiful things from you: your poem, which speaks to me every day on my closet door, the copy of the wild meaning, this and that beautiful sheet and now this magnificent booklet with the symbolic drawings. How many times have I looked at it, now alone, now with B. or V. or others, and it always had a touching charm and every time I discovered something new that met me immediately. "
This circle of friends, which could hardly have come into being without the Quaker School in Eerde, survived the Second World War relatively unscathed - apart from the victims mentioned - and has remained connected to the school in the post-war years. Joke Haverkorn, who attended the International Quaker School in Eerde from September 1, 1949 , saw at a school performance in April 1950 in the front row, “where board members and parents usually sat [..], surrounded, it seemed, an elderly man of his own company. In the crowd, he stood out because of his unusual appearance: a medium-sized man with long, mottled gray hair, a large nose and a narrow mouth, dressed in a velvet skirt. He rested his elegant hands on a black walking stick with a silver knob. Next to him sat a younger, equally unusual lady with long blond hair and a nose that was immediately striking because it was long. The strange couple was framed left and right by handsome young men, almost all of whom were dark in appearance. An invisible wall seemed to separate this little crowd from the rest of the audience who had taken their seats behind them. [..] It was only much later that I realized that I had seen Wolfgang Frommel and Gisèle van Waterschoot van der Gracht with some of the 'friends' at the time. The beautiful dark young men were former students of the school. "But Billy Hilsley, who worked again as a music teacher at the school, Frommel could soon be a new district established at the school and again young friends win. “The fact that in W.'s [Frommel's] proximity 'boyfriend' and 'girlfriend' meant something completely different from what I had previously understood by it,” Haverkorn remained hidden for a long time. She got a first inkling of this on July 8, 1953, Frommel's birthday, to which Frommel had invited the members of the school choir to a friend's house near the school. Apparently only the male members, because when Haverkorn wanted to take part in the festival a little late, Frommel greeted her with a surprising kiss on the mouth, but then sent her home. “Actually, I was relieved because I felt like I had escaped something strange and eerie. Did I get this feeling because I was not yet one of his 'chosen ones'? I didn't like his kiss on my mouth under the gate when I got there, and neither did the kiss when I said goodbye. Later I was to find out that fate, a word that W. liked to use, would not let me go and that I would get close to it for several years. Despite all warnings, including his. "
- Joke Haverkorn van Rijsewijk (born January 18, 1935 in The Hague ) belonged to the 2nd generation of the Frommel followers and was an Eerde student in the post-war period. She attended the school in Eerde from September 1, 1949. In 1953 she left school and began training in a textile workshop near The Hague. Two years later she came into closer contact with the residents of the house on Amsterdam's Herengracht via Gisèle van Waterschoot van der Gracht and gradually became what Frommel called the “black peregrina” in the area around the “district”. Despite her close ties to Frommel, she kept a certain distance and in 1956 was able to set up herself as a successful textile artist (she wove artistically designed tapestries) with her own studio (De Uil / Die Eule).
She ended her close relationship with Wolfgang Frommel in 1964 when she married his nephew Christoph Luitpold Frommel , with whom she moved to Rome. The marriage later ended in divorce.
Among other things, Joke Haverkorn has contributed to a book about the Quaker School in Eerde and, in the text distant memories of W., reported very openly about her life in the circle around Wolfgang Frommel and her detachment: “I see him as a tragic figure. And my love for him and life in his circle retrospectively as a survival course. I am not a victim, never was. But his total demands on the whole person, the loss of freedom, that put a strain on my life. That occupied me enormously later and, in retrospect, deeply depressed me. You can hardly get rid of these early impressions - we are now experiencing this in the discussions about those who were once close to him, such as Frank Ligtvoet and Christiane Kuby. I was relieved after Frommel's death in 1986. Because he was a person who was very present in my marriage and in my family to the end. "
The circle of friends around Wolfgang Cordan
- Johannes Piron (usually just called Hannes by Cordan)
- Eva Piron (later Eva Kohn or Eva Monnier-Kohn, married to Jan Monnier, a Dutch resistance fighter) was Johannes Piron's younger sister. She lived for a time on the polder yard where Wolfgang Cordan's friends were hiding, but was not in hiding herself and, after graduating from school in Eerde, had started studying biology in Amsterdam.
Wolfgang Cordan adds some details about Eva and Johannes Piron's parents from the time around the end of the war: “In Frankfurt am Main, Ms. Piron ran towards the invading Americans with an armful of flowers. A German cannon fired again. The grenade struck very close and tore off both of her legs. Was it actually aimed at the woman?
So I was now completely foster father of Hannes and Eva until the real father showed up in the autumn. In an English uniform, a monocle in his tanned face and full of strange stories. The young people struggled to get used to the strange man. ”
After Bonavita, Eva Piron was able to cross the German-Dutch border with the help of an aunt and registered in Eerde on September 10, 1939. Before that, she had attended the Philanthropin in Frankfurt for two years . - Thomas (Tom) Maretzki (born September 3, 1921 - † December 13, 2008), a later anthropologist, is characterized by Cordan as follows: “I also had an unexpected discipleship. After I had packed the bibliophile treasures in Maastricht and escaped the prison in Rotterdam, I drove to Eerde several times. And then, in a moving way, another boy approached me. It was the school's playboy […]. From a wealthy Berlin family, he was spoiled, elegant tennis player, great flirt. Ironically, he had besieged Liselotte [Brinitzer] with attentions. Like them, he was of legal age and stuck in Eerde. His parents were divorced, his father somewhere in South America, the young man was looking for advice and support. "Thomas Maretzki also fled Eerde with Cordan's help and took part in the Dutch resistance against the Germans:" Tom got through the five years in the most dignified manner, he participated in the most daring actions in cold blood, he used the guns of the night as a man. ”
Thomas W. Maretzki received a bachelor's degree in anthropology from the University of Hawai'i in 1951 and a doctorate in 1957 from Yale University . There are many works by him in the literature relating to research in Okinawa . Together with his wife, he had been doing research in the local town of Taira since 1954, this research being part of a joint project between Harvard , Yale and Cornell Universities , which aimed to investigate the effects of early childhood experience on the life and culture of adults. Maretzki's last academic position was Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the University of Hawai'i.
Is it all just a question of “Individual's sexual preferences”?
The reception of the Quaker School Eerde in the context of exile research was limited to portraying the school as a largely successful educational reform experiment under the difficult conditions of exile. But neither in Feidel-Mertz ( schools in exile ) nor in Budde ( Katharina Petersen and the Quäkerschule Eerde ) or Hegner ( The international Quaker school Eerde ) are there any references to a topic that would come up in the school at the latest after Katharina Petersen left the school and the appointment of Kurt Neuse as her acting successor was discussed: pederasty or homosexuality. It was left to Hans A. Schmitt to at least address this question, although at least since Claus Victor Bock's book Untergetaucht unter Freunde, the facts to start the discussion had been available.
Schmitt discusses the issue of homosexuality in connection with the succession plan after Katharina Petersen left the company. He suspects that the provisional appointment of Kurt Neuse as headmaster is related to his tolerance of William Hilsley and the circle around Wolfgang Frommel.
“Piet Kappers in particular was concerned about Frommel's visits. He seems to have feared that the school might become a meeting place for gay intellectuals, and to prevent such a disaster, he asked the new headmaster to ban Frommel from the site. Neuse refused, arguing that the sexual preferences of an individual - at that time still viewed exclusively as a matter of personal choice - were his own business as long as they did not involve students. "
Schmitt claims that he first heard of this controversy in an interview with Rose Neuse that he had with her on October 27, 1992. He is also sure that this topic was never discussed in public, so as not to endanger the further prosperity of the school. So there is no information on how Kappers got his information. However, in his book Lucky Victim, which was published before the study Quakers and Nazis , Schmitt already addressed the homoerotic connotations of the “Georgians”. How he does this suggests that these were well known among the students at the time and that some of them suspected or knew what the George reading hours organized by Billy Hilsley were about:
“Under Billy's auspices, these poems were read by candlelight, amid the antique furniture and tapestries from the seventeenth century in the mansion's assembly hall, in weighty, gloomy monotony, each recitation followed by pauses in total, motionless silence. I never became a real member of the Georgian Cell in Eerde. I liked girls more than boys, and my own reading of 'The Master' was just an awesome admission to a teacher I admired. "
Whether Neuse was right in defending individual sexual preferences of teachers as long as they do not affect students is questionable in the context of schools from today's perspective. The cases of abuse at the Odenwald School, which led to its bankruptcy and closure in 2016, show how, under the guise of “pedagogical eros”, a “quasi-intimate teacher-student relationship” was created that ensured “that the true structures of rule between teacher and student were blurred ”. It is astonishing that Wolfgang Cordan came to similar assessments with regard to the George Circle and its adepts at the Quaker School in Eerde. Whether Hilsley, Buri or Bock: the almost solemn reading of the George texts, their interpretation and recitation was always the focus, and in this fixation on the “master” Cordan saw “the counter-form to the raising of a young soul, like Socrates tried. "Blind imitation of role models is practiced here, which prevents righteous thinking, and he concludes:" So what Krishnamurti calls 'the lie' prevails in education in the George style , a psychological fact that is expressed in the behavior of federal members towards the environment. Secret arrogance, secret mental reservations, the tendency to see the world only as an unworthy setting for the realization of 'real life' make it difficult to deal with people in the circle. It is these characteristics that are the stigmata of all sects. The children in Eerde had no idea of such a problem. All they knew was that there was a second, puzzling world behind George's poems. And they saw that one of the people who could open secret doors for them was the music teacher, a quiet, friendly man. "
Behind the friendly music teacher, who according to the articles by Ligtvoet, Botje and Donkers (see web links) should rather be described as a well-camouflaged pederast , was the real administrator of the Georgian spirit: Wolfgang Frommel. He knew how to transform the spiritual search of his consistently younger male followers into an educational-erotic sphere in which that “higher” form of love prevailed, which was called educational eros. That physicality was not spurned is mostly stated between the lines, but directly in Carl Victor Bock's description of his first sexual contact with Frommel:
“We went up to the steep study that the landlord had given the guest. On the wall made of wooden slats hung the skins of snakes: motionless, forms already stripped off. We faced each other, no one spoke. I was determined to face this solemn, directed look at me. I felt how he penetrated me, now inquiring, now demanding. I remembered the snakes and how they shed their skin. Did I see two eyes or one? I looked for the field between the eyes. Then Wolfgang's face changed its expression. Strange features seemed to take hold of him, and then mine too. A new, much older face loomed eerily close in front of me. Was there anyone else in the room? Was there a third with us when our lips met and the spark jumped into me as a witness? What I had experienced was a victory, but also an obligation, and it could not be interpreted, only realized. "
The encounter between Frommel and Bock described here took place in April 1941, long after Kappers had voiced his suspicions about homosexual activities at the school. Could it be that all of this has remained hidden over the years? Hanna Jordan reported that erotic relationships between boys and girls had not remained hidden and a couple had even been expelled from school. But why did the "loving and inconspicuous teacher observations" keep erotic relationships between adults and boys or between boys hidden from view? What did Neuse know, what did the Reckendorf couple, who were friends with Frommel and in whose apartment, located outside of Schloss Eerde, the mentioned encounter between Frommel and Bock took place? Was Newse's defense of individual sexual preferences practiced liberality or the repression of a reality that was not allowed to exist?
Wolfgang Cordan, who, as quoted above, rejected the George cult himself, entered into homosexual relationships with students in Eerde and argued about them in the summer of 1944: “Here I understood what the platonic eros is, grew through the demands of the I was put in my form and lost the opportunity to ever lose myself. "
With full knowledge of the homosexual activities in and around Frommel and Cordan, Marita Keilson-Lauritz writes :
“The hiding people, who, thanks to Frommel and Cordan, survived the war and occupation years, kept their 'Centaurian' - sometimes wild, sometimes wise - rescuers in any case grateful memories - each in his own way. And actually that's the most important thing that could be said about this. "
Against the background of how educational eros - the example of the Odenwald School - can turn into sexual violence and sexual abuse, Keilson-Lauritzen's argument falls short. Just because there were no victim reports from the Frommel-Cordan environment, which has changed with the publication of the articles by Ligtfoet, Botjes and Donkers at the latest, cannot be a license for sexual contact between adults and students in a school. This applies to heterogeneous relationships as well as to homosexual ones. And the latter quite often derive their ideological justification from a specific reception of antiquity.
