Rudy heart

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rudolf "Rudy" Heart (born on 23. August 1925 in Stommeln , died on 18th October 2011 in Charleston , South Carolina ) was an out of the Rhineland -derived Americans of Jewish origin. He survived the Holocaust , which killed at least 19 members of his immediate family.

Childhood and youth

Rudy Herz's father, Ernst Herz, took part in the First World War as a soldier and was subsequently taken prisoner by the French , from which he did not return to his home town of Butzheim until 1921 . In 1923 he married Lily Jacobsohn ("et Jacobsohns Lily"), a joyful and loving woman in the memory of her sons, eight years younger than himself. Both came from long -established Jewish families in Stommeln and the surrounding area. The couple had six children, five boys and one girl. Rudy Herz was the second oldest child after his older brother Alfred. The youngest child, a boy named Jona, was born in 1942 in the Israelite Hospital in Cologne . The family practiced the Jewish faith.

After the death of his father Max Herz, Ernst Herz ran a land and grain trade together with his brother-in-law Ludwig ("Louis") Spier. Before 1930 he moved his business to Eckum , where he also built a new house for the family. Rudy Herz started school there in the Catholic elementary school . But in 1931 Ernst Herz had to stop trading again due to the consequences of the global economic crisis . The family got into economic hardship, also because mortgages had been taken out for the new house.

time of the nationalsocialism

The house at Sebastianusstr. 46 in Butzheim, the former residence of the Jewish Herz family

In 1929 the birthday of 99-year-old Amalie Kappel, the grandmother of Lily Herz, was celebrated in great style. Her house was wreathed by the neighborhood, the Catholic priest came to congratulate, and the Kölner Tageblatt reported on the “wisdom and dignity” of the jubilarian. But as early as the early 1930s there was the first anti-Semitic hostility to the Herz family up to defamatory reports in May 1933 against Ernst Herz for allegedly "unfair manipulation" in his business conduct. It was threatened that they would know how to “destroy the pests on the German people”. In 1936 the Herz family decided to move to Cologne because they hoped to find more protection in the anonymity of a large city and in a larger Jewish community than in the rural surroundings. Rudy Herz remembered:

“ Our furniture was brought to Cologne in a moving van, and when I got into the moving van, the last word I heard in Eckum was:“ Bye, Jew! Bye, Jew! " "

- Josef Wißkirchen : Rudy Herz , p. 48

In Cologne, the family lived together with their grandmother Henriette Jacobsohn, Lily Herz's mother, in an apartment in Neue Maastrichter Straße 3, which was owned by Jews and mainly occupied by Jewish tenants. Rudy Herz switched to the Israelite elementary school there.

His father took over a small transport company, but at the same time planned the emigration of his family to Argentina and attended an agricultural training course for Jews willing to emigrate near Berlin. The Jewish Colonization Association (JCA) approved the emigration plans and all the necessary papers were in place, but not for 74-year-old Henriette Jacobsohn, as she suffered from diabetes ; Nor did she want to emigrate. Hermann Jacobsohn, a brother of Lily Herz, who was married to a Catholic, "Aryan" woman, which is why there had been family disputes, could not or did not want to take in the mother because he and his family lived under the most difficult of conditions. Ernst and Lily Herz therefore decided to stay in Cologne. A later attempt to emigrate to the United States failed because of the missing but necessary affidavit . Rudy Herz: "[...], the trap closed, we couldn't get away."

After the Reichspogromnacht in November 1938, the family wanted to flee to relatives in Belgium in a van, but Ernst Herz lost heart on the way and they returned to Cologne. His mother and two of his sisters, who continued to live in their parents' house in Butzheim, were harassed by SA men who devastated the house and smashed a water pipe. The house was flooded and the disabled Helene Herz almost drowned in the cellar if she had not been rescued by two members of the volunteer fire department. Because they had helped a Jewish woman, the two helpers were reported and excluded from the fire department. Other relatives of the family in Butzheim and Nettesheim were also victims of riots. All of them left their hometowns by 1939 at the latest.

Rudy Herz finished elementary school in 1939, but was not allowed to do an apprenticeship because of the restrictions for Jews. Instead, he attended a Jewish training workshop, where he trained in building joinery. He then got a job in a company that built barracks and other things for the Wehrmacht . The owners and managing directors were members of the NSDAP who, in Herz's opinion, knew just like their colleagues that Herz was Jewish, but tacitly accepted him. The ration card for long and night workers was sent to him so that Lily Herz could provide better food for the whole family, who as Jews were only entitled to a limited ration.

