Steles of Remembrance

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Steles of Remembrance, Görlitz Jewish Cemetery

The stelae of remembrance are a monument on the Jewish cemetery in Görlitz , which gave back their names to the known victims of the Görlitz satellite camp buried there and at the same time is intended to show that there are still many vacancies in dealing with history.

Path of the victims to Görlitz

After the SS Main Economic Administration Office had made a corresponding decision on June 9, 1944, a satellite camp of the Groß-Rosen concentration camp (today's place name: Rogoźnica ) was set up in Görlitz in Biesnitzer Grund near today's Eiswiese sports ground . Görlitzer Waggon- und Maschinenbau AG (WUMAG) leased the grounds of the former brickworks machine factory Roscher, which was used to build the satellite camp, from the city of Görlitz in 1939. The almost exclusively Jewish prisoners were supposed to do forced labor at WUMAG. After SS-Obersturmführer Erich Rechenberg became camp commandant on August 8, 1944 and SS-Oberscharführer Winfried Zunker assumed the function of camp leader, 25 concentration camp prisoners were first transported from the Groß-Rosen concentration camp to Görlitz on August 10, 1944. In mid-August 1944, 225 concentration camp prisoners from the Auschwitz concentration camp followed , at the end of August 1944 another 400 concentration camp prisoners from the Fifthichen subcamp (today's place name: Miłoszyce ) of the Groß-Rosen concentration camp met on 18/19 September 1944 another 550 concentration camp prisoners who were brought from the dissolved ghetto Litzmannstadt via the Auschwitz concentration camp to Görlitz. Also in September 1944, 300 Hungarian Jewish women were brought to a demarcated women's camp of the Görlitz satellite camp. The number of prisoners rose to over 1500 by October 1944 and then fell to a maximum of 1328 prisoners due to deaths. In February 1945 it rose again to 1,750 prisoners. The youngest concentration camp inmate in the Görlitz subcamp was 11 years old, the oldest 65. The concentration camp prisoners brought to Görlitz were almost exclusively Jews and came from all parts of occupied Europe.

Deaths, burials and reburial of the concentration camp victims

Shortly after the camp was set up, no later than August 21, 1944, the first deaths occurred. Based on the prisoner numbers, it is assumed that they come from the first transport from Auschwitz. The prisoners transferred from the Fifthichen subcamp to Görlitz had already been singled out there as sick and weak and were deliberately sent to Görlitz. Due to the catastrophic living conditions in the subcamp, forced labor, malnutrition, the consequences of mistreatment and targeted killings, at least 368 deaths have been recorded for the subcamp Görlitz, including those in Görlitz between August 10, 1944 and February 2, 1945 140 deaths and another 173 between February 3, 1945 and May 8, 1945. The other deaths occurred at various locations on the death march of the Görlitz concentration camp prisoners in 1945 or in Rennersdorf . The corpses of the prisoners who died in the Görlitz satellite camp were cremated in the municipal crematorium of Görlitz until they ceased to work due to the war and recorded in the local cremation register. The urns of the 24 prisoners who died from the establishment of the camp by October 10, 1944 were sent from the crematorium to the Groß-Rosen concentration camp by December 1, 1944, whereas the urns of those who died after October 10, 1944 were placed in the urn grove XIII of the municipal cemetery in Görlitz and recorded by the cemetery administration. A total of 148 prisoner urns with the personal data of the dead have been buried in the Görlitz municipal cemetery, 111 of them by prisoners from the Görlitz satellite camp, 19 from the Hartmannsdorf satellite camp (today's place name: Miłoszów ), and 13 from the satellite camp Niesky and four from the Bautzen subcamp as well as the urn of a Soviet prisoner of war murdered on April 21, 1945 in the Görlitz subcamp. After the crematorium in Görlitz had to stop working due to a lack of gas, the dead prisoners were buried in two mass graves in the Jewish cemetery of the city of Görlitz on Biesnitzer Strasse from February 2, 1945. After the war, 175 bodies were found lying on top of each other in four layers. In 1948, the 148 prisoner urns buried were reburied from the municipal cemetery to the Görlitz Jewish cemetery and combined with the remains of the 175 dead from the mass grave to form a common resting place. A total of 286 of the 323 dead commemorated there are related to the Görlitz subcamp. On November 13, 1951, a memorial stone crowned with a Star of David with the inscription “Here rest 323 murdered comrades / those in the concentration camp / Biesnitzer Grund Görlitz / in the years of the burial place of the victims at the Jewish cemetery Görlitz now handed over to the Jewish community in Dresden 1943–1945 fell victim to Hitler's tyranny […]. ” Was inaugurated, but does not have the names of the buried. In 2008, the author Niels Seidel published in a book about the Görlitz and Rennersdorf satellite camps, including the known names and personal data of the dead. The Görlitz Jewish Cemetery is formally a war cemetery in accordance with the law on the preservation of graves of victims of war and tyranny .

