Roman Rubinstein

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Roman Rubinstein (born August 8, 1917 in Berlin ; † June 27, 1999 there ) was a German communist, resistance fighter in the Resistance and journalist.

Life

Roman Rubinstein was the only child of Jacob and Rosalia Rubinstein. His father, a doctor of chemistry, last worked in the film industry. His mother, who was born in Russia, worked in the fashion industry with a few interruptions. Roman first attended a private school and then a secondary school in Berlin-Charlottenburg . From 1929/30 to 1932 he attended schools in Brussels and Paris because of his father's professional activity.

His parents were rather apolitical and conservative. Rubinstein was politicized by his maternal uncle. He got him to grapple with political problems. “I've been thinking about why there are rich and poor.” In 1932 he joined the Communist Youth Association ( KJVD ) in the subdistrict of Charlottenburg.

When the National Socialists came to power in January 1933, he went underground for the first time. During the first illegal actions, he distributed leaflets. Some time later he was used as a liaison between the sub-district management (UBL) of the KJVD and the UBL of the KPD . He was arrested for the first time in the summer of 1933, but was soon released under the influence of his father. Nothing could be proven to him. At the end of 1933, the party officials responsible for Rubinstein were arrested and later murdered. The Gestapo was looking for him. Friends advised to flee. So emigrated he end of 1933 to Paris , where an aunt lived and he was already gone to school.

Exile in France

In Paris he was recognized as a political emigrant. Since there was no KJVD there, he joined the KPD in 1933/1934 on the instructions of Hermann Matern . Initially financed by the party, he worked full-time in the sponsorship office, which organized sponsorships for illegal groups in Germany by the French trade unions. After founding a youth sponsorship office, which was subordinate to the World Youth Committee against War and Fascism , he worked as its head of organization. As part of this work, Rubinstein smuggled political documents into Germany as a courier. At the end of 1934 he went illegally to Saarland on behalf of Artur Becker in order to take part in the voting campaign on membership of the Saarland. There he worked in the secretariat of the KJVD as an instructor with Erich Honecker and Fritz Nickolay . After the vote, many young anti-fascists from various political camps came to Paris. The anti-fascist German youth movement began to organize itself in the Paris emigration.

After his return to Paris in January 1935, the youth sponsorship office was closed in the spring. Together with Nickolay, Rubinstein then founded the KJVD emigration group. He worked here in a leading position with Hermann Axen , Kurt Hager , Hermann Burckhard and Peter Gingold . With the announcement of the resolutions of the VII. World Congress of the Comintern to establish a Popular Front in 1935, the Paris groups of the Socialist Workers' Youth (SAJ), the Socialist Youth Association (SJV) and the KJVD founded the Free German Youth (FDJ). Rubinstein took part in the preparatory negotiations with Nickolay. Herbert Frahms ( Willy Brandt ) represented the SJV . Rubinstein was elected to lead the FDJ for the KJVD.

Years in the Resistance 1940–1943 and in a concentration camp

After the occupation of Paris in 1940, he joined the Resistance and did anti-fascist propaganda work against the soldiers of the Wehrmacht . In addition, there was the procurement of means of subsistence and forged papers for illegally living anti-fascists. He was also involved in the production and distribution of publications for the Movement Free Germany for the West (CALPO).

He carried out the first resistance action against the German troops in Paris together with Sally Grünvogel two days after the invasion: "They distributed hand-made leaflets with which the members of the Wehrmacht were informed about the predatory character of the Hitler War."

Later he was the "Political Commissar" of a partisan division for the Resistance in northern France. With the code name Puche he organized the "underground war against the German occupation". Rubinstein received the rank of lieutenant colonel from the French army.

In 1943 he was arrested by the security service and taken to its Paris center on Rue des Saussaies. His hearing was broken during the subsequent torture. Initially brought to the Compiégne camp, he was deported to the Mauthausen concentration camp in early May 1943 . Due to his extensive knowledge of the language, he was able to avoid the hard physical work in the quarry and was brought in for translation tasks. In the concentration camp he was involved in the illegal communist resistance. In January 1945 he was sentenced to death in the concentration camp bunker. Due to fortunate circumstances, he was put on a transport to the Gusen I sub- camp with the help of his contacts in the camp . He survived what is known as the "Vorhof zum Hell" camp and was liberated in May 1945 weighing just 32 kilograms.

In August 1945 he was repatriated to France. After his recovery he followed a party order to go to Saarland in 1946. After he was arrested again by the French allies because of a poster campaign, the KPD called him to Berlin in June 1946.

Life and work in the GDR

From 1947 he was editor-in-chief of the SED functionary organ for Greater Berlin Will and Path . He later became an editor at Dietz Verlag and head of the French editorial team at Radio Berlin International . In 1982 he received the Patriotic Order of Merit in Gold.

Fonts (selection)

Translations

literature

  • Gottfried Hamacher: Against Hitler - Germans in the Resistance, in the armed forces of the anti-Hitler coalition and the "Free Germany" movement: short biographies . With the assistance of André Lohmar. Ed .: Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. tape 53 . Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-320-02941-X ( online [PDF]). - as an article in the DRAFD Wiki
  • Dora Schaul : Resistance. Memories of German anti-fascists. Dietz, Berlin 1973, 2nd edition ibid. & Röderberg, Frankfurt 1975 (also about Otto Niebergall , Alfred Adolph , Walter Beling , Gerhard Leo , Werner Schwarze , Luise Kraushaar and others) 3rd edition Berlin, 1985.
  • Karlheinz Pech : On the side of the Resistance . On the struggle of the movement “Free Germany for the West” in France (1943–45). Military Publishing House of the GDR, Berlin & Röderberg, Frankfurt 1974; 2. revised & erg. edition only: Berlin 1987.
  • Rudi Goguel : Antifascist resistance struggle . Edited by the Central Committee of the Anti-Fascist Resistance Fighters of the GDR, Berlin 1974.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ BV VdN eV / Association for Applied Conflict Research eV: In the resistance against the Nazi regime. Talks from 1997/1998. Part I. Berlin 2000, p. 120.
  2. ↑ A conversation with Peter Gingold about anti-Semitism and liberation
  3. ↑ Grünvogel later met as a member of the resistance in Auschwitz concentration camp, in the SS laundry and the leather factory, see Bruno Baum, Resistance in Auschwitz, VVN-Verlag : Berlin 1949, p. 29; Congress, Berlin 1962, p. 84
  4. ^ Exhibition "Germans in the Resistance" (2).
  5. ↑ End of a new beginning in: Der Spiegel from October 6, 1949
  6. ↑ SBZ manual
  7. ↑ Calendar on GDR history ( Memento of the original dated November 3, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 1.7 MB) 90th birthday of Roman Rubinstein @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.dra.de
  8. ↑ Neues Deutschland , October 5, 1982, p. 3.
personal data
SURNAME Rubinstein, Roman
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Puche
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German resistance fighter and concentration camp prisoner; Editor and editor
DATE OF BIRTH August 8, 1917
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH June 27, 1999
Place of death Berlin