In 1942 the Herz family had to move into mass Jewish accommodation at the St. Apern-Strasse synagogue ; there she lived next door to the family of Erich Klibansky , the director and teacher of the " Jawne ", the first Jewish high school in the Rhineland . Many relatives had already been deported and murdered by this time . Ernst Herz's family presumably enjoyed a certain temporary protection because he had been awarded the “ EK II ” as a soldier in the First World War .

Deportation and stay in the camp

In July 1942 the deportation order finally came for the 27th of the same month; the Klibansky family had already been deported. The Herz family walked to the exhibition hall , from where they were transported the next day from Cologne-Deutz train station on a special train to Theresienstadt . On arrival they were separated from their grandmother Henriette Jacobsohn (she died in March 1944 in an infirmary), and on site in Theresienstadt was the family, men on the one hand and women and children on the other. In May 1944 the family was transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp . In July 1944, Rudy Herz and his brother Alfred were moved back to a camp within the German Reich for cleanup work . Just a few days later, Karl Otto Herz witnessed how his mother and three youngest siblings were sent to the gas chambers .

The father Ernst Herz had recently been transferred to the Blechhammer concentration camp . There he died, the circumstances and the exact date of death are unknown.

At the beginning of July 1944, Rudy Herz and his brother Alfred were transported together with 1,000 other prisoners to the Schwarzheide subcamp , a subcamp of Sachsenhausen , in order to carry out cleanup and reconstruction work on the BRABAG premises after the Allies were bombarded until they were exhausted. When Herz once overheard the whistle to collect because he had dozed off, he was beaten almost unconscious by an SS man. He was taken to the infirmary with internal bleeding, where he said he was sexually abused by a male nurse. Afterwards he was only capable of lighter work. In mid-August there were further bombings in which many prisoners were killed.

Around the beginning of September, some prisoners, including Rudy Herz, who were no longer able to work, were taken to the Lieberose concentration camp, 50 kilometers away , from where they were supposed to be brought back to Auschwitz, presumably to be killed there. The return journey was delayed and Herz spent the winter in this camp witnessing terrible incidents, including executions and flogging, so he later said:

“ I'm not sure I felt sorry. At this point compassion was removed from our dictionaries. "

- Josef Wißkirchen : Rudy Herz. A Jewish Rhinelander, p. 160

On February 2, 1945 around 1,500 prisoners were sent on the death march to Sachsenhausen, several hundred men who were no longer able to walk were shot and buried. From there, Herz was transported to Mauthausen . Most recently he worked in Gusen II concentration camp ; his brother Karl Otto was in Gusen I , but the brothers could not contact each other. Alfred Herz remained in Schwarzheide and was transported to Bergen-Belsen when the Red Army approached . There he died a few weeks before the end of the war at the age of 21, presumably of typhus .

To the USA, France and back

On May 5, 1945, Gusen II was liberated by the Americans. Rudy Herz, who only weighed about 42 kilograms , reached Linz on foot , where his brother Karl Otto was also without the two young men knowing about each other. Herz, who had learned the Dutch language from other inmates in the concentration camp, posed as a Dutchman in order to be taken there. On the transport from Linz to Rotterdam the train also stopped near Cologne, and Herz was unsure whether to stay. He saw the cathedral towers in the distance , but because he knew of the destruction of the city and had little hope of survivors from his family, he finally got back on the train to Rotterdam. There he was looked after by members of the Jewish community.

With the help of the Jewish Brigade , he reached France, where he was placed in homes for Holocaust survivors who were being prepared for emigration to Palestine . When he learned in 1946 through a letter from an uncle living in Cologne that his brother Karl Otto had meanwhile emigrated to the USA, he decided to follow him. Karl Otto lived in New York , but Rudy Herz did not feel comfortable there. After several positions, he ended up in Chicago , where he trained as a watchmaker and opened his own shop. From 1950 he served in the Korean War as a soldier; As a Holocaust survivor, he was not obliged to do this service, but Herz did not want to make use of this special arrangement. He then returned to Chicago and reopened his business, which he had to give up in 1963 for economic reasons.

Rudy Herz still had savings and went back to Europe. First he visited his old home, but he felt uncomfortable in Stommeln and Eckum, and there were differences between himself and his uncle's family, also because of their behavior during the Nazi era . Finally he traveled to the south of France, where he had been shortly after the war, and there he met his future wife Ursula Syré. She was a trained gardener and had worked for the Cologne landscape gardener Gottfried Kühn , and together the couple opened a nursery in Menton . They mainly exported mimosa to Great Britain , but eventually the tariffs were too high as Great Britain was not yet part of the European Economic Community and business collapsed. The couple went back to the US and eventually settled with three children in Myrtle Beach , South Carolina, where they reopened a nursery where Rudy Herz worked until his death. He died there in 2011 at the age of 86. His brother Karl Otto, who, as a recognized food chemist, had also worked for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations , died in Las Vegas in 2013 .

