Sally Kessler

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Sally Kessler (ca.1959)
Tombstone of the Kessler couple in the Bocklemünd Jewish cemetery

Samuel "Sally" Kessler (born February 21, 1912 in Cologne ; died March 26, 1985 there ) was a German local politician and survivor of the Holocaust .

biography

Until 1945

Sally Kessler was born into a Jewish family; he had seven siblings, three brothers and four sisters. His parents Isaak Mosche (born October 23, 1878) and Sara Czipe Kessler (born December 27, 1881) came to Cologne from Galicia around 1905 . Isaak Kessler died in December 1918 as a result of war injuries sustained during World War I. His widow married the businessman Aron Dylion a few years later. The couple bought the house at Kartäuserhof 8 and ran a second-hand clothes shop there, and Sally Kessler opened a hairdresser's shop in the same building after completing an apprenticeship. He became a member of the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold , the SPD and was active in the trade union movement. Initially active as an athlete in the Workers' Gymnastics and Sports Association, he was involved in Jewish sports organizations such as the Bar Kochba sports association and, after its dissolution in 1933, as a trainer and functionary in SC Hakoah Cologne . His hairdressing business served social democrats and republican-democratically minded people as a meeting place. In 1938 it was forced to work .

As part of the so-called “ Poland Action ” - the expulsion of Jews with Polish citizenship on October 28, 1938 - Sally Kessler was deported to Poland with members of his family and hundreds of other Cologne residents. In 1942 he was imprisoned in the Warsaw ghetto , but after an escape he was caught again and used for forced labor . One after the other he was deported to Auschwitz , to the Plaszow labor camp near Cracow , in 1944 to the Groß-Rosen concentration camp near Breslau and then to the Görlitz satellite camp. His brother Jonas Kessler was shot in Plaszow . Sally Kessler was able to flee from there when the camp was dissolved in 1945 and returned to his hometown via Prague and Vienna .

Return to Cologne

In Cologne, Sally Kessler volunteered for reparations and compensation as well as chairman of the working group of formerly persecuted social democrats . He sat for the SPD as the only Jew in the city council of Cologne (1954–1961, 1963–1975) and was a member of the representative office and, from 1958, an executive board member of the synagogue community . He also attended the ceremony in September 1959 at which the Cologne synagogue was reopened in the presence of the then Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer . In 1958 Kessler was one of the founders of the Cologne Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation .

In 1953, Sally Kessler married Ruth Frank (1928-2004), who had survived the Holocaust because she was brought to Great Britain in July 1939 on a Kindertransport . Her parents Adele and Josef Frank survived their deportation to Theresienstadt , and the family met again in Cologne. Ruth and Sally Kessler had a son. The couple ran a textile shop together on Severinstrasse . Ruth Kessler was involved in several Jewish organizations.

One of his friends was the “ Edelweiss pirate ” Jean Jülich , who organized a carnival session in the Cologne synagogue on Kessler's initiative in the 1960s.

family

All four sisters, the mother Sara and the brother Jonas Kessler, who had made a name for himself as an amateur boxer, perished in concentration camps. Stolpersteine ​​in front of the house Kartäuserhof 8 in Cologne's Südstadt remind of his brother and mother , of the family of his sister Johanna, who was completely wiped out, Stolpersteine in Holzgasse in Siegburg .

Honors

In 2014 the large circular route in Deutz Stadtpark was named by Sally Kessler.

literature

Web links

Commons : Sally Kessler  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Becker-Jákli: Der Jüdische Friedhof Köln-Bocklemünd , p. 177.
  2. ↑ Horst Matzerath , Elfi Pracht , Barbara Becker-Jákli (eds.): Jüdisches Schicksal in Köln 1918–1945 - Catalog for the exhibition of the Historical Archives of the City of Kön / NS Documentation Center (November 8, 1988 to January 22, 1989, in Cologne Stadtmuseum / Alte Wache), City of Cologne 1988, pages 76, 77 and 309.
  3. ↑ a b Obituaries: Samuel Kessler. (pdf, 3.8 MB) (No longer available online.) In: AJR Information 40, 7/1985. Association of Jewish Refugees, July 7, 1985, p. 8 , archived from the original on September 5, 2015 ; accessed on August 7, 2017 . 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.ajr.org.uk
  4. ^ Becker-Jákli: The Jewish cemetery in Cologne-Bocklemünd , p. 178.
  5. ↑ a b c d Renaming, renaming, inclusion and abolition of streets in Cologne: List of resolutions to be published VM 203. (pdf, 183 kB) In: Official Journal of the City of Cologne. July 9, 2014, p. 834 , accessed August 7, 2017 .
  6. ↑ Jonas Kessler. In: NS Documentation Center of the City of Cologne. Retrieved July 21, 2017 .
  7. ↑ Natalya Marsane, Ruth schoolyard Walter: community newsletter. (1.2 MB) September 2009, pp. 17-21 , accessed on August 7, 2017 (cf. the picture “Excerpt from the party after the ceremony in the synagogue” at the end of the article and in the text on page 19. ).
  8. ↑ a b Becker-Jákli: The Jewish cemetery Cologne-Bocklemünd , p. 179.
  9. ↑ Roland Kaufhold: "E Hätz as big as ne Stään" - On the death of Jean Jülich. HaGalil , October 30, 2011, accessed August 7, 2017 .
  10. ↑ Sara Kessler. In: NS Documentation Center of the City of Cologne. Retrieved July 21, 2017 .
  11. ↑ Naming of the large circular path in Deutz Stadtgarten after Sally Kessler. Politics with us. Council Open Information System, February 3, 2014, archived from the original on March 18, 2015 ; accessed on August 7, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Kessler, Sally
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kessler, Samuel (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German local politician
DATE OF BIRTH February 21, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne
DATE OF DEATH March 26, 1985
Place of death Cologne