“There has long been an interesting topic in literary and ancient research. Which was actually stronger, the Platonization of the Georgian circles or the Georgization of Plato. That sounds amazing at first glance. How could George have influenced the impact of the first European philosopher ex post? It is obvious that Plato's ideas, narratives and topics had an impact on Stefan George and those around him. In fact, however, the verbal and effective pupils, professors and poet colleagues Georges influenced Plato research and thus the view of the thinker. In Georges’s haze, 26 works are counted on Plato. In research, a distinction is made between a phase of the Plato interpretation before and after George. This means, based on a line of poetry by Georges, that the circles of the poet have deflected and strengthened 'the ray of Hellas' in our time. "
Based on the above quote from Negt, it must therefore be insisted that the educational eros propagated by the George adepts ultimately had no educational function, but was an instrument of power. One did not want to see this at the Quaker School in Eerde either, and in its reception, apart from Hans A. Schmitt's marginal remark, not to this day. The articles by Ligtvoet, Botje and Donkers illustrate the need to rethink the reception history of the Quaker School Eerde. In the preface to his book Eros und Herrschaft , Jürgen Oelkers clearly outlined the direction in which this should happen :
“Behind the ideal of 'humanistic' and 'liberal' pedagogy stood fallible people who were exposed to the temptations of power, who built hostilities, had to endure personal upheavals and were able to learn how to keep appearances. They exercised more or less open domination over the pupils and their parents, had to survive intrigues among themselves and endure hurt vanities, while at the same time they represented the highest ideals that no one can check and which should still apply. Anyone who wants to judge the people of reform pedagogy appropriately has to understand them from what they have done and not just from what they have written. "
Kinderland delivery
On November 15, 1943, the "Commissioner for the Province of Overijssel of the Reich Commissioner for the Occupied Dutch Territories" issued the evacuation order for Eerde Castle. The buildings had to be available from December 1, 1943 "for the accommodation of bomb victims from the Reich territory". In the tape transcript already mentioned, Werner Hermans reports that after the seizure by the Germans, Eerde was used for pupils from a bombed-out school in Osnabrück. Nonetheless, there is a rumor in the literature that the confiscation was made in favor of the Hitler Youth or that the bombed-out school children are - as in Feidel-Mertz - equated with the Hitler Youth. A look at the website of the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Gymnasium in Osnabrück, which in turn can rely on the “Chronicle of the State Higher School for Boys”, shows that this polemic equating of bombed-out students and the Hitler Youth requires a more differentiated view '(today:' Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Gymnasium ') for the time of World War II ”.
Osnabrück was one of the frequent destinations of the Allied bombers during World War II. Their strategic goal was to cut off the Ruhr area, the "industrial heart of Germany", from the hinterland and thus disrupt the supply of the Wehrmacht. Since railway lines cross in Osnabrück, the city was attacked very early and very violently. 79 air raids on Osnabrück caused severe damage. The urban area was destroyed to more than 65 percent; the medieval old town was hardest hit with 94 percent. Against this background, measures were taken by the authorities to evacuate schoolchildren and mothers with small children from the city threatened by the air war to less endangered areas over the long term as part of the Kinderland deportation . The forerunner of the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Gymnasium was also affected: “On February 15, the management of our school received the request, through the mediation of the municipal education authority, to take the necessary measures to relocate classes 1-4 to Holland (between Zwolle and Apeldoorn) around March 20. ”In the course of this measure, another Osnabrück high school was initially planned for the evacuation to Eerde, but it did not make use of it. So the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Gymnasium came into play. “On Tuesday, March 21st [1944], the director reported in a general conference beginning at 5 pm on the impressions he had gathered on the trip to Holland. The students in grades 1-4 should move to Holland, provided their parents give their consent. The Carolinum grammar school has renounced the Eerde Castle in Ommen near Zwolle, which was initially made available to it [...]. Schloss Eerde is now to take in our students who report to move to Holland. The director gave a detailed description of the country and people from the near and far vicinity of the castle. Schloss Erde is not far from Zwolle, about 25 km from the imperial border, far from the bustle of the big cities, in the middle of huge beech forests. Its owner, a Dutch baron, leased his castle and all its accessories to a Quaker community, who in turn turned the idyllic manor house into a country house for Quaker children. The NSV has taken ownership of the Dutch sect just mentioned, along with all its living and dead inventory. The classrooms are light and airy, as are the bedrooms and day rooms for the boys. The rooms provided for the teachers also leave nothing to be desired. The building has heating and all necessary sanitary facilities. On the sports fields in the immediate vicinity of the manor house and in the swimming pool, the boys will have ample opportunity to steel their bodies. ”That the National Socialist People's Welfare (NSV) owned the property with all its living and dead inventory from the“ Hellish sect took over ”, as the director explains, of course ignores the fact that this handover was actually an expropriation of the Quakers at the instigation of the“ Commissioner for the Province of Overijssel of the Reich Commissioner for the Occupied Dutch Territories ”.
March 28, 1944, the school protocol notes: “A large number of our students in grades 1-4 have left the institution in the last few weeks. Her parents canceled her because they believed they could not answer for their sons to be transported to Holland, i. H. in occupied enemy territory. The classes in particular have thinned out, which are primarily made up of students from the rural population of the Osnabrück area, the Melle and Quakenbrück districts. ”Nevertheless, at the beginning of May 1944, 106 students from Osnabrück traveled to Eerde. Her stay lasted until September 1944 and is documented on the school's website with numerous photographs. Also very impressive for this time are the letters from a student to his parents and relatives at home, documented on a subpage of the school website.
The advance of the Allies ended the stay of the Osnabrück students in Eerde: “The situation created by the American breakthrough at Avranches and the uninterrupted enemy advance made the KLV camp in Holland appear very dubious and therefore undesirable. In view of the advancement of the Anglo-American armies, the Dutch went on strike in large parts of their country and even began to revolt. On Saturday, September 2nd, the management of our camp at Schloss Eerde was informed that the deportation of the camp would take place on September 5th. The transport train was to be assembled in Deventer. The preparations for the journey home could thus be made in peace. I.a. Another 4 hundredweight pig was slaughtered, so that the boys could be given plenty of meat and sausage to eat away. The rest of the cattle and everything that could not be taken, as well as the disposition of the entire castle, were taken care of by the German SS leader, Dr. Difficult, left. "
For the children, however, their odyssey was not over yet: “The parents of the pupils who had returned from the KLV camp at Schloss Eerde met on September 29 [1944] in the assembly hall of the Ratsoberschule, where they learned more about an imminent deportation of the pupils was communicated to a camp in the Gau Salzburg. On October 11th, the transport, made up of students from the state high school and the council high school, departed from the main station to Hochkeilhaus Pongau, Gau Salzburg. "
It has already been suggested that the Kinderlandverschickung was an action planned and organized by the “National Socialist People's Welfare”. It is therefore not surprising that other Nazi organizations were also involved, including the Hitler Youth: “The HJ is responsible for the supervision of the pupils by the HJ, the camp team leaders are provided from among our pupils. Teaching supervision is carried out by the school council in Apeldoorn. Each camp is also looked after by a military doctor and an NSV nurse. ”However, to derive from this that Eerde Palace was confiscated for the Hitler Youth in 1943 is clearly wrong and cannot be justified by the fact that many on the Ernst's website -Moritz-Arndt-Gymnasiums published photos of the boys in Hitler Youth uniforms. The logs from the school chronicle suggest that there was little or no tendency at the school to oppose Nazi ideology. The children are the least to be blamed for.
New start and realignment after the war
New beginning in Eerde
After the school for bombed-out students from Osnabrück was confiscated, some teachers, including Kurt Neuse, who had gone into hiding, moved into the De Esch house. They probably lived on the money left in the school coffers and were able to fall back on the school's agricultural products so that they did not go hungry. The Warburg family went into hiding, as did Otto Reckendorf. However, he was discovered and placed in a construction battalion. Meanwhile, his wife tried to keep herself and her two children afloat by selling her weaving mills. Elisabeth Schmitt, who was already partly responsible for the evacuation of the Jewish students due to her legalistic behavior, now threatened to become a victim of her own behavior:
“Elisabeth Schmitt, who was protected by her marriage to an Aryan husband until 1944, was arrested on March 29 of this year and taken to Westerbork. Although the local police had given her full warnings about the admission, she made no effort to escape, true to the instructions she had previously given to the unhappily entrusted to her. After a week in Westerbork, she was released and returned to De Esch. There she continued to give lessons for teachers' children. "
Feidel-Mertz reports that Heinz Wild, who has meanwhile been rehabilitated as "half barbaric", was one of the teachers gathered in De Esch and that V1 and V2 positions were built in Eerde towards the end of the war. Philip van Pallandt supplied the group with BBC news and did his own resistance work: he hid a Dutch officer and two American airmen. "Finally, on April 11, 1945, a Canadian tank rolled up the rugged road in front of De Esch, and it was all over - except for the grief that would last forever."
After the war ended, Schloss Eerde briefly served as accommodation for former political prisoners, before the publisher Prakke's wife, Frederica Prakke-Cruiger (* January 28, 1900 - † March 13, 1989) set up a kindergarten there, in which Laura van Honk and Heinz Wild collaborated. At the same time, Piet Kappers reopened the school - despite the criticism he was given for his collaboration with the German occupiers:
“Neither the destruction and starvation of the occupation nor the inability of British and American friends to use part of their tense resources for his visionary endeavor discouraged him. When he found a clientele in the children of officials of the Dutch government-in-exile, who needed a school where they could complete an education they had begun in Great Britain, there was no stopping them, and in May 1946 the Eerde Quaker School rose like a phoenix the ashes of the crew. "
The equipment of the school was worse than at the beginning in 1934 and of the old teaching staff, initially only William Hilsley, Heinz Wild and Otto Reckendorf, who had returned from internment, were available for the new start. Werner Hermans acted as headmaster, but was replaced in 1947 by the American Quaker Horace Eaton. In 1948 the attempt to get Katharina Petersen back as headmistress failed. This time after the reopening, which Feidel-Mertz referred to as the “second phase of the school”, ended in 1951. Conflicts arose between the Quakers and the van Pallandt family, which resulted in a split. The elementary school founded after the war and supported by the van Pallandts left Eerde with Werner Hermans, who had meanwhile married a Pallandt daughter, and moved to De Ulenpas in Hoog Keppel. From 1954 there was also a branch in Rheedenoort. But the Quaker school initially continued to work in Eerde.
In 1954 a former pupil, Enzio Meyer-Borchert, returned to Eerde: “In the middle of his studies, Enzio took a semester on leave to answer the call of his former music teacher who had returned to Eerde and to teach at his old school as an assistant teacher. Friend Buri has also returned to school with his wife Jannie and with them as a trio, as William Hilsley put it euphorically, a renewed collaboration in Eerde seems like a 'heavenly eternal return'. It was there that he met Renata Koch, his future wife, who had attended school in Eerde and trained as a weaver. “Meyer-Borchert initially only stayed in Eerde for a few months and returned to Karlsruhe to be there in December 1954 to take his first state examination for the teaching profession. Then he goes back to Eerde for a year and a half. At the beginning of February 1955 he wrote a letter to his mother that he had to teach drawing and German on behalf of Buri, who had fallen ill. “I regularly have three classes that I teach, plus a few individual children for whom drawing is included in the timetable instead of a free period, and also the practical work group with which I paint and model. The oldest class are the candidates for this year's Oxford exam [..] The other two classes are a Dutch class of about 30 and an American-English class of about 10 younger children [..] The American group is of an unimaginable naughtiness and indiscipline uninhibited . "
In November 1955 Meyer-Borchert, who returned to Germany shortly afterwards and worked as a student trainee in Hameln and Hanover, reported a change in the management of the school in the summer, where his friend Buri had been appointed deputy principal. “Some things have changed his face as a result, very positively, others have stayed the same. The mood among the teachers is far more favorable and, towards a successful cooperation, friendlier, more openly more confidential. A spirit of consent and community has slowly emerged. Initiative can come from individuals or from groups. Bill Hilsley is starting to prepare pieces again, and for the first time in three years there was an autumn evening about three weeks ago. ”Meyer-Borchert's remarks allow the conclusion that the inner school peace in the“ new ”Quaker School Eerde has not been going well since then and he points to another unsolved problem: the unpleasant mood among the children, which the teachers were relatively helpless to face. “Nobody really knows where this general wilderness comes from and how to counter it. Hilsley just thinks it's a common sign of the times, but I don't quite believe it. It is certain that the American hero worship that is common here, obsession with jazz music, etc. contribute considerably to this, but that is certainly not the only reason. ”Compared to his earlier condemnation of jazz music lovers as criminals and scum (see above“ The social origin and social character ”) sounds almost enlightened and suggests that he belonged to the teachers' faction at the school who, like the new principal, wanted to persuade people instead of draconian punishments. Nonetheless, he suspects that the supporters of the faction, ironicized by him as a “beating party”, “are slowly getting the upper hand or the others are losing courage under the pressure of the circumstances.” The shadow of sexual abuse fell on these post-war years as well, as has already been said several times executed. And it is the same protagonists who are again the focus as perpetrators: William Hilsley and Wolfgang Frommel. But the same mechanisms also apply as in the old Quaker school . Just as Kurt Neuse once explained rumors about homosexual relationships to a question of individual sexual preference and did not get to the bottom of the matter, the school management also seems to have had no interest in clarifying the matter at the successor institution. Haverkorn, who at the beginning of the 1950s claimed to have "not yet seen through the doctrine of a friendship which, shaped by pedagogical eros, easily turns into homosexuality", is indirectly confronted with things that were unspeakable at the time. "When during those years unrest arose at school because of signs of this allegedly inexpressible 'friendship' and I was approached by my father, who was now on the board of the school, because some of my friends allegedly got close to this dangerous love, I had no idea what it was about. I shook off his pesky questions. Not only because I really had no idea about these erotic dangers, but I also belonged to a generation that had just come through the restrictions of World War II and was looking for a cheerful life without any restrictions or guesses of any kind always. I enjoyed the beautiful surroundings of the castle, loved the freedom that comes with living in progressive country school homes, was receptive to artistic things, which I had noticed from home, and, like every other girl my age, fell in love with pretty boys. “It looks as if Haverkorn's father was satisfied with his daughter's dismissive response, because she does not report that neither he nor any other person in charge of the school followed up on the matter. Another chance to protect children from abuse was wasted, Hilsley stayed for many years to continue his perverse activity under the mask of the friendly music teacher.