Memories and memories

In 1982 Rudy Herz received a letter from the Pulheim History and Local History Association , which was planning a book with the title Jews in Stommeln . Thereupon he began to write down his memories and to speak on tape and made them available to the association; In 1987 he came to Stommeln to present the book. He was interviewed for the show Here and Today and lost his composure for a few moments when he remembered the moment when he had said goodbye to his mother in Auschwitz. In 1999 he visited Cologne with a group of former Cologne Jews.

In 1991 Rudy Herz participated in the project South Carolina Voices: Lessons from the Holocaust , for which a video of several hours was produced by him. For years he was visiting professor at the College of Charleston, Jewish Studies .

In 2010, Herz received mail from a group of pupils from the Pope Johannes XXIII School in Stommeln, who sent him a picture of a poster in the form of a made-up obituary notice, which also included the names of his younger siblings. The following year he came to Stommeln and spoke at several public events. At an event with the students, Rudy Herz was so touched by their sympathy that he bared his arm to show them his prisoner number A653 from Auschwitz. For over 70 years he had worn long-sleeved shirts to hide them. Herz was also asked to sign the city's golden book , and the Fidele Zunftbrüder carnival society honored him with a carnival medal .

Together with Herz, the local historian Josef Wißkirchen from Stommeln wrote the book Rudy Herz. A Jewish Rhinelander about his life, published after Herz's death in 2012. In his honor, a weeping cedar was planted next to the memorial for the Stommelner Jews .

Stumbling blocks for members of the Herz family have been laid in front of the house at Neue Maastrichter Strasse 3 in Cologne's Neustadt-Nord . At the “Löwenbrunnen” on Erich-Klibansky-Platz in Cologne there is a plaque with names in memory of the 1100 or so Jewish children deported from Cologne. On it are the names of Rudy Herz's three youngest siblings, including, by mistake, that of his grandmother Henriette Jacobsohn.

Victims of the Holocaust from among the family

  • Ernst Herz (October 20, 1882–1944 / 1945), died in the Blechhammer concentration camp
  • Lily Herz , b. Jacobsohn, (March 5, 1901– July 11, 1944), died in a gas chamber at Auschwitz concentration camp with their three youngest children

Their children:

  • Alfred Herz (April 29, 1924– March 28, 1945), died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp
  • Walter Herz (April 9, 1930– July 11, 1944), died in Auschwitz concentration camp
  • Johanna Herz (April 25, 1938– July 11, 1944), died in Auschwitz concentration camp
  • Jona Herz (January 2, 1942– July 11, 1944), died in Auschwitz concentration camp

Mother of Lilly Herz:

Ernst Herz siblings:

  • Paula Spier , b. Heart, (23 August 1884)
Her husband:
  • Ludwig Spier (January 3, 1888)
Their children:
  • Edith Spier (March 24, 1923)
  • Alfred Spier (September 18, 1924) was hanged in the camp for an offense
  • Max Spier (September 28, 1927)

The entire Spier family was deported to Riga on December 7, 1941 , and perished there.

  • Henriette Kaufmann , b. Heart, (November 21, 1895)
Her husband:
  • Moritz Kaufmann (December 8, 1892)
Their children:
  • Ilse Kaufmann (August 7, 1924)
  • Klara Kaufmann (July 5, 1926)
  • Günther Kaufmann (December 20, 1928)
  • Manfred Kaufmann (September 10, 1932)
  • Hilde Kaufmann (August 4, 1933)

The Kaufmann family was first deported to Minsk on July 20, 1942 and from there directly to the Maly Trostinez extermination camp , where they were shot in front of pits that had already been dug.

