Richard Feather

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Memorial plaque on his home

Richard Feder (born August 26, 1875 in Václavice , Bohemia , Austria-Hungary ; died November 18, 1970 in Brno ) was a Czech scholar, rabbi , prisoner of the Theresienstadt concentration camp , translator and author .

Life

Feder attended a German-Jewish school in Benešov and passed his Abitur at a Piaristic grammar school in Prague . He then studied philosophy in Vienna and later attended a rabbinical seminary in the city. From 1896 to 1903 he studied at the Institute for Translation of Hebrew Literature . He wrote historical works on the history of Jewish communities as well as several textbooks and popular science works on the Jewish faith.

After his appointment as a rabbi in 1903 he worked first in Kojetín , Louny and Roudnice nad Labem until he came to Kolín in 1917 , where he worked as a rabbi for the Jewish community of Kolín in the period 1917–1942 and 1945–1953 . He also taught at the Kolín Commercial Academy.

After the invasion of the German troops , the danger to the Jewish population became clear to him and he tried to organize the emigration of Jews to a country that was not under the control of National Socialism. As early as April 26, 1939, he wrote a letter to the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, in which he outlined his ideas for such mass emigration of Jews. In the letter he suggested the first organizational steps and spoke of a group of around 500 Jews from the city. However, none of these projects (of which emigration to French Guiana was the most promising) could be realized.

In 1942, at the age of almost 67, Feder was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp north of Prague . He survived his imprisonment and after his liberation in 1945 took over the office of rabbi in Kolín again. In 1953 he was sent to Brno, where he first became regional Moravian-Silesian rabbi for Brno and in 1961 regional chief rabbi, where he remained for 17 years until his death.

reception

Feder wrote the book Židovská tragedie in 1947 , one of the first publications about the Shoah in Czechoslovakia . It is one of the few reports of a rabbi as a concentration camp prisoner. The journalist Moritz Reininghaus describes Feder's experiences on the occasion of a book reading that the actress Barbara Geiger presented in Potsdam in 2006 : Although the author largely dispenses with describing his own extreme experiences such as physical pain, his text is able to destroy a legend that is also called a lie can. As is well known, the Nazi propaganda wanted to use the "ghetto" Theresienstadt to fool the world into believing that Jews were treated very humanely. Not only the Red Cross was deceived, even the persecuted themselves often believed that this was a safe place for the elderly and the privileged. Often enough they gave their last money so that they could come to the “model town”.

family

Feder lost his entire family in the Shoah . His son Viktor was deported to the Zamość ghetto on April 28, 1942 , and finally murdered. His wife Hilda died on December 24, 1942 in Theresienstadt. His son Evžen, his wife Růžena and their two and a half year old son Josef were deported to Auschwitz on May 15, 1944 and murdered there. His daughter Ruth, her husband Pavel Heller and their 15-year-old son Walter were murdered in Auschwitz on October 28, 1944.

  • Hilda Federová, wife
  • Evžen spring, son
  • Josef Feder, grandson
  • Růžena Federová, daughter-in-law

Publications

  • Židé a křesťané (1919)
  • Hebrejská učebnice (1923)
  • Židovská tragédie <The Jewish Tragedy>, Kolín 1947
  • Kolínští židé (historická skizza) <Kolin Jews, historical sketch>, in: Českožidovský kalendář (1927/28), 197–207
  • Sinaj (učebnice židovského náboženství) (1955)
  • Religious life in Theresienstadt , in: Theresienstadt, ed. from the Council of Jewish Communities in Bohemia and Moravia, Vienna 1968
  • Židovské besídky. Kniha první. Pro zábavu a poučeni dospělejší mládeže židovské , Ph.Dr. Richard Feder, Rabin.
  • Jewish entertainment book, Volume I. For the entertainment and education of adults
  • History of the Jews in Olfen: Jewish life in the Catholic milieu of a small town , Braunschweig, 1879
  • Jewish tragedy - last act , Potsdam: Verl. Für Berlin-Brandenburg, 2004, Dt. Edition, 1st ed.
  • Haleluja. Hebrejská řeč (1936) Reprint 2006 ( ISBN 80-86057-39-9 )

literature

  • Zuzana Peterová: Richard Feder. Michael Philipp Publishing House. Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg, Potsdam 2004. Series: Series of publications by the Wilhelm Fraenger Institute Potsdam, Vol. 7. G plus G, Prague 2004.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Peter Landesmann: Rabbi from Vienna. Böhlau Verlag Wien, 1997, ISBN 9783205983439 , p. 243. Restricted preview in the Google book search
  2. ↑ a b c Richard Feder, curriculum vitae on holocaust.cz, online at: www.holocaust.cz/.../feder
  3. ^ Gershon David Hundert: The YIVO encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. Yale University Press, 2008, ISBN 9780300119039 Google Book Search limited preview
  4. ↑ Dopis rabína Richarda Federa Ministerstvu sociální a zdravotní správy ve věci vystěhování kolínských Židů (Letter from Rabbi Richard feder to the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health ...), April 26, 1939, online at: holocaust.cz/.../zidu
  5. ↑ Richard Feder: Židovská tragédie: dějství poslední (The Jewish Tragedy: The Final Act), 1947, here quoted from the excerpt Mezi okupací a deportací , online at: holocaust.cz/...deportaci
  6. ↑ PhDr. Richard Feder , curriculum vitae in Internetová encyklopedie dějin města Brna (online encyclopedia of the city of Brno), online at: encyklopedie.brna.cz / ...
  7. ^ Theresienstadt - Culture in Potsdam. In: pnn.de. December 30, 2014, accessed December 30, 2014 .
  8. ↑ holocaust.cz: HILDA FEDEROVÁ , accessed on April 14, 2017
  9. ↑ holocaust.cz: VIKTOR FEDER , accessed on April 14, 2017
  10. ↑ holocaust.cz: EVŽEN FEDER , accessed on April 14, 2017
  11. ↑ holocaust.cz: RUTH HELLEROVÁ , accessed on April 14, 2017
personal data
SURNAME Feder, Richard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czech chief rabbi, philosopher and author
DATE OF BIRTH August 26, 1875
PLACE OF BIRTH Václavice , Bohemia
DATE OF DEATH November 18, 1970
Place of death Brno