The school at Beverweerd Castle
The school in Schloss Eerde was gradually coming to an end - although not because of the internal difficulties and internal contradictions described by Meyer-Borchert.
In 1958, Baron van Pallandt no longer extended the contract with the Quakers to rent Eerde Castle. That ended the history of the Quaker School in this place. The school moved to Beverweerd Castle in 1959, where it continued to work as the “Beverweerd International School”. Friedrich W. Buri was again active as a teacher here, as was William Hilsley . A report by a Dutch Quaker reads on the occasion of the reopening:
"The school has moved into new quarters and will open its gates for the pupils on September 12 at the Castle Beverweerd. Living quarters will be ready by then. The hall to be used for musical and theater performances and to include a gymnasium is still in the process of being built; so are two homes for the staff, which will be com-pleted at a later date. Owing to the lack of labor, the preparation of a sports field can start only this fall. The official opening will, therefore, be much later. We hope to unveil a bronze plaque of Horace Eaton, made by the well-known sculptor Titus Leeser, in October, when one of his daughters will be present. It will have a place in the Main Hall. "
For Hans A. Schmitt, this was not a new beginning, but rather a step towards the end. "In the long run, however, Kappers's dream of Eerde's perpetuity died with him. When the school's lease was not renewed in 1958, Friends relocated the school at Beverweerd Castle, near Utrecht, with Hilsley remaining as the last holdover from the original faculty. Twelve years later, three years after Kappers's death, the Dutch Yearly Meeting decided that the student body had come to represent a degree of affluence that neither deserved nor required their continued support. Like Eerde, Beverweerd ceased being a Quaker school. The need for such an institution had been tied to the Nazi terror after all. ”In 1971 the Quakers withdrew from the school they had founded, and the“ International Quaker School Beverweerd ”became the“ International School Beverweerd ”. This school existed until 1997.
Just as Joke Haverkorn leaves no doubt in her ZEIT interview, already quoted, that sexual assaults by Hilsley and Frommel took place in Eerde in the previous era, so can the publications by Frank Ligtfoet and the journalists Harm Ede Botje and Sander Donkers can also be regarded as secured for the school at Beverweerd Castle. And again they looked away: a boy abused by Hilsley said “to his mother that he no longer wanted to have anything to do with Hilsley - without telling her what had happened. He complained to the principal, but he said nothing was done. He started running away, simulating appendicitis by swallowing enormous amounts of gum. "
After the school closed, William Hilsley remained the only resident of Beverweerd Castle until his death on January 12, 2003. After the building had stood empty for a long time, the "Stichting Philadelphia Vegetarian Center" bought the castle in 2005. Apartments for older vegetarians were to be built in it, but in 2009 the work was stopped due to lack of money. Since 1990, the “Stichting Kasteelconcerten Beverweerd” has held castle concerts in Beverweerd. The website of the foundation, which provides a lot of information and photographs from the history of the Quaker schools in Eerde and Beverweerd, does not provide any information on whether these concerts, which were also dedicated to the work of William Hilsley, will continue to be held.
literature
- Hildegard Feidel-Mertz (ed.): Schools in exile. Repressed pedagogy after 1933 . rororo, Reinbek, 1983, ISBN 3-499-17789-7
- Hildegard Feidel-Mertz : “The last piece of Eerde”. The diaries of Klaus Seckel from the International Quaker School Eerde / Holland , in: Inge Hansen-Schaberg (ed.), As a child pursued. Anne Frank and the others , Weidler Buchverlag, Berlin, 2004, ISBN 3-89693-244-6 , pp. 131–145
- Hildegard Feidel-Mertz: Estate in the German Exile Archive
- Berthold Hegner: The international Quaker school Eerde - a school meeting 60 years after the school was closed , in: Exil, year 22, 2002, issue 2, pp. 73-77
- Bernd Dühlmeier: And the school is still moving. Unknown reform pedagogues and their projects in the post-war period. Klinkhardt, Bad Heilbrunn, 2004, ISBN 3-7815-1328-9 , p. 47. Partly also available under: And the school moves
- Peter Budde: Katharina Petersen and the Quaker School Eerde. A documentary collage , in: Monika Lehmann, Hermann Schnorbach (eds.): Enlightenment as a learning process. Festschrift for Hildegard Feidel-Mertz , dipa-Verlag GmbH, Frankfurt am Main, 1992, ISBN 3-7638-0186-3 , pp. 86-101
- Hans A. Schmitt: Lucky Victim. An Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times 1933-1946 , Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, 1989, ISBN 0-8071-1500-2 .
- Hans A. Schmitt: Quakers and Nazis. Inner Light in Outer Darkness , University of Missouri Press, Columbia and London, 1997, ISBN 0-8262-1134-8
- Hans A. Schmitt: Quaker Efforts to Rescue Children from Nazi Education and Discrimination: The International Quakerschool Eerde , in: Quaker History, Vol. 85, No. 1 (Spring 1996), pp. 45-57
- Hanna Jordan : Schloß Eerde - a large Quaker work and its "oldies" , in: Quäker , magazine of the German friends / Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Germany, German Annual Meeting eV, July / August 1997, pp. 144–151
- Claus Bernet: "Saying yes to Judaism". The Quakers and their behavior towards the Jews in Germany from 1933 to 1945 , in: Daniel Heinz (ed.): Free churches and Jews in the “Third Reich”. Instrumentalized history of salvation, anti-Semitic prejudices and suppressed guilt. V&R unipress, Göttingen, 2011, ISBN 978-3-89971-690-0 , pp. 35-64
- Claus Bernet: Quakers from politics, science and art. 20th century. A biographical lexicon. Verlag Traugott Bautz, Nordhausen, 2007, ISBN 978-3-88309-398-7
- The diaries of Klaus Seckel: The last piece of Eerde , selection from the 7 diaries of Klaus Seckel: Heinz Wild, edited for print by Werner Hermans and MR Bonnermann, van Gorcum & Comp. NV, Assen, 1961, part of the DNB portfolio . A new edition was published in 2011:
- The diary of Klaus Seckel: start and end at the Quaker school Eerde (1937-1943) , edited by Susanne Brandt and Rainer cap , Simon publisher of library knowledge, Berlin, 2011, ISBN 3-940862-14-2 . This edition is partially available on the Internet: Klaus Seckel's diary on Google Books
- Claus Victor Bock: In hiding among friends. A report. Amsterdam 1942–1945 , Castrum-Peregrini-Presse, Amsterdam, several editions, ISBN 90-6034-053-1 . The fifth edition is partially available on the Internet: Claus Victor Bock on Google Books
- Sylvia Peuckert: Hedwig Fechheimer and the Egyptian art: life and work of a Jewish art scholar in Germany , magazine for Egyptian language and antiquity supplement, volume 2, De Gruyter, 2014, ISBN 3-05-005979-6
- Friedrich W. Buri: I gave you the torch in leaps and bounds. WF a reminder report. Edited and with an afterword by Stephan C. Bischoff, Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg, Berlin, 2009, ISBN 978-3-86650-068-6 (The title is borrowed from the poem "Die Fackel" by Wolfgang Frommel.)
- William Hilsley: Music behind the barbed wire. Diary of an interned musician 1940–1945 , Ulrich Bornemann, Karlhans Kluncker, Rénald Ruiter (eds.), Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg, Potsdam, 1999, ISBN 3-932981-48-0 . There is also a CD for this book with the title Music Behind the Barbed Wire .
- Wolfgang Cordan: The mat. Autobiographical notes , in the appendix: Days with Antonio , MännerschwarmSkript Verlag, Hamburg, 2003, ISBN 3-935596-33-2 . Also a review by Herbert Potthoff in Invertito , 6, 2004
- Marita Keilson-Lauritz: Kentaurenliebe: Sideways of male love in the 20th century , Männerschwarm Verlag GmbH, Hamburg, 2013, ISBN 3-86300-143-5 . As a Google Book: Kentaurenliebe: Wolfgang Frommel and Billy Hildesheimer . In it in particular the chapter The love of the Centaurs: German resistance in the occupied Netherlands in the area of the Castrum Peregrini. Pp. 134-164.
- Nina Arbesser-Rastburg: The Munich “Eagle's Nest” through the ages - an individual psychological retrospective. The history of the Alfred Adler Institute Munich , Waxmann, Münster and New York, 2015, ISBN 978-3-8309-3274-1
- Christian Füller: The revolution abuses its children. Sexual violence in German protest movements , Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich, 2015, ISBN 978-3-446-24726-0
- Melchior Frommel : Enzio Meyer-Borchert. 1923-1995. Work and life. Seemann, Leipzig, 2000, ISBN 3-363-00746-9
- Eberhard Röhm and Jörg Thierfelder: Jews, Christians, Germans 1933–1945 , Volume 4: 1941–1945: Destroyed, Calwer Verlag, Stuttgart, 2004, ISBN 3-7668-3887-3 . In chapter 25, the authors give an overview of “the persecution of the Jews and churches in the Netherlands”. This is followed by Chapter 26, “A Quaker Country Home School as a Second Home: The Diaries of Klaus Seckel”, in which the Quaker school is told largely along the lines of Klaus Seckel's diaries (pp. 490–508).
- Ron Chernow: The Warburgs. Odyssey of a Family , Siedler, Berlin, 1994, ISBN 3-88680-521-2
- Ingrid Warburg Spinelli: Memories. The urgency of compassion and the loneliness to say no. Luchterhand Literaturverlag, Hamburg and Zurich, 1991, ISBN 978-3-630-71013-6 .
- Petra Bonavita: Quakers as saviors in Frankfurt am Main during the Nazi era , Schmetterling Verlag, Stuttgart, 2014, ISBN 3-89657-149-4 . The book contains a longer section about the "Quaker boarding school" Eerde "" with a strong reference to Frankfurt pupils and support services provided by the Frankfurt Quakers.
- Joke Haverkorn van Rijswijk: Distant memories of W. , Daniel Osthoff Verlag, Würzburg, 2013, ISBN 978-3-935998-11-6 . In addition:
- “It was an incessant drama.” Interview with Joke Haverkorn van Rijswijk on Zeit Online , Die Zeit , No. 22/2018, May 24, 2018. Also with the collaboration of Joke Haverkorn, a book that has not yet been translated into German was created:
- Sluit tot Vaste Kring de Handen. Een Geschiedenis van de Quakerscholen Eerde, Vilsteren en Beverweerd , Aksant, Amsterdam 2002, ISBN 978-90-5260-059-8 . According to the publisher, the book describes the often checkered history of the Quaker School Eerde and its successor institutions and pays special attention to the events of World War II and Quaker education.
Web links
- History of Eerde Castle
- Remembrance of the 14 Quaker School students killed in World War II. The page, designed in Dutch, is very detailed and also contains an impressive picture of the memorial stone for the victims.
- On the Joods Monument page , after setting the appropriate filters, short biographies for eleven children and young people from Eerde who fell victim to the Nazi terror can be called up.
- Homepage of the Kamp Westerbork Memorial Center
- Memorial book for the victims of the persecution of Jews under the Nazi tyranny in Germany 1933–1945 in the Federal Archives
- Eerde 1937 and 1938
- Gays and Lesbians in war and resistance: Castrum Peregrini. The pilgrim's castle '
- Persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust
- The first sign of life, construction, June 8, 1945, p. 29
- History of the Quaker schools in Eerde (in Dutch)
- Hans A. Schmitt: How I Fled Nazi Germany
- Delia Walker (née fame): My beloved Quaker school
- Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Gymnasium: Chronicle 1939–1945 This page gives a very well-documented insight into the use of Eerde Castle after the Quaker School was closed and its confiscation for the accommodation of bombed-out German students as part of the children's area .
