Sophie Goetzel-Leviathan

Sophie Goetzel-Leviathan , b. Walfisz (born December 5, 1911 in Wiesbaden ; † November 1994 in Jerusalem , Israel ) was a Jewish-Polish victim of National Socialism who grew up in Germany and is known for her memories recorded in June 1945.

family

Sophie Walfisz came from a Jewish-Polish family from Warsaw . Her father Zygmunt Walfisz (1867–1939) was the second youngest of six brothers. In 1905 the family moved with their older siblings, born between 1892 and 1903, to Seesen , where the two oldest brothers, Arnold and Henryk, attended the Jacobson School . From spring 1906 the family lived in Wiesbaden. Sophie Walfisz was born there in 1911. Her oldest brother was the mathematician Arnold Walfisz , the youngest brother Maximilian attended the Odenwald School as a member of the first year . Her sister Hedwig married the Wiesbaden Rabbi Paul Lazarus in 1925 . Her cousins ​​included the art historian Mieczysław Wallis (1895–1975) and the judge at the Polish Supreme Court Seweryn Walfisz (1888–1949).

Life

Until the beginning of the Second World War

While studying in Paris , Sophie Walfisz met her future husband David Goetzel in 1932. He came from Baden-Baden and also had Jewish-Polish parents. After the teacher training in Mannheim (1934) Sophie and David married in April 1935 in Warsaw. The daughter Miriam was born there in 1937.

At the beginning of the Second World War , Sophie's parents (Zygmunt and Luise) and brother Henryk lived with his family in Warsaw, while the siblings Arnold, Maximilian and Hedwig lived in Tbilisi and Paris, or had emigrated to Haifa .

Warsaw Ghetto and Bergen-Belsen

During the German occupation of Poland , David Goetzel was sentenced to eight months in prison in September 1940 for not wearing the armband and imprisoned in Pawiak prison until April 1941 . From November 1940 Sophie Goetzel lived with her mother and daughter in the Warsaw ghetto (her father had died in a sanatorium in Otwock in October 1939 ). Luise's mother died in the ghetto in November 1941 of malnutrition.

Working in one of the “shops” (German factories) in the ghetto enabled the family to survive during the deportations from July to September 1942. In August 1942, the daughter Miriam was brought out of the ghetto and brought to safety outside of Warsaw. With the help of the Polish underground, Sophie Goetzel managed to hide in Konstancin-Skolimów from January to June 1943 and then in Milanówek for a month .

During the same period, her husband David Goetzel was hiding in an abandoned sanatorium in Otwock. Since his parents sent him immigration certificates for Palestine in 1940, he managed to have his family (and cousin Halina Walfisz) entered on the so-called “Palestine List” in the Hotel Polski . In mid-July 1943, they were brought to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp as “ exchange Jews ” on the last transport . Housed in a neighboring section of the camp with the Dutch Jews, they also met Anne Frank in the winter of 1944/45 “through the fence” .

Liberation and the time after the war

On April 6, 1945, shortly before the American troops arrived in Bergen-Belsen, the family was evacuated in the first of the three evacuation trains to the Theresienstadt ghetto . For a week this train drove very slowly from Celle towards Magdeburg and was liberated by American soldiers near Farsleben . After a few weeks in Farsleben and a short stay in Hillersleben , they reached Paris at the beginning of May 1945. In the period before she left for Palestine, Sophie Goetzel wrote down her memories “The War from the Inside”.

On June 23, 1945, Sophie, David and Miriam Goetzel reached Haifa. There Sophie took the name Goetzel-Leviathan. Since she suffered from severe depression, which could not be cured in the following years, the daughter Miriam grew up in a kibbutz . After divorcing in 1946 and remarrying in 1948, David moved to the USA in 1950, where he took the name Gilbert. In 1992 and 2002 his memoirs appeared in English. Sophie Goetzel-Leviathan was never cured of her illness and lived in Jerusalem until 1994.

Works

• The War from Within , edited by Rebecca Fromer, Judas L. Magnes Museum, Berkeley, 1987 (Engl.)
• The war from within , Paul Lazarus Foundation, Wiesbaden, 2011

literature

• Schwarz, Daniel R .: Imagining the Holocaust , St. Martin's Press, New York, 1999 (engl.)
• Gilbert, David: Nightmare in Germany , edited by Kathy Rose, Halo Books, San Francisco, 1992 (engl.)
• Gilbert, David: No Place to Run , edited by Tim Shortridge / Michael D. Frounfelter, Vallentine Mitchell, London, 2002 (Engl.)
• Schindler, Angelika: The burned dream, Jewish citizens and guests in Baden-Baden , Elster Verlag, 1992

Web links

• Works by and about Sophie Goetzel-Leviathan in the catalog of the German National Library
• Interview Laura J. Weinstock with David Gilbert, August 2, 2002, JWeekly

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See, for example, the quotes in Markus Roth / Andrea Löw: Das Warschauer Getto. Everyday life and resistance in the face of annihilation , CH Beck, Munich, 2013, pages 81, 85, 96 and the detailed analysis of your book in Daniel R. Schwarz: Imagining the Holocaust , St. Martin's Press, New York, 1999.
2. ↑ The biographical information is taken from the appendix to The War from the Inside .
3. ↑ However, there was no exchange with German prisoners of war abroad. Instead, the majority of the exchange prisoners were murdered in Auschwitz .
4. ↑ See interview with David Gilbert (Goetzel), 2002.
5. ↑ A working title of the memoirs was “The persecution of Jews in Poland under the Nazis. Experience report by Sophie Goetzel-Leviathan. "
6. ↑ The description of his youth in Baden-Baden (first chapter of his book from 1992) appeared in German translation in the book by Angelika Schindler.
7. ↑ The contact with David Gilbert did not break off. Photos are included in David Gilbert's 2002 book.