Wolfgang Rosenbaum

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Wolfgang Rosenbaum OFM (born May 27, 1915 in Witten as Fritz Rosenbaum ; † September 30, 1942 in Auschwitz ) was a German lay brother in the Franciscan order . Because of his Jewish origin, he was murdered in the Auschwitz concentration camp .

Life

Fritz Rosenbaum came from a strictly religious Jewish family as the son of Ludwig (Louis) Rosenbaum and Elli (Elly) Rosenbaum nee. Marcus. His father ran a textile business in Witten. Fritz Rosenbaum attended the Jewish elementary school and from 1926 the secondary school , but began a commercial apprenticeship in Dortmund in 1930. He became acquainted with the Catholic faith through friends and received baptism on September 15, 1933, against the determined opposition of his father, who disinherited him, and the company sacrament by Auxiliary Bishop Augustinus Baumann on October 8, 1933 . Ludwig Rosenbaum committed suicide in 1935 after being mistreated by the SA ; his mother, Elli Rosenbaum, also converted to Catholicism on December 20, 1936 . Fritz Rosenbaum started an agricultural apprenticeship in the Eifel in 1935 , but returned to his mother in Witten after his father's death.

Through the mediation of his home pastor Johannes Rechmann, Fritz Rosenbaum established contact with the Saxon Franciscan Province ( Saxonia ) in 1938 and applied for admission to the order on September 13, 1938 in Werl , the seat of the Provincialate . However, he was not accepted because the provincial leadership feared reprisals from the Nazi state . Fritz Rosenbaum was mistreated during the pogrom night in November 1938 and then hidden by Pastor Rechmann with his sisters in Düsseldorf. On March 1, 1939 he was accepted as a Franciscan by provincial Meinrad Vonderheide on a trial basis and came under the false name Fritz Rensing to the St. Ludwig der Saxonia College in Vlodrop (Netherlands), where he worked as a tailor and laundry assistant. On October 3, 1939, he began his novitiate there as a lay brother in the Third Order of St. Francis and was given the name Wolfgang. When the Germans threatened to march into Holland, he was accepted into the Woerden monastery in the Dutch Franciscan Province and in 1940 resigned from his religious profession. He was employed in the print shop of the monastery and was considered an exemplary religious, even if he was shunned by some confreres because of his origins.

Wolfgang Rosenbaum was arrested by the Gestapo on August 2, 1942, following the pastoral word of the Archbishop of Utrecht, Jan de Jong, against the deportation of Jews, and taken to the Westerbork assembly camp, just like the Carmelite Edith Stein . He and about 1,000 other Christians of Jewish origin were deported to Auschwitz on August 7, 1942, and murdered there on September 30, 1942.

literature

  • Engelbert Kutzner, Art .: Brother Wolfgang (Fritz) Rosenbaum. In: Helmut Moll (ed.): Witnesses for Christ. Das deutsche Martyrologium des 20. Jahrhundert , Paderborn et al. 1999, 7th revised and updated edition 2019, ISBN 978-3-506-78012-6 , vol. 1, pp. 928-932.
  • Ottokar Mund: Flowers on the ruins: martyrs of the Nazi era - Kilian Kirchhoff OFM, Elpidius Markötter OFM, Wolfgang Rosenbaum OFM. A picture biography. Bonifatius-Druckerei, Paderborn 1989, ISBN 3-87088-566-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ imagined-thought. Catholic in the Ruhr area
    Engelbert Kutzner: Brother Wolfgang (Fritz) Rosenbaum. In: Helmut Moll (ed.): Witnesses for Christ. The German martyrology of the 20th century . Paderborn 1999, Vol. 2, p. 764.
  2. ^ Gerhard Lindemann : From the November Revolution to the Second Vatican Council (1918–1962). In: Joachim Schmiedl (Ed.): From Kulturkampf to the beginning of the 21st century. Paderborn 2010, pp. 289-631, here pp. 500f.
personal data
SURNAME Rosenbaum, Wolfgang
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rosenbaum, Fritz (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lay brother in the Franciscan order
DATE OF BIRTH May 27, 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH Witten
DATE OF DEATH September 30, 1942
Place of death Auschwitz