- Frank Ligtvoet: In de schaduw van de meester: seksueel misbruik in de kring van Wolfgang Frommel ( In the shadow of the master: Sexual abuse in the circle of Wolfgang Frommel ), vrij nederland, 10 July 2017.
- Harm Ede Botje and Sander Donkers: Kindermisbruik binnen de kringen van kunstgenootschap Castrum Peregrini , Vrij Nederland , February 22, 2018.
- Julia Encke: Abuse in the name of Stefan Georges , Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, May 13, 2018. Encke's article gives a good overview of the articles by Ligtvoet, Botje & Donkers, which are only accessible in Dutch.
- Joke Haverkorn van Rijsewijk: "It was an incessant drama" , interview with Joke Haverkorn van Rijsewijk, Die Zeit, No. 22/2018, May 24, 2018.
Individual evidence
- ↑ History of Schloss Eerde
- ↑ On the website History of Eerde Castle , a "Johan Werner 'Baron' van Pallandt, Lieutenant General of the Netherlands," is named as the purchaser of the property in 1706.
- ↑ In Dutch it is referred to as "Kasteel".
- ↑ See also a video on youtube: Krishnamurti in Eerde : “Home movie of the family Selleger, shot around 1927, with Jiddu Krishnamurti at the Eerde estate, Annie Besant arriving by plane in The Netherlands, and in the Tolstraat, Amsterdam, and images of one of the Starcamps breathe Ommen. "
- ^ "After the dissolution of the order in 1929, the Kasteel was briefly a resort hotel, but when Kappers's quest began it stood empty. [..] Pallandt had worked with Quaker relief workers after World War I, notably in Austria; his friend Krishnamurti was no stranger to Friends House, where he had spoken in 1928; and, finally, Pallandt's wife was an alumna of the Odenwald school. "
- ↑ a b Hildegard Feidel-Mertz (ed.): Schools in Exile. P. 152.
- ↑ "Friends worried about the divergence from their principles did what manifest in the spirit of the German public schools. Neither brotherhood nor truthfulness loomed large in their classrooms. Authority took precedence over 'friendly intercourse'. History textbooks glorified military prowess and Germany's old political system, in contrast to more conciliatory approaches taught in English schools. “Hans A. Schmitt: Quaker Efforts to Rescue Children from Nazi Education and Discrimination. P. 46–47 The term 'Friends' at the beginning of the quote stands for the self-designation of the Quakers who call themselves 'friends'.
- ^ "The German Yearly Meeting appointed a special committee to consider the establishment of a Quaker school that would provide elementary and secondary instruction, including academic as well as artisan training. Religious teaching was to be nonsectarian but was to include Bible study and history of other religions. The goal was an educational community that constituted a 'social unit down to the lowest kitchen worker'. The seriousness of educational planning was reflected in the membership of the committee that included the triumvirate of the Berlin Center - Hans Albrecht, Richard Cary, and Corder Catchpool - as well as the most active educational reformers among German Friends, Wilhelm Hubben, Manfred Pollatz, and Elisabeth Rotten. "
- ↑ For the history of the 'Berlin Center' mentioned, see: History of the Berlin Quaker Office . His member Corder Catchpool, also mentioned here, played a decisive role in the emigration of Pitt Krüger in 1933, the founder of the La Coûme school in the French Pyrenees , which was initiated by the Quakers .
- ↑ Hans A. Schmitt: Quaker Efforts to Rescue Children from Nazi Education and Discrimination. P. 47.
- ^ "At the end of 1933, therefore, the focus shifted. A Continental Quaker school, regardless of location, would be designed as a refuge for children whom the new political order deprived of access to a good education. Teachers in such a school would be recruited on the basis of talent, not personal need. "
- ↑ "The new school on the Continent was to become a haven for gifted children whose families faced political ostracism in Germany or were in the course of building new careers."
- ↑ Claus Bernet: "Saying yes to Judaism". P. 48.
- ^ "Kappers knew of the earlier German school project and its intellectual indebtedness to the German reform-school movement. This knowledge helped give shape and purpose to the fledgling enterprise. He was likewise acquainted with British Quaker schools. Kappers also looked beyond the current emergency created by National Socialism and viewed the school in Eerde as a permanent part of a yet to constructed network of Continental Quaker schools, reflecting the best and newest in European educational reform. "Hans A. Schmitt: Quakers and Nazis. Pp. 78-79.
- ↑ "German Friends photoshoped still, above all, did the school would build permanent links between the young exiles and the native culture They had been forced to leave behind and would perpetuate in a more congenial environment the achievements of German educational reform movement. The Dutch obviously preferred the more balanced prospect of an international Quaker school, while Bertha Bracey in London, who became the major fund-raiser for the enterprise, reminded her Continental partners that British financial support would soon falter unless British Friends could actively contribute their extensive boarding school experience to shaping school. Her view were reinforced by the fact that of the roughly twelve hundred pounds raised by the time the school opened in April 1934, more than 80 percent represented British donations. "Hans A. Schmitt: Quakers and Nazis. P. 79
- ↑ a b c Hans A. Schmitt: Quakers and Nazis. P. 79.
- ↑ Peter Budde: Katharina Petersen and the Quaker School Eerde. P. 89.
- ↑ Short biography of Amalie Keller in the Stadtlexikon Darmstadt
- ↑ Hildegard Feidel-Mertz (ed.): Schools in Exile. P. 155.
- ↑ Peter Budde: Katharina Petersen and the Quaker School Eerde. Pp. 90-91.
- ^ "Second, Kurt Neuse, whose extraordinary pedagogical gifts quickly turned Eerde into a school of remarkable quality, was accepted by the board 'to say it quite honestly, only because his wife is a member of the English [sic] Yearly Meeting." Neuse had been teaching Latin and Greek before his suspension from the Prussian school system but was to teach English at Eerde. The school's founders had only his wife's assurance that he was qualified for that task. Rose Neuse, who became the comptroller and secretary of the school, was the only British citizen, and the couple were the only friends on the staff. "
- ↑ a b Peter Budde: Katharina Petersen and the Quaker School Eerde. P. 91.
- ↑ Heinz Wild was an elementary school teacher in Thuringia before he was dismissed from school by the Nazis. He was a member of the teaching staff of the school even after it reopened in 1946 and returned to Germany as a teacher in 1952. In 1961 he worked in Frankfurt am Main. Information from: The diaries of Klaus Seckel: The last piece of Eerde. P. 6. Heinz Wild saved these diaries in 1943 (see below)
- ↑ a b c d Hans A. Schmitt: Quakers and Nazis. P. 80.
- ↑ a b quoted from Peter Budde: Katharina Petersen and the Quäkerschule Eerde. P. 95.
- ^ Berthold Hegner: The international Quaker school Eerde. P. 74.
- ↑ quoted from Peter Budde: Katharina Petersen and the Quäkerschule Eerde. P. 94.
- ^ "Although Katharina Petersen, during her first visit to Britain after assuming the leadership, felt constrained to assure British Friends that religion was 'an important subject', it was not a visible part of the curriculum. Without pressure of any kind, however, Quaker tolerance triumphed as the Sunday morning silent meetings of worship became 'a significant component, perhaps the very center of community life'. Attendance was voluntary but nearly unanimous, while some teachers and students worshiped at Catholic or Protestant churches in Ommen. "Hans A. Schmitt: Quakers and Nazis. P. 80
- ↑ Hildegard Feidel-Mertz (ed.): Schools in Exile. P. 156.
- ↑ Hildegard Feidel-Mertz (ed.): Schools in Exile. Pp. 156-157.
- ^ "Every Monday morning all students fourteen and older gathered in the music room for Billy's musicological performances. Here we learned a hitherto-unknown foreign language: music. [..] To be sure, our music teacher was no drill master. But he had a message to convey; he had a lesson plan from which he never deviated. What he actually taught us, of course, was the history of German music, plus Chopin. We came away totally innocent of Italians, Russians (except Stravinsky), Czechs, northern Europeans, and the French, both rornantics and impressionists. But what was left was substantial and exciting enough. We learned the vocabulary of Bach, Handel, Gluck, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and the German romantics, including Wagner. [..] Conservative that he was, both as a classicist and as a German cultural chauvinist, he found little to praise in modern music. But he instructed us to keep an eye on three contemporaries who marvelously vindicated the standards by which he judged: Stravinsky, Béla Bartók [..], and Kurt Weill [..]. Billy did not teach us everything, but he taught us a great deal well. "Hans A. Schmitt: Lucky Victim. Pp. 89-90
- ↑ a b c Hildegard Feidel-Mertz (ed.): Schools in Exile. P. 159.
- ↑ Compare the Quakers' regret about Petersen's departure, quoted by Peter Budde: Katharina Petersen and the Quaker School Eerde. P. 100.
- ↑ Bernd Dühlmeier: And the school does move. P. 47.
- ↑ a b Quoted from the copy of the Eerder report sheets in the original spelling in the Hildegard-Feidel-Mertz estate in the German Exile Archive of the German National Library .
- ^ Berthold Hegner: The international Quaker school Eerde. P. 75.
- ^ Hans A. Schmitt: Quaker Efforts to Rescue Children from Nazi Education and Discrimination: The International Quakerschool Eerde. P. 52. "The Nazis made her pension contingent on a return to Germany, and as she had no other source of income, she was forced to comply."
- ↑ Hans A. Schmitt: Lucky Victim. P. 83. “I have already mentioned the head of the school, Katharina Petersen, a two-fisted humanitarian who hailed from Schleswig-Holstein. She had left Germany, in disgust, to serve the persecuted, but in the late thirties pressures from a brother, whose civil-service career her demonstrative exile endangered, forced her to resign and return home. "
- ↑ The diaries of Klaus Seckel: The last piece of Eerde , note on p. 25. Feidel-Mertz also mentions the agricultural school in only one note. (Hildegard Feidel-Mertz (ed.): Schools in Exile. P. 166, note 4. Whether this was the farm mentioned at the same point in note 2, which had been leased from the beginning, and what with what happened to this farm in the meantime is unclear.)
- ↑ It began modestly with the rental of one hundred more acres of land from Philip van Pallandt, along with a request to the Dutch government - increasingly determined to stem the influx of German refugees - to permit enrollment of fifteen young exiles who would receive two years 'worth of training before moving to other countries. One of the AFSC’s roving commissoners in Europoe, Robert Balderston, offered funds to the school that would finance construction of a dormitory for twenty students, and at the same time promised to find graduates places on Australian, New Zealand, and North American farms. A certified Dutch teacher of agriculture took charge of this operation, and when Eerde celebrated the fifth anniversary of its founding, this expansion had become an accomplished fact, adding to the Quaker school's catalog of achievements. Hans A. Schmitt: Quakers and Nazis. Pp. 132-133
- ↑ Petra Bonavita: Quakers as saviors in Frankfurt am Main during the Nazi era. P. 121.
- ↑ Petra Bonavita: Quakers as saviors in Frankfurt am Main during the Nazi era. P. 42.
- ^ Alix Dorothea Feist in The National Archives, Kew
- ↑ Peter Miodownik at The National Archives, Kew . Peter Miodownik was the son of Ismar Miodownik, who had been a member of the management committee of the Frankfurt regional bank of the Deutsche Effecten- und Wechsel-Bank since 1923 . (see: Karin Bürger, Ines Sonder, Ursula Wallmeier (ed.): Soncino-Gesellschaft der Freunde des Jewishisches Buchs. A contribution to cultural history . de Gruyter, Berlin 2014. ISBN 978-3-11-028928-2 , p. 85). He had emigrated to Palestine in 1939, but was naturalized in Great Britain in 1948. His son Peter is a scientist working in the modeling of thermodynamic data for industrial processes ( CALPHAD = Computer Coupling of Phase Diagrams and Thermochemistry ); he is the father of Mark Miodownik, a British materials scientist, engineer, radio maker and writer. ( Matters (Miodownik) - Author Bio )
- ↑ Petra Bonavita: Quakers as Saviors in Frankfurt am Main during the Nazi era, p. 44.
- ↑ On the assumptions about why he was not appointed official headmaster, see Hans A. Schmitt: Quaker Efforts to Rescue Children from Nazi Education and Discrimination. P. 52. This will be discussed further below.
- ^ Claus Victor Bock: Submerged among friends. Pp. 8-9.
- ^ A b Hans A. Schmitt: Quaker Efforts to Rescue Children from Nazi Education and Discrimination. P. 53.
- ↑ Hans A. Schmitt: Quakers and Nazis. P. 133.
- ^ Claus Victor Bock: Submerged among friends. P. 40.
- ↑ On the history of the Erika camp, see a) National Monument Kamp Amersfoort and b) Commemoration in Benelux: The Erika camp
- ^ The diary of Klaus Seckel: Beginning and end at the Quaker School Eerde (1937–1943). P. 41 (original spelling). The entry is from August 27, 1941, with "Sterkamp" is probably meant the former camp for the meetings of the "Star Order". See above: Schloss Eerde and the van Pallandt family
- ↑ a b c Memory of the 14 Quaker School students killed in World War II.
