Alexander Lebenstein

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Alexander Lebenstein (born November 3, 1927 in Haltern (today Haltern am See), Germany , † January 28, 2010 in Richmond , Virginia , USA ) was a German-American Holocaust survivor. He was the only survivor of the Shoah from Haltern; his sister Alice had emigrated to the USA in 1939. The Alexander-Lebenstein-Realschule in his hometown is named after him. The school was named after Alexander Lebenstein, who taught children to read and write earlier during the war. However, this was a risk.

Life

childhood

He was born on November 3rd, 1927 in the family house Disselhof 36 in Haltern and, according to his own statement, experienced a sheltered childhood up to the age of eleven. His mother, Lotte Josephs from Jever , and his father Nathan Lebenstein ran a cattle trade and a kosher and non-kosher butcher shop . His father had served in the German army during World War I. One of Alexander Lebenstein's three older sisters died in 1932, the other two emigrated to the United States in 1939 under the pressure of anti-Semitism in Germany.

National Socialism

During the pogrom nights in 1938 , his family hid in their summer house, shortly afterwards, Lebenstein and his family were taken to a Jewish house in Haltern. In January 1942 they came to the assembly camp (former exhibition hall on Wildenbruchplatz) in Gelsenkirchen . From there they were deported to Riga , where his father soon became seriously ill and was killed by members of the SS .

In the spring of 1942 he was separated from his mother and shipped to Lithuania . When he returned in the fall, his mother had disappeared too. After the war, he found out that she had been shot and buried in a forest near Riga. Then Alexander Lebenstein was sent to several labor camps and was finally taken to the Stutthof concentration camp in Danzig by ferry .

When the Soviet soldiers liberated the concentration camp in 1945, he was admitted to a hospital in Gdansk due to his poor health. Since he refused to join the Red Army , he and two men fled to Berlin via Frankfurt an der Oder . But they weren't welcome by the Americans either, since the Russians were already looking for them. Therefore, Alexander Lebenstein returned to his birthplace Haltern, where he was advised to leave the city. He was refused German citizenship and was sent to a DP camp in Deggendorf ( Bavaria ) .

Emigration to the USA

Most of the Jews in Deggendorf wanted to emigrate to the newly founded Israel . Encouraged by his sister Alice who emigrated to the United States in 1939 , Lebenstein decided to emigrate to the United States in 1947 and start a new life in Richmond, Virginia.

Here, too, nobody wanted to have anything to do with him, because they said: "A boy who has survived several concentration camps - that doesn't exist!" Because of this, he moved to New York and opened a supermarket there. He married in 1948 and had two sons.

Memory work

In 1994 Alexander Lebenstein flew back to Germany for the first time. Two students from Haltern had written him a letter that they were currently studying the Holocaust in class. After an initial, strict refusal, he let his family convince them to follow the call of the young people in his German hometown. This stay changed the life of Alexander Lebenstein completely and from then on he began to speak publicly - in churches, schools, libraries and in the Virginia Holocaust Museum - about his life and his terrible experiences. The freight car in front of the Virginia Holocaust Museum is a place of silent memory. This wagon was made available to the museum by Alexander Lebenstein's friend Erwin Kirschenbaum as part of a project for a German school .

With the help of the author Don Levin, Alexander Lebenstein published his autobiography in 2008 under the title The Gazebo (English) in the USA. He spent his old age near Richmond, Virginia.

So that his tireless work of remembrance can continue after his death, he founded the Alexander Lebenstein Fund for Tolerance and Human Rights . On November 9, 2009, the documentary Kristallnacht and Beyond was presented to the public at the Virginia Holocaust Museum . This film shows Alexander Lebenstein on one of his late visits to his hometown Haltern am See.

Honors

Realschule named after him

In 2003 he took over the sponsorship for the secondary school in Haltern am See, which is now called Alexander-Lebenstein-Realschule. On June 5, 2008 he received honorary citizenship of the city of Haltern am See for his commitment.

Foundation, endowment

The Alexander-Lebenstein-Realschule received 30,000 dollars in the estate of its namesake. Together with donations and donations, this money was transferred to the Alexander-Lebenstein-Foundation (as a dedicated name fund ) within the Halterner community foundation for Halterner . The purpose of the foundation is to promote “especially sustainable and long-term projects, activities and initiatives that help to overcome discrimination and racism, annual project days to commemorate the events of the Holocaust, initiatives that contribute to understanding between all people and cultures and awareness of tolerance to promote a life of mutual respect and dignity ”.

Fonts

  • The Gazebo. Alexander Lebenstein; as told to and edited by Don Levin , AuthorHouse, Bloomington, IN, 2008 ISBN 1-4389-3172-7

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Haltern is now an official member of the Riga Committee , Halterner Zeitung, January 27, 2010
  2. ↑ RuhrNachichten article of 6 February 2009: published Life Stone biography "The Gazebo" in English
  3. ↑ Website for the book (English)
  4. ↑ Alexander Lebenstein died , Der Westen, January 28, 2010
  5. ^ "Alexander-Lebenstein-Stiftung" in the community foundation, November 25, 2010 ( Memento from March 3, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ Excerpt from the statutes of the Alexander Lebenstein Foundation
  7. ↑ Interview with Michael Weiland, headmaster and foundation advisory board
personal data
SURNAME Lebenstein, Alexander
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American Holocaust survivor
DATE OF BIRTH November 3, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Haltern , Germany
DATE OF DEATH January 28, 2010
Place of death Richmond, Virginia , USA