Wilfrid Israel

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Wilfrid Israel, London, 1942

Wilfrid Berthold Jacob Israel (born July 11, 1899 in London ; died June 1, 1943 in the Bay of Biscay by being shot down by an airplane) was a philanthropist and businessman from Berlin. Born into a wealthy German-Jewish family, he was actively involved in the rescue of Jews from Nazi Germany and played an important role in organizing the Kindertransporte to rescue Jewish children and young people after the November pogroms in 1938 .

Life

Wilfrid Israel attended the Mommsen-Gymnasium in Berlin-Charlottenburg and, for a short time, the Hochalpine Lyceum in Zuoz / Institut Engiadina (today Lyceum Alpinum Zuoz ) in Switzerland (1911). At the age of 22, Israel joined his father's company, Berthold Israel (1868–1935), the traditional Nathan Israel department store in Berlin , 28 Spandauer Strasse. There he founded an in-house school for commercial apprentices. He succeeded in hiring social workers to look after the employees in his father's department stores .

After the First World War, he began to travel the world, especially the Far East, and was particularly interested in the works of art in this region. With the outbreak of the global economic crisis, he helped bring the Habima Theater to Eretz Israel (Palestine).

In 1928 he took over the commercial management of the company together with his brother Herbert Israel.

On September 27, 1931, Wilfrid Israel brought his Indian guest VA Sundaram to the city of Caputh, south of Potsdam, to introduce him to his friend Albert Einstein in his summer house. Sundaram was the disciple of Mahatma Gandhi and his special envoy. When Wilfrid Israel visited Mahatma Gandhi's house during his trip to India in 1925, he met Sundaram. During their presence, Prof. Einstein wrote a short letter to Mahatma Gandhi, which he gave to his envoy. Gandhi soon replied by letter. And although Einstein and Gandhi could not meet in the end as they had hoped, they came into direct contact through Wilfrid Israel.

After the National Socialist " seizure of power " in 1933, Israel founded several organizations that deal exclusively with the concerns of Jewish emigrants. The best known of these were the Central Committee for Aid and Development and the Child and Youth Aliyah . The Aid Association of German Jews appointed Israel to its management in 1937.

When the political pressure became too great in 1939, Israel had to cede the family business to Emil Köster AG , founded in 1938 ; This was a “pseudo- Aryanization ” because Emil Köster AG belonged to the Jewish entrepreneur Jakob Michael , who had emigrated from Germany in 1931, but this was unknown to the Nazi authorities. Israel emigrated to London , where it acted as a liaison between government agencies and Jewish refugee organizations. He was friends with Adam von Trott zu Solz at Balliol College , Oxford . He worked as a consultant for the Royal Institute of International Affairs .

In 1943 he organized the emigration of Jewish refugees from Spain and Portugal to Palestine . The voyage of the ship Nyassa , still organized by Israel , with 750 stranded refugees on board, ended on February 1, 1944 in the port of Haifa . Neutral and belligerent powers had worked together on this case.

Wilfrid Israel died on the return flight from Lisbon when his civilian passenger plane - the flight " BOAC Flight 777" on the way from Lisbon to Bristol  - was shot down by a targeted attack by the German Air Force over the Bay of Biscay and fell on fire into the sea. All passengers and crew, including actor and director Leslie Howard , were killed.

Described as "gentle and courageous" and "very discreet", Wilfrid Israel avoided public office and social appearances. His far-reaching private and business relationships were very extensive and international. According to his biographer Naomi Shepherd, however, he also had an "almost hypnotic" ability to "influence" his friends and colleagues. Martin Buber described him as “a man of great moral stature, dedicated to the service of his fellow men”. Albert Einstein wrote about him in a letter to Amy Israel on June 14, 1943: "Never in my life have I been in contact with a being as noble, so strong and so selfless as he was - in truth a living work of art."

Stumbling stone at the house, Spandauer Strasse 17, in Berlin-Mitte

Honor

Wilfrid Israel was the model for the figure of the Jewish entrepreneur Bernhard Landauer in Christopher Isherwood's autobiographical key novel Goodbye to Berlin (1939); in the novel, however, Landauer was murdered by the Nazis as early as 1933, shortly after the "seizure of power" (with "dramatic necessity", as Isherwood later wrote).

In October 2004 , a stumbling block was laid in front of the former location of the Nathan Israel department store in Berlin-Mitte , Spandauer Strasse 17 .

Letter from Albert Einstein

June 7, 1939

Dear Mr. Israel:

       I was delighted to receive your
 kind letter and, in particular
 , to finally know that you are safe.
 What you did was really heroic, but
 I couldn't get rid of the feeling that you were
 too good for this world, but mainly for
 the environment in which you endured for so long.
        In the hope of
 seeing you face to face one more time in this lifetime, with warm
 regards to you and
                             yours,
                             A. Einstein (signature)
 Mr. Wilfrid Israel
 29, Russell Gardens
 London, NW11

museum

Wilfrid Israel Museum

The Wilfrid Israel Museum in Kibbutz Hazorea has been showing Wilfrid Israel's art collection since 1951. It includes both an archaeological collection and an art collection and is dedicated to Wilfrid Israel. The museum, which opened in 1951, houses Wilfrid Israel's unique collection, to which many other artifacts have been added over the years. The permanent exhibition includes artwork from India, China, Thailand, Cambodia, ancient Middle Eastern artwork, and local archaeological finds. There are also changing exhibitions of modern painting, sculpture, photography and textile art. The museum offers a wide range of community education programs for children, adolescents and adults including tours of the permanent exhibition as well as the temporary exhibitions. In the museum workshop there is also the opportunity to take part in interactive courses.

literature

Wilfrid Israel film

The poster describes the contents and creators of the film that was published in 2017.

A film by award-winning director Yonatan Nir and producer Noam Shalev premiered in Israel on November 1, 2016. The film The Essential Link: The Story of Wilfrid Israel (English original title: The Essential Link: The Story of Wilfrid Israel) is inspired by the biography of the historian Naomi Shepherd. It tells the story of Wilfrid Israel's life-saving endeavors, his connections to the founders of Kibbutz HaZore'a, and focuses primarily on the last ten years of his life. The website of the film The vital link: The story of Wilfrid Israel provides more information about the person and the film and includes a link to the film preview.

Web links

Commons : Wilfrid Israel  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Israel, Wilfried . In: District lexicon (middle) of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein
  2. ↑ Hans Jaeger:  Michael, Jakob. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 17, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-428-00198-2 , p. 425 f. ( Digitized version ).
  3. ↑ John F. Oppenheimer (Red.) And a .: Lexicon of Judaism. 2nd Edition. Bertelsmann Lexikon Verlag, Gütersloh u. a. 1971, ISBN 3-570-05964-2 , col. 930.
  4. ↑ Christopher Isherwood: Christopher and His Kind, 1929-1939 . Vintag, London 2008, pp. 67–74 (first edition: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York 1976).
  5. ↑ Israel Family Collection 1814-1996, pg. 354. Archived from the original ; accessed on June 14, 2020 .
  6. ^ Wilfrid Israel Museum ( Memento from April 26, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Israel, Wilfrid
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Israel, Wilfrid Berthold Jacob (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Philanthropist and businessman
DATE OF BIRTH July 11, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH June 1, 1943
Place of death Bay of Biscay