- ↑ The representations are not precise. Hans A. Schmitt said that the order had been issued, "although Piet Kappers negotiated an exemption for Dutch children" (Hans A. Schmitt: Quaker Efforts to Rescue Children from Nazi Education and Discrimination. P. 53). Feidel-Mertz, on the other hand, writes, “In September 1941, Dutch Jews were banned from attending regular schools”. (Feidel-Mertz (Ed.): Schools in Exile. P. 162) Both statements leave open whether non-Jewish Dutch children could continue to be registered at school.
- ↑ Hans A. Schmitt: Quaker Efforts to Rescue Children from Nazi Education and Discrimination. P. 53. Elisabeth Schmitt was his mother, married to Cordan “'purebred' and was under some special protection. After the war she immediately went to the States. ”(Wolfgang Cordan: Die Matte. P. 188). This alleged protection, for which Cordan cites no evidence, consisted in the fact that her son Hans A. Schmitt, who had emigrated to the USA in 1938, had returned to the European battlefields as an American soldier. This gave his mother and brother Richard a privilege that should not be underestimated: “Families of American servicemen were not subject to quota restrictions, and no waiting list could any longer impede their emigration. My mother and brother could therefore join my wife and me as soon as transport was available. "(Hans A. Schmitt: Lucky Victim. Pp. 235–236)
- ^ The diary of Klaus Seckel: Beginning and end at the Quaker School Eerde (1937–1943). P. 41 (original spelling)
- ↑ a b c Source: Historisch Centrum Overijssel
-
↑ According to Cordan, the woman who wanted to call the police is Elisabeth Schmitt. However, the threat was made to him. (Wolfgang Cordan: Die Matte. Pp. 181–182)
This refers to a dilemma that Manfred Herzer addresses in his epilogue to Cordan's book: “The friendship between Cordan and Frommel, which was initially cordial, but soon became more complicated, is shown in the mat ( Die Matte. P. 183 ff.) - of course from Cordan's point of view. And this view is, so to speak, incompatible with the Frommels and his Castrum Peregrini Association. That shouldn't really be a problem; on the contrary, it seems appealing and actually normal when historical events are reconstructed retrospectively by those involved from their subjective memories and perspective. When historians, based on the sources and contradicting contemporary witnesses, come to the conclusion that it cannot be fully explained 'how it really was', then such a result is more the rule and not a rare exception. The desire for clarity is, however, obvious, and especially with those who were still alive at the time, this can lead to attempts to help the historical truth a little. In extreme cases it is even possible to enforce a monopoly on the representation and interpretation of historical events. The Castrum-Peregrini group has succumbed to this understandable but morally questionable tendency towards apologetics to a remarkable extent. The two cases of Baumann and Renders are known to me from the research literature. ”(Manfred Herzer: Epilogue to: Wolfgang Cordan: Die Matte. P. 366) Cordan (p. 186) states, however, that he was with Frommel in the Eerde affair ', by which the preparations for the escape of some young people are meant, worked' hand in hand '.
Another version of who has threatened the police or the Gestapo is contributed by Hans A, Schmitt: 'Kappers is said to have threatened to report Frommel to the police if he encouraged such disappearances.' (Hans A. Schmitt: Quakers and Nazis. P. 200) - ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Feidel-Mertz holdings in the German Exile Archive of the German National Library
- ↑ “How to remain 'honest and sincere' persisted as a bone of contention among Dutch Friends long after the war and the occupation had ceasaed to be a subject of daily reflection and stocktaking. The group continued to be divided between those who held that a Quaker must always tell the truth - a position exemplified by Piet Kappers's dealings with occupying authorities - and those who believed, especially when dealing with Nazis, that truth could be compromised whenever veracity might cost lives. "Hans A. Schmitt: Quakers and Nazis. P. 213
- ↑ Whether by Frommel, as Bock claims, or by Cordan, as he explains himself (Wolfgang Cordan: Die Matte. Pp. 181–182) or by some far-sighted Quakers, as Laura van der Hoek suggests (in another tape transcript dated August 1, 1980 in the holdings of the exile archive), is difficult to tell apart.
- ^ "The teacher in charge at De Esch, Elisabeth Schmitt, believing as unconditionally in Kappers' judgment as Kappers trusted his German contact, impressed on her youngsters that an escape into the underground was risky for the escape as well as for the rest of both school communities because it would expose everyone to German retribution. Discussions of the issue at the castle produced the same conclusion. […] In the end the skeptics were, of course, proved right. "Hans A. Schmitt: Quakers and Nazis. Pp. 200-201.
- ↑ Wolfgang Cordan: The mat. Pp. 186-188.
- ↑ Peter Budde: Katharina Petersen and the Quaker School Eerde. P. 97.
- ^ Feidel-Mertz (ed.): Schools in Exile. P. 164. The Quaker Laura van der Hoek (born on February 10, 1905 as Laura van Honk) had close contacts in Eerde, but what role she played there is not documented.
- ↑ "Laura was a devout Dutch Quaker who had originally been made aware of the plight of the Jews at a Quaker convention in Germany in 1937. Laura Although single and self-supporting, Decided to help rescue Jews. She was simply disgusted by the wholesale deportation of the Dutch population. Laura's means were limited and she lived in a rented room in Amsterdam. However, she also owned a small weekend cottage in Putten, Gelderland, where she agreed to accommodate a couple who were engaged. Throughout their six-months in hiding in the cottage, the strictly Calvinist Dutch Reformed neighbors cared for the fugitives. Later on in the war, a half-Jewish teacher at the Quaker school in Ommen, Overijssel, needed a place to hide. Through a Quaker friend in the underground, Laura found a safe address in Hilversum, North Holland. Laura rented the apartment in her name, lived there for the entire six months that the teacher was in hiding in order not to give her away, and commuted daily to work in Amsterdam. Laura's connections in the Quakers led her to some 'good' German officials who were willing to help in her efforts. They provided her with a big house at 463 Prinsengracht, which had belonged to a Jewish family. She actually used the property to hide people, including the Blumenstein-Jolles, Paul Fischer, a German Quaker who had thrown his gun away in a protest against the Nazi atrocities, and several others. Throughout this time, in the neighborhood, Laura was considered pro-German, and storekeepers refused to serve her. Consequently, she ventured far afield in order to acquire food for the fugitives whom she sheltered until the end of the war. ”Source: Righteous Among the Nations: Laura van Honk
- ↑ Wolfgang Cordan: The mat. P. 186.
- ↑ a b c d Gays and Lesbians in war and resistance: Castrum Peregrini. The pilgrim's castle '
- ↑ Wolfgang Cordan: The mat. P. 188.
- ↑ "Another Jewish student, who also went in hiding on his own, thought that the contacts of Frommel and Cordan in Ommen were characterized too much by a gay atmosphere for him to want to be part of it."
- ↑ The story of Otto Isidor Wolf and his family
- ↑ Memorial for the murdered Jewish children of Eerde .
- ^ "On April 10, 1943 De Esch was cleared. The remaining residents, as agreed with Ariëns Kappers, went 'voluntarily' by public transport to camp Vught . From there the group ended up in camp Westerbork . There they read together Latin writers like Tacitus and Sallustius and books by Fichte, Goethe and Tolstoy. Three of them were murdered in Auschwitz later that year on September 24. The last of them, Hermann Isaac, died during the liberation of that camp, on January 21, 1945. "
- ↑ a b Hildegard Feidel-Mertz (ed.): Schools in Exile. P. 164.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n The page Kamp Westerbork: Portraits no longer exists. There is now material for 13 victims on the Joods Monument memorial page , which in some cases also includes the former Westerbork portraits, but in some cases goes beyond that. The following short biographies (partly translations) are based, unless otherwise stated, on the old Westerbork portraits, which are no longer directly accessible, or, if necessary, on the entries on Joods Monument .
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Source: Gemeentearchief Ommen
- ↑ Stolperstein for Otto Edgar Rosenstern & List of Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Winterhude
- ↑ On the page “Stolpersteine in Hamburg” there is detailed information about the fate of the Bein family. The entry of Joods Monument follows this representation, while the following contribution is still based on the entry in the Westerbork database.
- ↑ The year data for the Dutch camp stations are missing; however, it can be assumed that the year is 1943.
- ↑ Stolperstein for Rosemarie Oppenheimer & List of Stolpersteine in Mainz
- ↑ Petra Bonavita: Quakers as saviors in Frankfurt am Main during the Nazi era. Pp. 42–43, and: Women's Office for the State Capital Mainz (ed.): Frauenleben in Magenza. The portraits of Jewish women and girls from the Mainz women's calendar and texts on women's history in Jewish Mainz , Mainz, 2015, p. 69. On the Internet: /Web_Frauenleben_in_Magenza_2015.pdf Frauenleben in Magenza
- ↑ NS Documentation Center of the City of Cologne . The memorial book of the Federal Archives (see web links) notes “living in Cologne” for both.
- ↑ Stumbling blocks for the Binswanger family
- ^ Stumbling block for Hermann Isaak . The spelling of the name Isaac is not clear; it is often written out as Isaac.
- ↑ Stolperstein for Ernst Rudolf Reiss & List of Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Harvestehude
- ↑ For sources on the fate of Ulrich Sander (and Hans Boevé) see: KINDEREN IN WOII: HANS BOEVÉ, LEERLING VAN DE QUAKERSCHOOL EERDE VAN 1940-1943 & the drawings by Ulrich Sander & boarding school Eerde, zoals het was in 1943 & died in Enschede & Gravestone by Ulrich Sander
- ^ Marita Keilson-Lauritz: Kentaurenliebe. P. 158.
- ^ Marita Keilson-Lauritz: Kentaurenliebe. P. 159.
- ↑ Wolfgang Cordan: The mat. Pp. 181-188. For him she is the main culprit for the fact that the children from the house "De Esch" could not be brought to safety in time.
- ↑ Hans A. Schmitt: Quaker Efforts to Rescue Children from Nazi Education and Discrimination. P. 54.
- ^ Berthold Hegner: The international Quaker school Eerde
- ↑ a b c d e f Hanna Jordan : Eerde Castle - a great Quaker work and its "oldies". Pp. 144-149. In the exile archive in Frankfurt there is a record of a conversation that Feidel-Mertz had with Hanna Jordan. In it you can read that Jordan insisted that the subject of the murdered Jewish children should not be too high a priority. That fits with the statement quoted here, but could also be an indication that she, who had become a Quaker herself, adopted the opinion of the Quaker faction, which placed an absolute concept of truth higher than the possible saving of a human life Help a lie.
- ^ The diary of Klaus Seckel: Beginning and end at the Quaker School Eerde (1937–1943). P. 20.
- ↑ For his life story see: Hendericus Johannes Prakke Alphen aan den Rijn April 26, 1900 - Roden December 14, 1992 (in Dutch)
- ↑ Hildegard Feidel-Mertz (ed.): Schools in Exile. P. 164. From 1960 to 1969 Prakke headed the Institute for Journalism in Münster: Prakkegeschichten - an academic globetrotter in Münster
- ↑ a b Hildegard Feidel-Mertz: The last piece of Eerde.
- ↑ Hildegard Feidel-Mertz: The last piece of Eerde. P. 136.
- ^ The diary of Klaus Seckel: Beginning and end at the Quaker School Eerde (1937–1943). P. 87, quoted from Hildegard Feidel-Mertz: The last piece of Eerde. P. 138.
- ↑ Announcement of the publisher's new edition of the diary by Rainerkap Susanne Brandt
- ^ The diary of Klaus Seckel: Beginning and end at the Quaker School Eerde (1937–1943). P. 89 (original spelling)
- ↑ Quoted from Hildegard Feidel-Mertz: 'The last piece of Eerde'. P. 138.
- ↑ Hildegard Feidel-Mertz (ed.): Schools in Exile, p. 164.
- ↑ Hans A. Schmitt: Quakers and Nazis. P. 80 & note 21, p. 236.
- ↑ Hildegard Feidel-Mertz (ed.): Schools in Exile. Pp. 153 and 162.
- ↑ Hildegard Feidel-Mertz: The last piece of Eerde. P. 131, Note 2 and Hildegard Feidel-Mertz: Schools in Exile. Pp. 251-252.
- ↑ According to Budde, he was also discussed as the headmaster. (Peter Budde: Katharina Petersen and the Quaker School Eerde. P. 89)
- ↑ Hildegard Feidel-Mertz: The last piece of Eerde. Pp. 131-132.
- ↑ Quoted from a draft Feidel-Mertz for a biographical sketch; Inventory pedagogical and political emigration (PPE 287) in exile collections of the German National Library in Frankfurt am Main.
- ↑ Hildegard Feidel-Mertz: The last piece of Eerde. P. 135.
