Wolf Shmuel Borowitzky

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Wolf Schmuel Borowitzky (born January 11, 1892 in Kremenchuk , Ukraine ; † February 26, 1940 in Sachsenhausen ) was a photographer and one of the 36 people who were deported from Nordrach in the Black Forest .

Life

Borowitzky began studying medicine in Strasbourg ; during the First World War he was in a hospital in Frankfurt am Main . Due to a nervous condition, he was in the Black Forest for a cure from 1915 to 1916, first in Hornberg and then in Sankt Blasien . Finally he came to Nordrach in October 1917, which remained his place of residence from then on. Borowitzky lived from 1917 to 1923 in the “Stube” inn, then on the third floor of the Schmezer family's house (Nordrach, Im Dorf 3).

Since he could no longer receive support from his parents, he now increasingly earned his livelihood by taking photos of the numerous Nordrach spa guests. When unrest and clashes broke out in Baden between the extreme political groups in the autumn of 1923 , the Soviet citizen Borowitzky was apparently observed by the local police against the background of a denunciation. He was suspected of supporting Bolshevism and communism in an anti-subversive manner .

On December 24, 1923, Borowitzky was finally arrested in his apartment in Nordrach, which was then carefully searched by the police for any evidence. Despite his poor health, the photographer was taken to the official prison in Gengenbach. He was taken into protective custody together with the also suspicious shoemaker Serge Oulianoff. However, since no Bolshevik activities could be proven, Borowitzky was released from protective custody at the beginning of February after a total of six weeks in prison.

Despite these negative experiences, Wolf Borowitzky stayed in Nordrach and turned his hobby into a profession. Instead of a career as a doctor, as was probably originally planned, he set up a "distribution of photographic enlargements, plaques and postcards" in the popular health resort of Nordrach. Business was obviously going so well that Borowitzky was even able to employ several agents. In the 1920s and 1930s he must have issued countless postcards with the company logo "PHOTO-BORO".

Borowitzky played a key role in shaping the image of the Nordrach health resort and the surrounding landscape through his work and through his postcard publishing house during these years. He did not only look for the motifs for his cards in the Nordracher area, but far beyond, probably even across the country. Borowitzky was able to run his photo business until 1938. Borowitzky was arrested in the course of the November pogrom in 1938 and deported to the Dachau concentration camp on November 10, 1938 .

There he received the prisoner number 20971. During his stay in the Dachau camp, his representatives, the Nordrach mayor's office complained to the Wolfach district office, “still went to the people in his name and made orders”. The mayor's office also remarked: "It would be good if there were public warnings against these people so that many people are protected from harm."

After his return from the Dachau concentration camp, which did not take place until the end of January 1939, Wolf Borowitzky decided to emigrate from Germany. In June 1939 he therefore sold large parts of his holdings to the Photo-Grimm company in Offenburg for only 100 Reichsmarks . Around 20,000 finished postcards and 1,500 print templates changed hands during this campaign. Occasionally you can still find postcards with the company name "PHOTO-BORO".

Wolf Schmuel Borowitzky was no longer able to leave Germany. For reasons that have not yet been clarified, he was abducted again from Nordrach in November 1939 and sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp north of Berlin on November 30, 1939 . There he was assigned the inmate number 010121 and placed in inmate block 38. On February 26, 1940, Wolf Schmuel Borowitzky died in Sachsenhausen concentration camp at the age of 48. There is no information about the cause of death.

literature

  • Uwe Schellinger, The forgotten photographer: Wolf Schmuel Borowitzky from Nordrach (1892-1940), in: Die Ortenau. Journal of the Historical Association for Mittelbaden 89 (2009), pp. 391–396.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ State Archives Friborg, B728 / 1-4095
  2. ↑ General State Archives Karlsruhe 237 / Zug. 1967-19, no.202
  3. ^ Information from the Dachau concentration camp memorial from March 11, 2009
  4. ↑ registry office Oranienburg, no. 1198/1940, pp. 240
  5. ^ Archives of the Sachsenhausen Memorial JSU 1/96, Bll. 061, 064 and D 1 A / 1024, sheet 445
personal data
SURNAME Borowitzky, Wolf Shmuel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German photographer
DATE OF BIRTH January 11, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Kremenchuk
DATE OF DEATH February 26, 1940
Place of death Sachsenhausen