Idea and realization of the "Steles of Remembrance"

The idea for the memorial “Steles of Remembrance”, which should give the buried victims their identity back, came from Görlitz-born Sven Hüber , who among other things took the name of the Görlitz concentration camp prisoner Moses Isack Hornung, a German Jew and butcher master from the city of Auschwitz and father of a Holocaust survivor friend, wanted to make it visible again, and formed an initiative of various actors for this. It was basically the story of the Hornung family that gave rise to the memorial. Two years later, on July 11, 2012, the Lord Mayor of Görlitz brought together a large group of different actors to implement the idea. In addition to the initiator Hüber, the group “naming those buried in the Jewish cemetery” included the Axel Springer Foundation , representatives of the Saxony regional directorate responsible for war graves , Michael Kretschmer , the CDU member of the Bundestag , Michael Kretschmer , the Synagogue Association of the Silesian Museum Görlitz , the Lord Mayor of the city of Görlitz, Siegfried Deinege , the chairman of the Saxony regional association of Jewish communities and member of the Central Council of Jews in Germany , Heinz-Joachim Aris , Nora Goldenbogen, chairwoman of the Dresden Jewish community, the manager of the local cemetery in Görlitz and responsible for the project , Eveline Mühle, the Görlitz planning office Richter und Kaup and the author Niels Seidel. The project was also supported by Stadtwerke Görlitz AG and the Sparkasse Oberlausitz-Lower Silesia . In order to realize the project, a public and private mixed financing of the regional directorate Saxony, the Axel-Springer-Foundation and the city of Görlitz came about, the costs amounted to approx. 130,000 euros.

Design of the memorial complex

According to the planning concept, the names of the known victims were to be given back to the known victims with the "steles of remembrance" and at the same time it was to be shown that there are still many vacancies in dealing with history. The Richter und Kaup planning office, with the support of the Dresden Jewish Community and the Görlitz municipal cemetery, planned a series of seven steles made of COR-TEN steel along the way to the burial ground of the victims . The number seven was used based on the Hebrew number symbolism . The COR-TEN steel used reminds on the one hand of the forced labor to be performed by the victims in the WUMAG, on the other hand the corrosive surface symbolizes the natural decay that cannot be stopped in Jewish cemeteries. Seven glass name plates with the engraved names of the known dead in Latin and Hebrew are set in each stele . The rabbi of the Dresden Jewish Community, Alexander Nachama, had translated the names of the dead into Hebrew . Individual compartments were left open for the other dead who had not yet been identified by name. According to Jewish tradition, a commemorative stone can be placed in each compartment. Steel rods at different heights are installed between the steles, symbolizing the life of the victims, which was broken off far too early, and reminding them of being locked up. A steel banner is embedded in the floor along the stelae with the text: “I will build my house for all of you and a monument within my walls (...) I will give you an eternal name that will never be erased. Isaiah 56.5 “ The system is supplemented by five information boards, which provide information about the Jewish community in Görlitz and the Jewish cemetery and the history of the project“ Steles of Remembrance - give the victims a name ”.

Solemn inauguration

On September 1, 2015, the World Day of Peace , the “Steles of Remembrance” were inaugurated with a ceremony at the Görlitz Jewish Cemetery, attended by almost 100 personalities from politics, culture, business and the church. Guests of honor were the two survivors of the satellite camp, Monik Mlynarski and Shlomo Graber, as well as Bernhard Hornung, himself a survivor, who came from Jerusalem with his three sons in honor of his father who perished in the Görlitz satellite camp and is now named on one of the steles Moses Isack Hornung had arrived. The commemorative speech was given by the mayor of Görlitz, Siegfried Deinege . The steles of memory were unveiled by guests of honor Monik Mlynarski, Shlomo Graber and Bernhard Hornung together with students from the Melanchthon Oberschule in Görlitz. The Görlitz students had previously read out the names of the victims. The school is in close proximity to the former concentration camp. At that time, the prisoners were driven past this building to work at WUMAG every day. Rabbi Alexander Nachama from Dresden and Pastor Norbert Joklitschke said the prayer El male rachamim (God full of mercy).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Biesnitzer Grund camp in Görlitz. Website of the Initiative for a Living Culture of Remembrance, article from April 11, 2011. Accessed on January 27, 2019.
  2. ^ Niels Seidel: The Görlitz and Rennersdorf subcamps. Dresden 2008, ISBN 978-3-940310-19-4 , p. 36 f.
  3. ^ Niels Seidel: The Görlitz and Rennersdorf subcamps. Dresden 2008, ISBN 978-3-940310-19-4 , p. 27 ff.
  4. ^ Niels Seidel: The Görlitz and Rennersdorf subcamps. Dresden 2008, ISBN 978-3-940310-19-4 , p. 30.
  5. ^ Niels Seidel: The Görlitz and Rennersdorf subcamps. Dresden 2008, ISBN 978-3-940310-19-4 , p. 165.
  6. ^ Niels Seidel: The Görlitz and Rennersdorf subcamps. Dresden 2008, ISBN 978-3-940310-19-4 , p. 233.
  7. ↑ a b Steles dedicated to memory. Görlitzer Anzeiger, September 2, 2015. Accessed January 27, 2019.
  8. ↑ Inauguration of the memorial complex “Steles of Remembrance” at the Jewish cemetery in Görlitz. Website of Niels Seidel, July 21, 2015. Accessed January 27, 2019.
  9. ↑ GdP is clearly against political populism - speech at the GdP Federal Congress 2018. Website of the Police Union (GdP): Federal Police, November 29, 2018. Accessed January 27, 2019.
  10. ↑ a b c Daniela Pfeiffer: Spätes Gedenken. Sächsische Zeitung, September 2, 2015. Retrieved January 27, 2019.
  11. ^ Archive Görlitz, EB Städtischer Friedhof Görlitz: Minutes for the consultation of the Jewish cemetery Görlitz, planning: memorial place / naming of the war victims buried there. July 11, 2012.
  12. ↑ Görlitz Jewish Cemetery Steles of Remembrance - giving the victims a name. Website of the Richter und Knaup planning office. Retrieved January 27, 2019.
  13. ^ Inauguration for Steles of Remembrance. Lausitzer Rundschau, August 29, 2015. Accessed January 27, 2019.
  14. ↑ TV report also in: MDR Sachsenspiegel from September 1, 2015.

Coordinates: 51 ° 8 ′ 30.8 ″  N , 14 ° 58 ′ 2.7 ″  E