- ↑ Rose E. Neuse
- ↑ "Prof. Werner Neuse wants to be on leave the first semester [..]. Dr. Neuse plans to go with his family to Germany where he will do research work in the Prussian state library at the University of Berlin. Mrs. Neuse will do some literary work to finish her thesis which was begun when she was the recipient of the Ottendorf fellowship. The Neuses may also go to Austria and Switzerland for a short time. Dr. Kurt Neuse, who is at present teaching in a Quaker school for German refugee children in Ommen, Holland, will take his brother's place in the German department during the first semester. He is a graduate of the University of Berlin and is working on a thesis in the English language. "( Middlebury Campus 1936-06-15: Volume XXXIII, Issue 30 )
- ^ "In 1933, the family moved to Ommen, Holland where the Quakers had established a school, Eerde (currently Eerde International School). This is where he, his parents and his three sisters lived until the end of WWII. "( Obituary to Richard Neuse ). Werner Neuse also seems to have stayed in America, since he was appointed full professor of German language and literature at Middlebury College in 1940.
- ^ "After his disappearance, Rose Neuse called on German authorities to help find the missing father of her four children. The Germans were as baffled as they pretended to be, but they do not appear to have expended much energy in a search for the elusive reservist. What they did not known was that Neuse had found refuge in the attic of his family's residence, wher he remained until Canadian troops liberated that section of the Netherlands in April 1945. “Hans A. Schmitt: Quakers and Nazis. P. 188.
- ↑ Friedrich W. Buri: I gave you the torch in leaps and bounds. P. 252.
- ↑ "(..) members of the St. Lawrence University faculty are being promoted in academic rank effective with the beginning of the 1959–1960 college year [..] Promoted to associate professor are [..] HL Kurt Neuse." OGDENSBURG JOURNAL from September 19, 1959 )
- ↑ "COLLEGE TEACHER, retiring June, willing to give services, institution teaching German (or Latin and Greek) here or English abroad. Credentials upon request. HL Kurt Neuse, 10 Buck Street, Canton, New York. ”( FRIENDS JOURNAL ) (PDF, Volume 10, No. 7).
- ↑ Hans A. Schmitt: Lucky Victim. 72. “ My chaperone looked younger than any teacher I had ever had. On our trip the next day I would learn that she was to be the new art instructor at my school. From her passport l gathered that she was only twenty-three, thus not really outside the pale. After this revelation l gave her the benefit of my doubt, and found her company to be a great deal more pleasant than I had expected. ”
- ↑ Hans A. Schmitt: Lucky Victim. P. 102.
- ↑ Hans A. Schmitt: Lucky Victim. S. 88. “ … that an educational institution with a faculty and student body mostly foreign could not survive in puritan, rural Holland any imputation of sexual looseness. Pregnant and unwed teachers or students would destroy the school. Anyone who broke the rules of celibacy, or monogamy where married adults were concerned, endangered the community and lost all claims to its tolerance. ”
- ↑ Hans A. Schmitt: Lucky Victim. P. 85. "A plump, pink, little Dutchwoman, Molly Swart, taught French."
- ↑ Hans A. Schmitt: Quakers and Nazis. P. 82.
- ↑ Hans A. Schmitt: Lucky Victim , pp. 85-86.
- ↑ Hans A. Schmitt: Lucky Victim. S. 86. “ He was, no doubt, drawn to the school by the egalitarianism of our community and its commitment to succoring the victims of nazism. [..] he never attended our Sunday meetings, the only teacher who demonstratively rejected Quakerism. I soon discovered that he despised secular discipline as much as organized religion. ”
- ↑ Hans A. Schmitt: Lucky Victim. S. 88. “ … an infraction of communal customs for which both were immediately expelled. Boost had no immediate connection with any of these events and potential scandals, but in a stormy faculty meeting he opposed the expulsion of the two students. Not that he advocated promiscuity. His own monkish existence was proof of that. He simply believed that communities should reform, not cast out the wayward. ”
- ↑ Hans A. Schmitt: Lucky Victim. Pp. 88-89. “ He was replaced by a more staid Dutch couple who provided little charisma and, to his disconsolate and abandoned chapelle, no commensurate intellectual excitement. ”
- ↑ Hans A. Schmitt: Lucky Victim. P. 92. “ At the end of the war, I learned that he had been killed in action against the Japanese in the Dutch East Indies. I do not know how he came to such an end. Although one of his brothers was a regular army officer, Jan Boost as a soldier boggles the imagination. One could have envisioned him plunging with heedless enthusiasm into the thick of the resistance and suffering martyrdom at the hands of the Nazis. But dying for an empire he despised and rejected was a terrible fate for the man who gave me and some of my friends our first acquaintance with a noble pacifism and the utopia of social justice. ”
- ↑ Hans A. Schmitt: Quakers and Nazis. Pp. 79-80 and p. 82.
- ↑ Hans A. Schmitt: Lucky Victim. P. 85. “ One of the newcomers, Miss Green, a jolly, homely spinster, also taught English, but always in the shadow of Mr. Neuse, who feared, rightly as I recall, that she was too tolerant of our imperfections. She was, nevertheless, important to our education, for she did not know a word of German and thus forced us to use her language and become at home in it. The other Britisher, Betty Shepherd, who taught math in English to the upper grades, was also unilingual, and intensely pious besides. Every Sunday morning, at the crack of dawn, she would bicycle to the Reformed church in Ommen and for the remainder of the day stay out of sight, reading and praying, no doubt, for such wayward and frivolous pupils as l. [..] l suspect that Eerde was her first post. She was conscientious, but often at a loss to understand why so easy a subject as hers should give some of us so much trouble. ”
- ↑ Peter Budde: Katharina Petersen and the Quaker School Eerde. P. 100 and note 15, p. 101.
- ↑ Wolfgang Cordan: The mat. P. 181.
- ^ "Headmaster Hermans [..] left no doubt in the minds of all concerned that the castle and is immediate surroundings were closed to Jewish children. Actual events reflect a less clear-cut separation. [..] It is also known that Hermans himself allowed two new Jewish students into the castle school, in total disregard of the instructions from the board to admit only applicants whose identity papers documented their Aryan descent. "Hans A. Schmitt: Quakers and Nazis. P. 200.
- ↑ "[..] appointed Commandant of an Internment camp for Dutch Nazis: as a Quaker, he guaranteed humane treatment of these collaborators, a promise he fully lived up to." Hans A. Schmitt: Quakers and Nazis. P. 214.
- ^ " Horace Eaton, for many years Head of the English Department at Syracuse University, gave much of his time and effort to the Ommen Friends School. He died on September 6, 1958. ”Quoted from: Friends Journal , Volume 5, No. 41, November 28, 1959, p. 10. Elsewhere it says about him: “ Eaton was born in Quincy, Massachusetts, on October 13, 1871. He graduated from Harvard College in 1893 and studied at the Divinity School for two years. After receiving his PhD from Harvard in 1900, Eaton taught German and English at the University of Vermont and, later, English at Syracuse University. He edited The Diary of Thomas De Quincey for 1803. Eaton was one of the founders and a leading member of the Syracuse Meeting of Friends. He died August 10, 1958. ” Harvard Divinity School: The School Gathers in 1895
- ↑ Hildegard Feidel-Mertz: The last piece of Eerde. Pp. 133-134, note 7.
- ↑ Peter Budde: Katharina Petersen and the Quaker School Eerde. P. 101, note 7.
- ^ Reckendorf's influence to Julia Mitchell
- ^ "Verena Reckendorf Borton represents the third generation in her family's weaving tradition, reaching all the way back to the beginning of the last century in northern Europe. She first learned her craft as a small child during World War II in her mother's studio and later as a student in her mother's classes in an international school in the Netherlands. After immigrating to the United States in the late fifties, she eventually served her apprenticeship in Master Weaver Edith Reckendorf's Massachusetts and California studios. "( Loom & Lens: Weaving and Photography by Verena and Ray Borton )
- ^ Roselle Kline Chartock: Windsor Mountain School: A Beloved Berkshire Institution. The History Press, Charleston, 2014, ISBN 978-1-62619-443-4 , p. 96.
- ^ Claus Victor Bock: Submerged among friends. P. 14, p. 112 and p. 140.
- ↑ Hans A. Schmitt; Lucky Victim. P. 84.
- ↑ Friedrich W. Buri: I gave you the torch in leaps and bounds. P. 254.
- ↑ Friedrich W. Buri: I gave you the torch in leaps and bounds. Pp. 96 and 164.
- ↑ a b There is a detailed article about him in the English-language WIKIPEDIA: Hans Einstein
- ↑ The following statements are based on freely accessible sources. The extensive source material on Max Adolph Warburg, which is stored in the archive of the Warburg Institute in London and can only be viewed on site, could not be taken into account . An archive search on wi-calm.sas.ac.uk gives an overview , which resulted in 359 hits for the search term “Max Adolph Warburg”. (As of October 1, 2018) According to the archive, there is no secondary literature on Max Adolph Warburg about the references cited below from Ron Chernow.
- ↑ a b c estate of Hildegard Feidel-Mertz in the German Exile Archive of the German National Library , PPE 309.
- ↑ The two children mentioned are Maria Christina Lux Mills (1939–1998) and Iris Warburg (* 1943 in Eerde). In the “Special Collections Department” of the University of Virginia library “There are fifty-eight letters, 1940–1942, chiefly from Olga Spiero in Berlin-Friedenau, Odenwaldstrasse, Germany, to her daughter, Josepha Warburg in Kasteel Eerde, Ommen O. , Netherlands. There are also two letters from Heinrich Israel Spiero (1876–1947), historian of German literature on November 14, 1941 to Max Adolf Warburg and on March 27, 1942 to Josepha Warburg; and, one letter, March 15, 1941, from Wolfgang Jlisch to Josepha Warburg. The letters from the mother to the daughter contain personal family news and serve as a record of life during wartime Germany. The letter from Heinrich Spiero to Max Adolf Warburg appears to discuss certain family documents such as marriage certificates (trauschein) and baptismal certificates (baptismal certificates) of the grandfather (grandfather) and grandmother (grandmother). It also mentions months [Martin] Luther's (1483–1546) correspondence, Desiderius Erasmus' (d. 1536) Colloquia, and Kaiser Wilhelm- Gedachtniskirche. These letters are written in German and have not been translated. "( A Guide to the Spiero Family Letters 1940-1942 )
- ^ "During the last year, under the pressure of German occupation in this country, the problem of German re-education has become a most imperative concern to my wife and me. Our efforts to enter Germany have until now been in vain. As isolated individuals we shall hardly ever have a chance to get there lacking any contact with the competent authorities and organized groups working for the purpose we have chosen. Obviously Holland, on thies regard, is a dead end. Belonging to your association would free us from a feeling of isolation which is gradually overcoming us here (though individually we are meeting with some understanding and would give us some hope to reach our Goal before becoming apopleptic or beeing blessed by the next war). "
- ^ Sylvia Peuckert: Hedwig Fechheimer and the Egyptian art. P. 257.
- ↑ Ron Chernow: The Warburgs. Pp. 612-614.
- ↑ Ron Chernow: The Warburgs. Pp. 612-614.
- ↑ a b Hildegard Feidel-Mertz (ed.): Schools in Exile. P. 250.
- ^ Former St Katharine's College
- ↑ Ron Chernow: The Warburgs. P. 614.
- ^ Claus Victor Bock: Submerged among friends. Pp. 11-12. "Cyril" was the name for William Hilsley / Billy Hildesheimer in the circle around Wolfgang Frommel.
- ^ Claus Victor Bock: Submerged among friends. Pp. 11-12.
- ^ The diary of Klaus Seckel: Beginning and end at the Quäkerschule Eerde (1937-1943), p. 63 (original spelling). The entry suggests that Klaus Seckel took part in the lecture and that it took place in the castle. This suggests that on Christmas 1941 the ban was broken, which forbade Jewish children to enter the castle, which has been reserved for "Aryans" since September 1941.
- ↑ “In March 1941 Wolfgang Cordan also gave a lecture in Ommen. Now, as Keilson writes, another pupil makes a big impression: the 17-year old Johannes Piron (fathers name: Kohn). From this encounter a life-long relationship arises. A second 'unexpected following' (Cordan) occurred because in the form of his friendship with Thomas Maretzki, a Jewish pupil of the school, who just graduated but had not found another place to live yet. After the introduction of the Yellow Star (May 1942), Cordan persuaded him to leave Castle Eerde and join him in Bergen. At first they found shelter with an old friend of Wolfgang, Theo van der Wal [..], and later with the mother of Chris Dekker, who belonged to the circle of friends around Frommel. "
- ↑ Wolfgang Cordan: The mat. Pp. 174-197.
- ↑ "In the spring of 1940 another German émigré turned up at the Quaker School in Ommen: Wolfgang Cordan." (Marita Keilson-Lauritz: Kentaurenliebe. P. 138) However, she does not provide any evidence for her statement.
