Villa Schocken
The once well-known Jewish businessman Joseph Schocken lived with his family in the Villa Schocken in Bremerhaven-Lehe . Today it is an AWO nursing home . The villa was built in 1916 for butcher and city councilor Heinrich Kuhlmann . From 1932 it belonged to Joseph Schocken.
Joseph Schocken, called Julius Schocken
At the age of 32, Joseph Schocken moved to Bremerhaven with his wife Jeanette Schocken . He opened the Schocken department store on Mayor Smidt-Strasse opposite the Great Church . He later bought the Hirsch department store in Geestemünde . His company did not belong to the shock company , but was closely related to it in terms of organization.
From 1932 Villa Schocken belonged to the Schocken couple. Julius Schocken was the head of the synagogue in the Jewish community of Bremerhaven. Part of the Schocken family emigrated because of the threat posed by the National Socialists .
The story of the Schocken family is an example of the experiences of suffering and terror that Jewish families had to endure in the Third Reich. Jeanette Schocken, née Pinthus, came to Bremerhaven in 1903, where her husband Joseph owned several department stores. The couple lived with their three children at Deichstrasse 24 until 1933 , before the family moved to Villa Schocken in Wurster Strasse 106 in 1933 . Hilde Schocken's poetry album, which is now in the collection of the German Emigration Center, also comes from the happy childhood days.
The situation changed when the National Socialists came to power. Jews were also increasingly terrorized in Bremerhaven. Father Joseph died in November 1934, and Jeanette took over management of the department stores with her son-in-law. On the night of November 9th to 10th, 1938 synagogues burned in Germany. Bremerhaven was no exception. The synagogue was destroyed, shops and houses of Jewish citizens looted. Everyday harassment turned into systematic persecution. Bremerhaven was an important port of call for Jewish refugees and as long as they could, the shocks gave many of them refuge. After the November pogroms, Hilde and Heinz also fled into exile. Jeanette could also have emigrated with her two children, but she stayed with her seriously ill daughter Edith. Both were deported and later murdered. The Villa Schocke n became the property of the Navy. The story of the Schocken family in Bremerhaven ends with the removal.
The Villa Schocken was confiscated by the US Army from 1945. The occupiers used it as an officers' mess. From 1947, more than thousands of denazification proceedings were processed there for a year . Then it became a children's rest home for the workers' welfare. From 1988 there is a nursing home there. At the opening of the house, Hilde Mann, b. Schocken: "I spoke to my family about your company. I don't know whether you know that I have currently emigrated with my brother Heinz Schocken." And: "We consider the opening of a house that bears our name to be very important and believe that the dedication should be represented by the family. The name 'Villa Schocken' is very good."
Since 1991, however, the Jeanette Schocken Prize - Bremerhaven Citizens' Prize for Literature has been a reminder of the fate of the namesake and her family. The prize is awarded every two years to authors who speak out against hatred, injustice, violence and intolerance. Villa Schocken has also had its old name since 1988. Another part fell victim to the Nazi extermination policy.
Villa Schocken 1938
In the night of November 9th to 10th, Villa Schocken (along with other houses owned by Jews) was also to be burned down. But the chief fire chief of the Bremerhaven fire brigade, Heinrich Steiln, managed to prove to the Nazi greats around district leader Hugo Kühn , who had gathered in the Hanseatic Café (regular place of SA standard 411) , that it was not possible to guarantee fire protection for the city if so many fires broke out in the city at the same time.
“He therefore asked them to refrain from the intended arson in eight to ten residential and commercial buildings and the synagogue. In doing so, he prevented the office buildings of the Schocken and Liepmann families from burning down, as well as the Schocken family's villa on Wurster Strasse. "
That only saved the synagogue for a few hours, but Villa Schocken was preserved for posterity.
Jeanette Schocken
Jeanette Schocken born Pinthus came from a wealthy merchant family in Halle . After the November pogroms she stayed in Bremerhaven with her mentally ill daughter Edith, while her children Heinz and Hilde emigrated to the USA and her son-in-law Walter Erkeles to Palestine . Jeanette Schocken offers many Jews her house, the Villa Schocken, as a place of refuge. In 1941 Jeanette and Edith Schocken were deported to Minsk along with other Jews from Bremen and Bremerhaven and allegedly murdered in the Maly Trostinez extermination camp .
"" My mother was a very brave woman with very strong inner faith. ""
Villa Schocken
The Schockens' home in Lehe, today Wurster Strasse 106, became a home for apprentices of the Arbeiterwohlfahrt (AWO) in 1948, which they operated there for 40 years. It has been an AWO nursing home since 1988. An extension was added to the building in the 1960s.
Jeanette Schocken Prize
A memorial plaque on the villa and the Jeanette Schocken Prize commemorate the history of the Schocken family . The prize sum of 7500 euros is raised by donations from Bremerhaven citizens.
“With the naming they remind not only of the burning of books and the destruction of intellectual life by National Socialism, but also of the fate of all those people who fled from the barracks of the National Socialists or fell victim to it. For many persecuted people, Bremerhaven was the last stop in Germany on their flight into exile. The Schocken family in Bremerhaven offered the persecuted refuge as long as they could. Jeanette Schocken did not want to flee with her sick daughter; both were deported to Minsk on November 17, 1941 together with other citizens of Bremerhaven of Jewish faith and murdered there. "
The Jeanette Schocken Prize is awarded on May 6th. In 1933, books were burned to public applause on this day in Bremerhaven - four days earlier than in the rest of the Reich .
“The literary prize that bears her name is intended to set an example against injustice and violence, against hatred and intolerance. With the commitment to forbidden and burned, suppressed and excluded literature, the award combines the encouragement to all writing artists whose literature stands for this commitment and who therefore themselves need support, help or recognition. "
literature
- Christian Heske, Rare traces of a culture, Sunday journal of the Nordsee-Zeitung, October 21, 2018, p. 5
- Hans-Eberhard Happel u. a .: Shock a German story. Bremerhaven 1994, ISBN 3-927857-53-X
Individual evidence
- ^ Family picture around 1922
- ↑ “Angels may accompany you / when we part / near in the distance / where we will not meet again”. A friend wrote this rhyme in 1927 in Hilde Schocken's poetry album. Almost ten years later, the reality of the friendly memory gave it a stale aftertaste. On November 26, 1938, the ship "Portland" cast off in Bremen. The siblings Hilde and Heinz Schocken were on board. Emigration saved their lives. They left National Socialist Germany and were never to see their mother Jeanette and sister Edith again. While Hilde and Heinz reached San Francisco on January 4, 1939, their mother and sister were deported to Minsk in November 1941. The exact place where they were finally murdered remains unknown to this day.
- ↑ Source: Stolpersteine in Bremerhaven
- ^ The Schocken family, life paths of a Jewish family from Bremerhaven on the website of the German Emigration Center Bremerhaven
- ↑ juwiswelt.blogspot
- ↑ Edith Schocken is so mentally ill after the terror of the pogrom night that she has to go to a clinic in Bremen. Source: Stolpersteine in Bremerhaven
- ↑ Stumbling blocks in Bremerhaven
- ↑ Together with her and her daughter, Schocken's brother Erich Pinthus and his wife Thekla and their son Max (4) were also deported, their housekeeper Karola Salomon, the former Schocken employees Rosa Sydkemski, Heinz Nathan and his family. Source: Stolpersteine in Bremerhaven
- ↑ Katharina Hoffmann, Jeanette Schocken, in: Hartmut Bickelmann, Bremerhaven personalities from four centuries (pdf file)
