Rosa Menzer

Rosa Menzer (top center) with her parents and siblings (around 1905)

Rosa Menzer (born Hiende Reise Litwin ; born January 4, 1886 in Plungė , Lithuania ; † May 28, 1942 in the Bernburg killing center ) was a Dresden worker functionary and resistance fighter .

Life

Haus Rosa-Menzer-Straße 19, from 1925 Rosa Menzer's home

Memorial stone for Rosa Menzer on the Heidefriedhof

Hiende Reise Litwin was born in Lithuania as one of twelve children of Markus and Behle-Ihle Litwin. Six daughters and two sons of the family survived; they grew up Jewish Orthodox. Due to the poverty of the parents, the father worked as a traveling salesman, the eldest daughter Hiende Reise Litwin did not attend school, but was taught by her mother in Hebrew and Yiddish. She finally began an apprenticeship as a tailor at the age of twelve .

In 1907 Litwin went to Germany, although she did not speak any German at that time. She settled in Berlin as Rosa Litwin , worked as a house tailor and joined the Berlin Socialists. In 1908, the authorities refused to allow Litwin, as a foreigner, to stay in Berlin and so she went to Dresden in the same year , where she worked as a tailor. She began to learn the German language and soon afterwards joined the social democratic educational association in Dresden. In 1912 she became a member of the SPD and an active functionary. She met the sculptor and writer Max Menzer , who was around 20 years her senior and who, like Litwin, was active in the SPD. They married in 1912, and their daughters Ilse (* 1914) and Ruth (* 1917) were born. Rosa Menzer became a member of the USPD in October 1918 and joined the KPD immediately after it was founded in December 1918. Max Menzer died in 1924.

In addition to her work as a tailor, Rosa Menzer devoted herself intensively to party work in the Striesen party group of the KPD. She headed the local group Striesen of the International Workers Aid , of which she had become a member in September 1924, and took over the management of the Striesen organization of the Red Women's and Girls' Association , a subsidiary organization of the Red Front Fighters Association . Menzer's apartment on Markgraf-Heinrich-Strasse 19 ("the red 19", today Rosa-Menzer-Strasse 19) became a meeting place and shelter for numerous party members from 1925, including Martin Hoop and Robert Liebknecht . In her district of Striesen she was one of the most active functionaries of the party, the Red Women's and Girls 'Union and the International Workers' Aid ”and was also called“ Rosa Luxemburg von Striesen ”. The Communist Party of Eastern Saxony wanted to propose her as a candidate for the Saxon state parliament , but Menzer did not rate her knowledge of the German language as good enough and instead suggested Olga Körner as a candidate, who was elected.

In November 1933, Menzer's daughter Ruth was arrested for illegally continuing the Communist Youth Association and sentenced to eight months in prison. Menzer herself was arrested for the first time in January 1934 for illegal work for the KPD and sentenced to an 18-month prison term, which she spent in Waldheim prison. After she was released, she lived under police supervision but participated in illegal gatherings.

She was summoned to the Gestapo on October 21, 1939 for allegedly listening to Radio Moscow and Radio London , even though her radio had been confiscated in 1935. Although the proceedings against Menzer were discontinued in December 1939 by the Freiberg / Saxony public prosecutor's office, Menzer remained in custody. On March 15, 1940, she was deported to the Ravensbrück concentration camp . She was imprisoned there with Olga Körner, among others. The last letter to her daughters, in which Menzer announced her imminent deportation in encrypted form, is from February 1942. In it she wrote:

“Should Hildes aunt [ie Rosa Menzer] have to change her current place of residence, I only wish that the children stay brave and not let their heads down. I am firmly convinced that she will overcome that too. I know her as a brave woman with good demeanor. And a strong will makes a big difference. "

- Rosa Menzer to her daughters, February 1942.

In 1942, her daughters received the news that Menzer had died of uterine cancer in Ravensbrück . Later research, including by Rosa Thälmann , revealed that she had been deported from Ravensbrück in March 1942 with other Jewish women (including Olga Benario-Prestes ) to the Bernburg killing center . There she was presumably gassed on May 28, 1942.

Commemoration

Memorial to Rosa Menzer, Helene Glatzer and Otto Galle in 1988

Stumbling block for Rosa Menzer, 2013

In 1946, the Markgraf-Heinrich-Strasse in Dresden was renamed Rosa-Menzer-Strasse. On the Heidefriedhof there is a memorial stone for Rosa Menzer, who originally stood in front of the 51st elementary school and was moved to the cemetery. Your cenotaph is also located in the honor grove of the Heidefriedhof.

On the occasion of the XI. At the SED party congress in September 1988 , a sandstone memorial created by Vinzenz Wanitschke for Rosa Menzer, Helene Glatzer and Otto Galle was unveiled on Barbarossaplatz in Dresden . The bronze plaques with a short curriculum vitae were designed by Martin Hänisch .