- ↑ For these different interpretations see Marita Keilson-Lauritz : Kentaurenliebe. Pp. 152-155.
- ↑ Hans A. Schmitt: Lucky Victim. P. 83.
- ↑ Hans A. Schmitt: Lucky Victim. P. 90. "We consumed Frau Kuck's solid, predictable, Teutonic cuisine."
- ↑ Hildegard Feidel-Mertz (ed.): Schools in Exile. P. 157.
- ↑ Friedrich W. Buri: I gave you the torch in leaps and bounds. P. 163.
- ↑ Letters of September 23, October 5. and October 10, 1936, quoted from: Melchior Frommel: Enzio Meyer Borchert, pp. 143–161 (documents from Meyer-Borchert's time in Eerde)
- ^ Letter of November 22, 1936, quoted from: Melchior Frommel: Enzio Meyer Borchert, pp. 143–161 (documents from Meyer-Borchert's time in Eerde)
- ^ Letter of May 6, 1940 to the sister, quoted from: Melchior Frommel: Enzio Meyer Borchert, pp. 143–161 (documents from Meyer-Borchert's time in Eerde)
- ↑ Wolfgang Cordan: The mat. P. 178.
- ↑ Hans A. Schmitt: Lucky Victim. P. 94.
- ↑ Hans A. Schmitt: Quakers and Nazis. Pp. 130-131.
- ↑ Hans A. Schmitt: Quakers and Nazis. P. 83.
- ^ The diary of Klaus Seckel: Beginning and end at the Quaker School Eerde (1937–1943). P. 61–62 (original spelling)
- ^ "Earlier fears that the idyllic life inside the castle moat would incapacitate students' ability to make their way independently in foreign parts likewise proved to be unfounded. During the last two years before the war, success stories, confirming a far more heartening result, proliferated. Some holders of the Oxford School Certificate continued their education at St. Andrews University in Scotland, while five Eerde graduates residing in the United States attended colleges and universities extending from Swarthmore and Haverford to the University of California in Berkeley. Others successfully pursued vocational training. Gerda LeRoy was to become a kindergarten teacher in Amsterdam; Carl Jacoby, a particularly promising intern of Thera Herman's pottery studio, was continuing to perfect his craft in New York; Peter Liebermann, after finishing an agricultural course in England, was working on a farm in Australia; and younger alumni of Heinz Wild's elementary school, who had rejoined their families abroad, were excelling in schools as far apart as Portugal and California. Some, whom circumstances forced to move back to Germany, remained particularly determined to maintain their contact with the school and wrote regularly to friends and teachers. Scholastically, they too made their mark in this inhospitable climate to which they had been constrained to return. "
- ^ Marita Keilson-Lauritz: Kentaurenliebe. P. 142.
- ↑ [They were] "archetypal of the kind of students that would populate Eerde. Their half-Jewish father, dismissed from his position as director of the Brunswick State Bank's Holzminden branch, had been forced to move his family into the guest room of his wife's parents in Berlin. When the Lüdecke brothers first arrived at Eerde they found no school, only a collection of empty buildings. "
- ↑ In contrast to her brother, nothing is known about her. However, there is a photo uploaded to flickr in 2014 that shows her in 1935 in Erde: Heilwig Einstein (Eerde Quaker School, Ommen, Netherlands, 1935)
- ^ Service in space: life and work of the Wuppertal set designer Hanna Jordan
- ^ Based on the biographical notes about Hans A. Schmitt on the website The University of Virginia Library: A Guide to the Additional Papers of Hans Schmitt, 1934-2004 . A detailed catalog of his estate can be viewed on this page, which also includes a lot of material about the school in Eerde, including the textbook kept by Katharina Petersen during her time as director.
- ^ Richard Schmitt, educator, philosopher
- ↑ "The castle's kitchen staff continued to cook for the Jewish children, and Elisabeth Schmitt's son Richard - son of an Ayran father but contiuing to reside at De Esch in clear violation of German instructions - brought food to that compound in a cart hooked to his bicycle. "(Hans A. Schmitt: Quakers and Nazis. p. 200)
- ^ "At the end of WW II he managed to move to Chicago where he attended the University of Chicago. He left with an MA in Philosophy for Yale. Upon earning his PhD he moved to Brown University where he was in charge of philosophical traditions despised by his analytic colleagues. He taught Existentialism for many years and added Marxism to his repertoire in the late 1960s. Retired from Brown in 2000 he has since taught at Worcester State University as well as other institutions in the Worcester area. He has published books and articles about Existentialism, Marxism, Socialism and Feminist Theory. "( Brown University: Richard Schmitt )
- ↑ Hildegard Feidel-Mertz (ed.): Schools in Exile. P. 163.
- ↑ Nina Arbesser-Rastburg: The Munich “Eagle's Nest” through the ages . P. 137.
- ↑ In Memoriam: Former Fusion Group Lead Wulf Kunkel (1923–2013)
- ↑ Hildegard Feidel-Mertz: Estate in the German Exile Archive , documents from the research project Pedagogical-Political Emigration 1933–1945 (PPE) )
- ↑ Petra Bonavita: Quakers as saviors in Frankfurt am Main during the Nazi era. P. 259.
- ↑ a b c Berthold Hegner: The international Quaker school Eerde. Pp. 73-77.
- ^ Biographical sketch of Frederick J. David Hoeniger
- ↑ Petra Bonavita: Quakers as saviors in Frankfurt am Main during the Nazi era , pp. 259–267.
- ↑ Wolfgang Cordan: The mat. S. 188. It is possible that he is Robert Wolf (see above).
- ↑ In Memoriam Beate Ruhm von Oppen
- ↑ Beate Ruhm von Oppen at the IAS
- ↑ Publications by Beate Ruhm von Oppen in WorldCat
- ^ Delia Walker (née fame): My beloved Quaker school
- ↑ Max Kemman: The fate of Jewish students of the first Berlin Rudolf Steiner School . An obituary by her musician colleague George Caird provides information about Delia's musical career: Delia Ruhm (1925–2014)
- ↑ Biographical information according to Peter Voswinkel (ed.): Biographical Lexicon of the Outstanding Doctors of the Last Fifty Years , Vol. 3., ISBN 3-487-11659-6 . Isaaks work as a doctor and researcher is described in great detail on the website Jewish Hospitals in Frankfurt am Main (1829–1942) . On a subpage there is also detailed information about his biography and that of his relatives: Chronicle Prof. Dr. med. Simon Isaac .
- ^ Ingrid Warburg Spinelli: Memories. P.56.
- ↑ Noni Warburg's husband was Seew Smulowitz-Shalmon, who had fled Germany to Sweden and played a leading role in the Zionist movement in Sweden and in preparing young Jewish people who had fled Germany for emigration to Palestine. Emil Glück, Judith Diamond, Yaël Glick: Hachshara and Youth Aliyah in Sweden 1933–1948 , 2016, ISBN 978-1-326-77991-7 , pp. 146–147. The book is based on a Swedish edition, ISBN 91-7328-506-4, published in 1985, and so far only excerpts can be viewed at google books: Hachshara and Youth Aliyah in Sweden 1933–1948
- ↑ Very detailed: Information on the namesake of the Anna Warburg School in Hamburg
- ↑ Ron Chernow: The Warburgs. P. 515. There is no evidence of this outside of Chernov's book. Ingrid Warburg Spinelli, who mentions many relief efforts by the widely ramified Warburg family in her “Memoirs”, does not report any support from Eerde either .
- ^ Ingrid Warburg Spinelli: Memories. P. 154.
- ^ William Hilsley: Music behind the barbed wire. Pp. 102-103.
- ↑ Ron Chernow: The Warburgs. P. 728.
- ^ Ingrid Warburg Spinelli: Memories. P. 289.
- ↑ a b c All quotations on Werner Bing: UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM . 1) “The family was distantly related to the Warburgs. Ernest Bing, together with his brother-in-law, Walter Stern, owned a property and casualty insurance business. "/ 2)" In 1938 Werner traveled through Germany to attend the 80th birthday of his grandfather Leo Stern in Switzerland. This was the last time he passed through Germany until he returned six years later as an American serviceman. A few months later he and his sister Annelize moved to England. "/ 3)" After America's entry into World War II, Werner John joined the United States army serving first as an artilleryman and later as an interrogator of captured Nazis. After returning to the United States he married Maya Spiegelberg on February 9, 1947. "
- ↑ a b Obituary for Peter West Elkington
- ^ Previously bestuurslid Guus Hollander overleden
- ↑ On Schneider's homepage ( Hans Schneider homepage ) you can click the “A Personal History” button to call up a Word document in which the history of his and his parents' escape from Germany / Austria is described in great detail. There it is said that he should have gone to the Quaker School in Eerde, but then there is only reference to the great difficulties of getting a flight from Warsaw to Amsterdam. He apparently started it later, but it is not clear whether he traveled from Amsterdam to school or to his parents in England. In the official university obituary ( Memorial for Hans Schneider ), a stay at a school in the Netherlands is not mentioned, but only the continuation of school attendance from August 1939 in Edinburgh. If Hans Schneider actually attended the Quaker School in Eerde, it could only have been for a relatively short time between September 1938 and August 1939.
- ↑ The biographical data presented here are based on the information on the Guide to the Werner Warmbrunn Collection and obituary for Werner E. Warmbrunn websites
- ↑ See: Publications by Werner Warmbrunn in the holdings of the DNB and Werner Warmbrunn in the WorldCat
- ↑ a b Source: Hildegard Feidel-Mertz: Estate in the German Exile Archive , documents from the research project Pedagogical-Political Emigration 1933–1945 (PPE) , folder PPE 2.3.
- ↑ Unless other sources are mentioned, all of the following information comes from the book by Petra Bonavita: Quäker als Retter im Frankfurt am Main during the Nazi era , pp. 39–40.
- ↑ It was very likely the forerunner of today's Albert Schweitzer School
- ↑ From the history of the Jewish community in Offenbach
- ↑ Hans A. Schmitt: Lucky Victim. P. 94.
- ↑ Hans A. Schmitt: Lucky Victim. P. 94.
- ↑ Hanna Jordan: Eerde Castle - a large Quaker work and its "oldies". P. 146.
- ↑ Eerder reporting sheets , September 1938 edition, in: Hildegard Feidel-Mertz: Estate in the German Exile Archive , documents from the research project Pedagogical-Political Emigration 1933–1945 (PPE)
- ↑ Growing up in Hamburg… the 1920s . More data about him and his family: Kukuck - personal data
- ^ Raimund Bahr: Günther Anders. Living and thinking in the word. , Edition Art Science, Vienna and St. Wolfgang, 2010, ISBN 978-3-902157-71-3 , available as a Google book: Michael Schottlaender
- ↑ Hans A. Schmitt: Lucky Victim. S. 181. “I had reported my surprise encounter on campus with an Eerde classmate, Peter Kaufmann, who was attending the seminary of the Church of the Brethren on Chicago's West Side. l criticized vigorously and intolerantly his decision to become a clergyman, viewing it as a betrayal of our boardingschool's enlightened teachings. My father upbraided me for such disrespect of another person's conviction, and l defended myself by insisting that it was not my classmate's commitment but the clergy's preoccupation with dogma at the expense of ethics that repelled me. "
- ↑ Hans A. Schmitt: Lucky Victim. P. 252.
- ^ Ohlsdorf Jewish cemetery: grave register & reparation files Paula Spiro
- ↑ Hamburg Birth Register, 332-5-45010-01, p. 149
- ↑ Albert Ballin's father had four children from his first marriage and another nine with Albert Ballin's mother, so that Alfons Ballin is possibly a nephew of Albert Ballin. Johannes Gerhardt: Albert Ballin , Hamburg University Press, Hamburg 2009. ISBN 978-3-937816-67-8 (online)
- ↑ The emigration is documented by a letter from Alfonso Ballin, which is in the Jewish Museum Berlin: From the collections of the Jewish Museum Berlin
- ^ Hamburg State Archives: Berthold Adler
- ↑ It is mentioned at the end of an article about the wedding of Herbert Spiro's son Alexander Charles Stiefel Spiro, who was married to Elizabeth Spiro Clark: "The bridegroom is also a stepson of Marion B. Spiro of Austin." "Weddings : Vanessa Green, Alexander Spiro ". The New York Times. 1993-05-09. Further evidence for the relationship between Marion Ballin and Herbert Spiro can be found in the "Inventory of the Herbert J. Spiro Papers, 1946-2002"
- ↑ Hans A. Schmitt: Lucky Victim. P. 252.
