Wolfgang Szepansky

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wolfgang Szepansky (born October 9, 1910 in Berlin-Wedding ; † August 23, 2008 in Berlin-Schöneberg ) was a German anti-fascist , communist resistance fighter, author and painter.

Life

Memorial plaque on the house at Methfesselstrasse 42 in Berlin-Kreuzberg

Wolfgang Szepansky grew up in a socialist family and was a member of a communist children's group. His older sister Luise Szepansky was the chairwoman of the Communist Youth Association in Mariendorf . As a teenager he was active in the workers' theater movement and completed an apprenticeship as a painter. In 1930 he joined the communist youth association and became the head of organization for the Tempelhof sub- district . In 1931 he was sentenced to 3 days imprisonment for damage to property and road pollution and in 1932 to 10 days imprisonment for participating in a prohibited demonstration.

In the summer of 1933 he was arrested because of the inscription on Lichterfelder Strasse (since 1935 Methfesselstrasse) in Berlin-Kreuzberg : Down with Hitler! KPD lives! Red front! He then came from Division I at the Alexanderplatz police headquarters to the Columbia-Haus concentration camp in Berlin . After his release from prison in January 1934, he fled to the Netherlands , where he was interned in 1940, extradited to the Gestapo and held in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp from October 1940 to April 21, 1945 . He was liberated during the death march to the northwest near Schwerin. While in the concentration camp, he was convicted of "racial disgrace" in 1941 and was sent to Tegel prison for two years because he had a son in exile in Amsterdam while staying with a Jewish family in 1938 together with his first love.

On June 18, 1945 he organized a meeting in the Mariendorfer Eckener-Gymnasium and the anti-fascist youth committee of Tempelhof was established, which later became a district group of the FDJ .

Professionally, he became a drawing teacher until he was dismissed from school service by penalty notice in 1951 because of "active activity in the sense of the SED ". At the same time, he was denied compensation as a Nazi victim. The trial against the state of Berlin lasted almost 20 years before a court awarded him the lost compensation and recognition.

He then worked as a clubhouse manager at the West Berlin Reichsbahn . He was involved in the association of those persecuted by the Nazi regime - Association of Antifascists (VVN-VdA), was one of the founders of the Olga Benario Gallery and was active in the International Sachsenhausen Committee.

With the song group Sorgenhobel he brought out several records in the 1980s and performed at events.

Wolfgang Szepansky has led almost 40,000 young people through the former Sachsenhausen concentration camp since 1978. With the association Paper Press e. V. he led 65 anti-fascist city tours through the Tempelhof district in Berlin from 1980 to 2007. More than 2500 people took part in these trips.

He was married to Gerda Szepansky , whom he met at a meeting of anti-fascist teachers and with whom he had four children. His daughter Regina Szepansky (1965–2019) had been deputy chairwoman of the Sachsenhausen committee since 2006. Since 2007 she was a member of the revision commission and secretary of the International Sachsenhausen Committee. In Tempelhof-Schöneberg she worked since 2013 as the project manager of “We Were Neighbors - Biographies of Jewish Contemporary Witnesses” .

Szepansky died at the age of 97 and is buried in the Mariendorf II cemetery in Berlin.

Honors

On September 26, 1996, Szepansky was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon for his work as a contemporary witness .

Plaque

On August 11, 2012, 79 years after he wrote the anti-fascist slogan on the wall, a memorial plaque for Wolfgang Szepansky was inaugurated at the historic location. This memorial plaque was destroyed by brute force in February 2015. The police, the local contact area officer, did not notice this for 14 days. On May 2, 2015, a new memorial plaque made of even more stable material was unveiled, but it was destroyed again by strangers on August 26, 2015.

The renewed memorial plaque was inaugurated on October 9, 2016. This was also torn from its holder and stolen after a short time in February 2017.

The fourth inauguration of the memorial plaque for Wolfgang Szepansky took place on October 7, 2017. It was destroyed again on the night of March 25, 2019. It was replaced on November 2, 2019.

literature

  • Still, I went this way . Trafo-Verlag, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89626-035-9 ; Autobiography illustrated with 70 hand drawings by Wolfgang Szepansky.

documentary

  • "I thought the sky would collapse ..." (Wolfgang Szepansky). In: Berlin contemporary witnesses. From the anti-fascist resistance ( Heinz Schröder - Gertrud Keen - Wolfgang Szepansky). A documentation by Loretta Walz , video production Berlin, Landesjugendring Berlin 1993 (21 min.)

Web links

Commons : Wolfgang Szepansky  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Methfesselstrasse. In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near  Kaupert )
  2. ↑ Kirsten Wenzel: Gerda Szepansky. In: tagesspiegel.de of October 29, 2004. Retrieved on August 18, 2011.
  3. ^ Junge Welt , August 7, 2002
  4. ↑ Mourning Regina Szepansky
  5. ↑ Peter Nowak : password on the wall. In: taz , August 10, 2012, accessed October 19, 2012.
  6. ↑ Unknown people destroy memorial plaque for the Berlin anti-fascist Wolfgang Szepansky in Kreuzberg. Berlin VVN-BdA e. V., March 2, 2015.
  7. ^ In memory of Wolfgang Szepansky
  8. ^ Memorial plaque for Wolfgang Szepansky destroyed again and stolen. Press release of the Berlin VVN-BdA from February 10, 2017.
  9. ↑ After renewed destruction; Invitation to the fourth inauguration of the memorial plaque for Wolfgang Szepansky on October 7th. Press release District Office Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, September 20, 2017.
  10. ↑ Unveiling of the new memorial plaque for Wolfgang Szepansky
  11. ↑ German Resistance Memorial Center, 2000
personal data
SURNAME Szepansky, Wolfgang
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Szepanski, Wolfgang
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer and resistance fighter
DATE OF BIRTH October 9, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH August 23, 2008
Place of death Berlin