  • Siegfried Herz (January 23, 1901– September 30, 1942), died in Auschwitz concentration camp

According to Rudy Herz's count, a total of 64 members of his other family were killed.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wißkirchen, Rudy Herz , p. 141.
  2. ↑ Wißkirchen, Rudy Herz , p. 35f.
  3. ↑ Wißkirchen, Rudy Herz , p. 24.
  4. ^ Wißkirchen, Rudy Herz , p. 37.
  5. ↑ Wißkirchen, Rudy Herz , p. 49.
  6. ↑ Wißkirchen, Rudy Herz , p. 49f.
  7. ↑ Wißkirchen, Rudy Herz , p. 53.
  8. ^ Wißkirchen, Rudy Herz , p. 56.
  9. ^ Wißkirchen, Rudy Herz , p. 60f.
  10. ^ Wißkirchen, Rudy Herz , pp. 87f.
  11. ↑ Wißkirchen, Rudy Herz , p. 96
  12. ^ Nazi Documentation Center Cologne - Henriette Jacobsohn. In: museenkoeln.de. Retrieved March 26, 2015 .
  13. ^ Wißkirchen, Rudy Herz , p. 127.
  14. ↑ Wißkirchen, Rudy Herz , pp. 139, 143 and 147.
  15. ↑ NS Documentation Center Cologne - Lily Herz. In: museenkoeln.de. Retrieved March 26, 2015 .
  16. ↑ NS Documentation Center Cologne - Ernst Herz. In: museenkoeln.de. Retrieved March 26, 2015 .
  17. ↑ Wißkirchen, Rudy Herz , p. 55f.
  18. ↑ Wißkirchen, Rudy Herz , p. 180f.
  19. ^ Wißkirchen, Rudy Herz , pp. 168f.
  20. ↑ Wißkirchen, Rudy Herz , p. 193f.
  21. ^ Wißkirchen, Rudy Herz , p. 195.
  22. ↑ Wißkirchen, Rudy Herz , pp. 198f.
  23. ^ Wißkirchen, Rudy Herz , pp. 208f.
  24. ↑ Wißkirchen, Rudy Herz , p. 210.
  25. ^ Wißkirchen, Rudy Herz , p. 211.
  26. ↑ Wißkirchen, Rudy Herz , p. 213f.
  27. ^ Wißkirchen, Rudy Herz , p. 221.
  28. ↑ Kölnische Rundschau: Mourning for Rudy Herz: He never forgot Stommeln. In: rundschau-online.de. December 3, 2011, accessed March 31, 2015 .
  29. ↑ The city ​​of Pulheim mourns Rudy Herz. In: centralfm.de. October 18, 2011, accessed March 31, 2015 .
  30. ^ Karl Herz Obituary - King David Memorial Chapel - Las Vegas NV. In: obits.dignitymemorial.com. December 24, 2013, accessed April 1, 2015 .
  31. ↑ Wißkirchen, Rudy Herz , p. 12.
  32. ↑ Wißkirchen, Rudy Herz , p. 15.
  33. ^ Wißkirchen, Rudy Herz , BT 47.
  34. ^ South Carolina Council on the Holocaust. (No longer available online.) In: scholocaustcouncil.org. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016 ; accessed on March 31, 2015 (English). 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.scholocaustcouncil.org
  35. ↑ Wißkirchen, Rudy Herz , p. 13.
  36. ↑ Maria Machnik: Reminder: “If I don't tell, who will?” In: ksta.de. February 15, 2011, accessed March 31, 2015 .
  37. ^ Theodore Rosengarten: "Why does the Way of the Wicked Prosper?": Teaching the Holocaust in the Land of Jim Crow . In: Zehavit Gross / E. Doyle Stevick (Ed.): As the Witnesses Fall Silent: 21st Century Holocaust Education in Curriculum, Policy and Practice . S. 44-45 .
  38. ^ Wißkirchen, Rudy Herz , p. 18.
  39. ↑ Rudy Herz honored with entry in the Golden Book - Online newspaper - Die Zeitung für NRW - Daily topics - Specialist topics - News - News. In: onlinezeitung.co. April 22, 2013, accessed March 31, 2015 .
  40. ^ Wißkirchen, Rudy Herz , BT 48.
  41. ↑ Kölnische Rundschau: fellow citizen Rudy Herz: “Zedernbaum builds a bridge”. In: rundschau-online.de. January 1, 2013, accessed March 31, 2015 .
  42. ^ Wißkirchen, Rudy Herz , BT 30.
  43. ↑ Wißkirchen, Rudy Herz , p. 66.
  44. ↑ Dieter Corbach: 6:00 a.m. from Cologne-Deutz exhibition center. Deportations 1938–1945 . Cologne 1994, p. 518, no.531.
  45. ↑ Wißkirchen, Rudy Herz , p. 70.
  46. ↑ Wißkirchen, Rudy Herz , p. 236 and 237.
personal data
SURNAME Heart, Rudy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Herz, Rudolf (full name); Heart, Rudi
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American Holocaust survivor
DATE OF BIRTH August 23, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Stomping
DATE OF DEATH October 18, 2011
Place of death Charleston