Since September 2013 a stumbling stone has been reminding of Rosa Menzer in Dresden .

literature

• Menzer, Rosa . In: Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation, Working Group Memorial Book (Ed.): Book of Remembrance. Jews in Dresden. deported, murdered, missing 1933–1945 . Thelem Universitätsverlag, Dresden 2006, ISBN 3-939888-14-1 , pp. 246-247.
• Menzer, Rosa . In: Museum for the History of the City of Dresden: Biographical notes on Dresdner Strasse and squares that recall personalities from the labor movement, the anti-fascist resistance struggle and the socialist rebuilding . Dresden 1976, pp. 56-57.
• Rosa Menzer . In: Elsa Frölich: Striving towards the highest of humanity. Brief descriptions of the lives of Dresden worker functionaries and resistance fighters . Museum for the History of the Dresden Labor Movement, Dresden 1959, pp. 83–88.
• Sigrid Jacobeit: The red rose from Striesen. Rosa Menzer . In: Sigrid Jacobeit, Lieselotte Thoms-Heinrich: Kreuzweg Ravensbrück. Life pictures of anti-fascist resistance fighters . Verlag für die Frau, Leipzig 1989, pp. 125–137.

Web links

Commons : Rosa Menzer  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Sigrid Jacobeit: The Red Pink of Striesen. Rosa Menzer . In: Sigrid Jacobeit, Lieselotte Thoms-Heinrich: Kreuzweg Ravensbrück . Verlag für die Frau, Leipzig 1989, p. 127.
2. ↑ Rosa Menzer . In: Elsa Frölich: Striving towards the highest of humanity . Museum for the History of the Dresden Labor Movement, Dresden 1959, p. 83.
3. ↑ Sigrid Jacobeit: The Red Pink of Striesen. Rosa Menzer . In: Sigrid Jacobeit, Lieselotte Thoms-Heinrich: Kreuzweg Ravensbrück . Verlag für die Frau, Leipzig 1989, p. 130.
4. ↑ Sigrid Jacobeit: The Red Pink of Striesen. Rosa Menzer . In: Sigrid Jacobeit, Lieselotte Thoms-Heinrich: Kreuzweg Ravensbrück . Verlag für die Frau, Leipzig 1989, p. 128.
5. ↑ Rosa Menzer . In: Elsa Frölich: Striving towards the highest of humanity . Museum for the History of the Dresden Labor Movement, Dresden 1959, p. 85.
6. ↑ Sigrid Jacobeit: The Red Pink of Striesen. Rosa Menzer . In: Sigrid Jacobeit, Lieselotte Thoms-Heinrich: Kreuzweg Ravensbrück . Verlag für die Frau, Leipzig 1989, p. 131.
7. ↑ Rosa Menzer . In: Elsa Frölich: Striving towards the highest of humanity . Museum for the History of the Dresden Labor Movement, Dresden 1959, p. 86.
8. ↑ Sigrid Jacobeit: The Red Pink of Striesen. Rosa Menzer . In: Sigrid Jacobeit, Lieselotte Thoms-Heinrich: Kreuzweg Ravensbrück . Verlag für die Frau, Leipzig 1989, p. 135.
9. ↑ Rosa Menzer . In: Elsa Frölich: Striving towards the highest of humanity . Museum for the History of the Dresden Labor Movement, Dresden 1959, p. 87.
10. ↑ Rosa Menzer . In: Elsa Frölich: Striving towards the highest of humanity . Museum for the History of the Dresden Labor Movement, Dresden 1959, p. 88.
11. ↑ Sigrid Jacobeit: The Red Pink of Striesen. Rosa Menzer . In: Sigrid Jacobeit, Lieselotte Thoms-Heinrich: Kreuzweg Ravensbrück . Verlag für die Frau, Leipzig 1989, p. 137.
12. ^ Museum for the History of the City of Dresden: Biographical Notes on Dresdner Strasse and Squares ... Dresden 1976, p. 57.
13. ↑ Rosa-Menzer-Strasse . In: HATiKVA eV (Ed.): Search for traces . Jews in Dresden . Dölling and Galitz, Hamburg 1995, p. 114.
14. ↑ May 28, 1942 is stated on Menzer's "death certificate" from the Ravensbrück II registry office (No. 1366/42) as the date of death. Cf. Sigrid Jacobeit: The Red Pink from Striesen. Rosa Menzer . In: Sigrid Jacobeit, Lieselotte Thoms-Heinrich: Kreuzweg Ravensbrück . Verlag für die Frau, Leipzig 1989, p. 125.
15. ^ Herbert Goldhammer, Karin Jeschke: Dresden memorial sites for the victims of the Nazi regime . ddp goldenbogen, Dresden 2002, p. 63.