- ↑ Hans A. Schmitt: Lucky Victim. P. 253. “I remember being struck by her complaint that immigrants like her could not become Brazilians the way survivors in our family had become Americans. To become assimilated, she said, meant accepting a 'cultural level' to which she was not prepared to descend. l was then put off by this culture snobbery, but in later years I have come to see this remark in a different light. The Josephs, like the Ballins - and my own Jewish forebears as well - had been Germans for generations and were completely unprepared for sudden ostracism. Twenty years after our adolescent friendship on the road into exile, their oldest daughter still had not come to terms with that personal and collective catastrophe. German civilization still provided the standards by which Marianne judged everything within her physical and spiritual purview. Her life, too, had been poisoned by Hitler. Even so, her Jewish heart continues to beat as German in Sao Paulo - where she has lived her adult life - as during her childhood in Germany. "
- ↑ Josephs & Lanz's engagement announcement from 1942
- ↑ a b c Rudolf & Marianne Lanz
- ^ Educational islands in the big city juggernaut
- ^ Waldorf schools in Latin America
- ↑ Hans A. Schmitt: Lucky Victim. P. 94.
- ↑ John Hajnal - Biography and more detailed: John Hajnal 1924–2008
- ^ Prof. John Munro: The Economic History of Modern Europe to 1914
- ↑ Petra Bonavita: Quakers as saviors in Frankfurt am Main during the Nazi era. P. 42.
- ↑ Nelly Rossmann Family Papers in the holdings of the USHMM , accessed on July 31, 2017.
- ^ A b Günter Wiemann, Hans Löhr and Hans Koch - political hikes , Vitamine-Verlag, Braunschweig, 2011, ISBN 978-3-00-033763-5 , pp. 64–68.
- ^ Frank Ligtvoet: In de schaduw van de meester.
- ↑ Compare Joke Haverkorn van Rijswijk: Removed memories of W .. p. 13 ff., And the section William Hilsley # Hilsley's dark shadow .
- ↑ a b c Wolfgang Cordan: The mat. P. 180.
- ↑ a b Wolfgang Cordan: The mat. P. 197.
- ↑ Stephan C. Bischoff: Epilogue - time table - name register to: Friedrich W. Buri: I gave you the torch in the jump. P. 236.
- ↑ Wolfgang Cordan: The mat. Pp. 249-250. The representation suggests that Liselotte Brinitzer drove to the beach by herself, the representation is consequently a literary “exaggeration” of the real events.
- ↑ Joke Haverkorn van Rijswijk: "It was an incessant drama." (Interview)
- ^ Joke Haverkorn van Rijswijk: Distant memories of W .. p. 32.
- ^ Anaïs Van Ertvelde: The Many Manifestations of Castrum Peregrini. Historiography, heritage and the possibility of representing the past , Universiteit Utrecht, 2011–2012, p. 41.
- ^ Claus Victor Bock: Submerged among friends. P. 154.
- ^ Marita Keilson-Lauritz: Kentaurenliebe. P. 161.
- ↑ Quoted from: Marita Keilson-Lauritz: Kentaurenliebe. P. 162.
- ↑ Joke Haverkorn van Rijswijk: Distant memories of W .. p. 31.
- ↑ She talks about it in detail in the article by Harm Ede Botje and Sander Donkers: Kindermisbruik binnen de kringen van kunstgenootschap Castrum Peregrini , to which Julia Encke also refers in a summary of Kuby's story. (Julia Encke: abuse on behalf of Stefan Georges ).
- ↑ Quoted in the original spelling according to Claus Victor Bock: Untergetaucht unter Freunde. P. 155.
- ^ Sylvia Peuckert: Hedwig Fechheimer and the Egyptian art. P. 257.
- ^ Sylvia Peuckert: Hedwig Fechheimer and the Egyptian art. P. 259.
- ↑ Quoted from: Marita Keilson-Lauritz: Kentaurenliebe. Pp. 145-146.
- ^ Claus Victor Bock: Submerged among friends. P. 120.
- ^ Sylvia Peuckert: Hedwig Fechheimer and the Egyptian art. Pp. 260-261.
- ↑ Stephan C. Bischoff: Epilogue - time table - name register to: Friedrich W. Buri: I gave you the torch in the jump. P. 237.
- ↑ Stephan C. Bischoff: Epilogue - time table - name register to: Friedrich W. Buri: I gave you the torch in the jump. Pp. 242-243.
- ^ The last disciple, Stefan Georges
- ↑ "... I miss you very much." The friendship of two young exiles. The correspondence between Manuel Goldschmidt and Claus Victor Bock , ed. by Leo van Santen, Quintus-Verlag, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-945256-58-9 .
- ^ Joke Haverkorn van Rijswijk: Distant memories of W .. p. 58.
- ↑ Stephan C. Bischoff: Epilogue - time table - name register to: Friedrich W. Buri: I gave you the torch in the jump. P. 243.
- ↑ Peter Goldschmidt. The graphic artist. 1923–1987 , Manuel R Goldschmidt (editor, author, afterword), Claus V Boc (author), Wolf van Cassel (author), Hans Booms (foreword), ISBN 978-90-6034-068-4 .
- ↑ "This name was given to him by his friends from the Frommel circle to distinguish it from other Kurts. It is the name of the son of the Staufer Emperor, whom you came across in Ernst Kantorowicz's book 'Kaiser Friedrich the Second'. There it says: 'The peculiar magic that is so often praised in Enzio can be sought in this natural grace and simple cordiality: even his enemies could not evade it.' The young Kurt must also have had a special charisma, which is why he was given this name. "(Melchior Frommel: Enzio Meyer-Borchert. P. 8)
- ^ Marita Keilson-Lauritz: Kentaurenliebe. P. 143.
- ↑ Friedrich W. Buri: I gave you the torch in leaps and bounds. P. 166 and p. 252.
- ↑ Friedrich W. Buri: I gave you the torch in leaps and bounds. Pp. 163-168.
- ^ Claus Victor Bock: Submerged among friends. P. 10.
- ^ William Hilsley: Music behind the barbed wire. P. 99.
- ^ Marita Keilson-Lauritz: Kentaurenliebe. S. 159. Love, which is called friendship is the title of another book by Keilson-Lauritz, which is specifically dedicated to homoeroticism in the work of Stefan Georges: Verlag Rosa Winkel, Berlin, 1987, ISBN 3-921495-56-3 .
- ^ Letter of October 23, 1940, quoted from: Melchior Frommel: Enzio Meyer Borchert. Pp. 143–161 (documents from Meyer-Borchert's time in Eerde)
- ^ Letter of January 2, 1941, quoted in the original notation from: Melchior Frommel: Enzio Meyer Borchert. Pp. 143–161 (documents from Meyer-Borchert's time in Eerde). The people named in the quote are: "Bill" = Billy Hildesheimer / Hilsley; "Vincent / V." = Vincent Weyand (1921–1945), Frommel's friend who died in Buchenwald (see web link "Gays and Lesbians in War and Resistance"); "B." = Friedrich W. Buri, who was already in hiding at the time.
- ^ Joke Haverkorn van Rijswijk: Distant memories of W .. P. 12-13.
- ^ Joke Haverkorn van Rijswijk: Distant memories of W .. p. 15.
- ^ Joke Haverkorn van Rijswijk: Distant memories of W .. p. 17.
- ↑ Joke Haverkorn van Rijswijk: Distant memories of W .. p. 18.
- ↑ Archief Joke Haverkorn van Rijsewijk
- ↑ Joke Haverkorn van Rijsewijk: "It was an incessant drama"
- ↑ Wolfgang Cordan: The mat. P. 250.
- ↑ Petra Bonavita: Quakers as saviors in Frankfurt am Main during the Nazi era. P. 43.
- ↑ a b VIAF data: Thomas W. Maretzi
- ↑ James Roberson: Portraying Okinawa in postwar ethnographic writing: A critical review of the English-language literature (from www.academia.edu )
- ↑ Feidel-Mertz, at least, was probably familiar with the topic, as her archival material in the exile archive in the German National Library contains copied excerpts from Wolfgang Cordan's book Die Matte .
- ^ "Frommel's visits troubled Piet Kappers in particular. He seems to have feared that the school might turn into a hangout for homosexual intellectuals and, to forestall such a disaster, asked the new headmaster to bar Frommel from the premises. Neuse refused, arguing that an individual's sexual preferences - at that time still viewed exclusively as a matter of personal choice - were his own affair, so long as they did not involve students. "
- ↑ "Under Billy's aegis thesis poems were read by candlelight, amidst the antique furniture and seventeenth-century tapestry of the manor's assembly hall, in grave, sepulchral monotone, each recitation Followed by Intervals of total, motionless silence. l never became a bona fide member of the 'Georgianer' cell at Eerde. I liked girls better than boys, and my own reading of 'the Master' was merely a reverential concession to a teacher whom I admired. "
- ↑ Interview with Oskar Negt in the Frankfurter Rundschau of March 18, 2010, pp. 20–21.
- ↑ Wolfgang Cordan: The mat. P. 178.
- ↑ (Claus Victor Bock: Untergetaucht unter Freunde. Pp. 14–15).
- ↑ quoted from Marita Keilson-Lauritz: Kentaurenliebe. P. 144.
- ↑ However, this does not seem to affect Keilson-Lauritz. As Juli Encke (see web link) shows in her article, in 2018 Keilson-Lauritz still finds a discussion about the sexual abuse committed by Frommel rather than a form of nest pollution.
- ^ Beltz Verlag, Weinheim and Basel 2012, ISBN 978-3-407-22399-9
- ^ Eerde "was transformed into shelter for Hitler Youth members from Germany". Hans A. Schmitt: Quakers and Nazis. P. 201.
- ↑ a b Hildegard Feidel-Mertz (ed.): Schools in Exile. P. 166.
- ↑ a b c d e f g Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Gymnasium: Chronicle 1939–1945
- ↑ “The individual source excerpts, only slightly abbreviated in very few places, appear in diachronic order. Naturally, completeness in the assignment to the above-mentioned focal points is neither intended nor achieved. Nonetheless, the factual information and admittedly sparse statements (explanations) of the chronicler give a terrifying insight into the needs of the school (especially the pupils and all those involved in it) during the entire Second World War (soon after its outbreak). "( Explanations on the website of the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Gymnasium)
- ↑ Letters from Eerde
- ↑ Incidentally, the former “State High School for Boys” has only had the name Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Gymnasium since 1957 and thus the name of the man who can confidently be described as a forerunner of the racist-folk Nazi ideology that existed a few years earlier also determined the fate of the Osnabrück students. During the Second World War, the school chronicle was looked after by Karl Büsing. He wrote it by hand. Since, according to the statements of former students, he was 'a staunch Nazi', this explains many a formulation that is saturated with ideology and enthusiasm for war. This chronicle was found in a garbage can in October 1976. (Explanation on the website)
- ↑ “Elisabeth Schmitt, who had up to 1944 been protected by her marriage to an Ayran husband, was arrested and taken to Westerbork on March 29 of that year. Although local police had given her ample warning before bringing her in, she, faithful to the instructions given previously to her hapless charges, made no effort to get away. After a week in Westerbork she was released and returned to De Esch. There she continued to give lessons to faculty children. "
- ↑ Hildegard Feidel-Mertz (ed.): Schools in Exile. Pp. 166-167.
- ^ "Finally, a Canadian tank rolled up the graved road in front of De Esch on April 11, 1945, and it was all over - all except the mourning that would go on forever." (Hans A. Schmitt: Quakers and Nazis. Pp. 201–202)
- ^ "Neither the occupation's wake of destruction and hunger nor the inability of British and American Friends to commit any part of their strained resources to his visionary endeavored him. Once he found a clientele in the children of civil servants of the Dutch government-in-exile, who needed a school where they could finish an education begun in Great Britain, there was no stopping him, and in May 1946 the Quaker school Eerde rose , phoenixlike, from the ashes of occupation. "
- ↑ Hildegard Feidel-Mertz (ed.): Schools in Exile. P. 166 and Hildegard Feidel-Mertz: The last piece of Eerde. Pp. 133-134, note 7.
- ↑ Melchior Frommel: Enzio Meyer-Borchert. P. 10.
- ↑ Melchior Frommel: Enzio Meyer-Borchert. P. 197.
- ↑ a b Melchior Frommel: Enzio Meyer-Borchert. P. 198.
- ↑ Melchior Frommel: Enzio Meyer-Borchert. P. 199.
- ↑ Joke Haverkorn van Rijswijk: Distant memories of W .. P. 13 ff.
- ^ Joke Haverkorn van Rijswijk: Distant memories of W .. P. 15-16.
- ↑ Friends Journal (PDF), Volume 5, No. 41, November 28, 1959, p. 10.
- ↑ Hans A. Schmitt: Quakers and Nazis. P. 214.
- ^ Harm Ede Botje and Sander Donkers: Kindermisbruik within the kringen van kunstgenootschap Castrum Peregrini
- ↑ Stichting Kasteelconcerten Beverweerd
Coordinates: 52 ° 29 ′ 5.9 ″ N , 6 ° 27 ′ 9.4 ″ E