Created: 09/15/2022, 07:20 am
Of: Debra Wisker
In memory of the Jewish fellow citizens, a memorial was inaugurated in Londorf in the presence of their descendants.
Rabenau . It took a long time, almost 80 years had to pass before the former Jewish fellow citizens in Londorf experienced an appreciation that they more than deserved. 16 steles in the immediate vicinity of the former synagogue bear witness to the fact that the murderous regime of the Third Reich did not stop at this village either.
“Six million – an unbelievably large number,” says Jens Hausner, initiator of the memorial, looking back on the terrible balance sheet of the Holocaust. Silence reigns in the full parish hall of the evangelical church. Some people catch their breath, a small tear flows here and there. Guests are the descendants of the Jonas, Schönfeld, Blumenthal, Adler and Wertheim families. Children and grandchildren of the people who were once part of the Londorf village community, children and grandchildren of the people who were deported on September 14, 1942, who had previously experienced persecution, abuse and violence.
Any name a story
Among the guests from the USA is Lawrence Bacow, President of Harvard University (Cambridge, Massachusetzs) and son of Ruth Wertheim. At first it was this name, Ruth Wertheim, that made Jens Hausner sit up and take notice. More names and thus more destinies were added. “Each name has a harrowing story.” Hausner investigated and didn’t give up until the many pieces of the jigsaw puzzle came together to form a picture that told a horrible story. Together with Karen Jungblut (Digital Remembrance Workshop) and the Association for Local and Cultural History headed by Wolfgang Sommerlad, he achieved his goal of keeping the memory of Jewish fellow citizens alive. “Shalom doesn’t just mean ‘peace.’ It means peace both internally and externally«, states Pastor Frank Leissler. The desire for peace inevitably includes commemoration. With a view to the Third Reich, Leissler finds clear words: “If more people had had their ass in their pants, the Shoah, the mass extermination of the Jews in Germany, would not have been possible.” He is glad that the memorial is now naming the names , the names of those who once lived in Londorf. ‘Just normal neighbors who wanted nothing more than to watch the sun rise and set in peace. In view of the atrocities of the Nazi era, one should show courage and uphold the value of peace.
District President Dr. Christopher Ullrich. This time developed a dynamic that still makes you shudder today. At the Wannsee Conference in January 1942, the systematic extermination of the German Jews was planned. “Only a few months later, in September 1942, the last Jewish citizens in Londorf were deported.”
Jens Hausner had previously reported on this from the memories of a contemporary witness. The then ten-year-old Ludwig Schomber observed how the neighbors were picked up. »A truck with an open flatbed stopped in front of the house, and the Jewish fellow citizens were herded up a ladder. The truck drove on, stopped again. Until the Jewish community in Londorf was wiped out,” says Hausner. Christoph Ullrich emphasized that it was a blessing that the children and grandchildren were here on this day. Part of the often quoted “Never again” is to keep reminding yourself of what happened. What happened back then was “an injustice that could hardly have been more murderous.” He thanked everyone who had helped ensure that the people “who used to be neighbors are not forgotten.”
Rabenau Mayor Florian Langecker also agreed. “I have every respect for you to come to the place where so much was done to your ancestors. That shows a greatness to which I bow,” Langecker addressed the relatives of the victims of Nazi terror. His greetings went to the descendants of Ruth Wertheim of 12 Kirchgasse: Lawrence Bacow and his wife Adele, their sons Jay and Ken, and Wertheim’s daughter Elaine Simonson. To the descendants of the Will Jonas family from Gießener Straße 49: son John Jonas with son Jared Jonas and daughter-in-law Cynthia Will. To the descendants of the Bertie Blumenthal family from Gießener Straße 84: son Paul Liffmann and his wife Carol Kazmer. To the descendants of the Siegbert Schönfeld family: grandson Zachary Schonfeld. All of these names, all of these families carry within them the history of their ancestors.
For a long time, according to Langecker, a cloak of silence was placed over this story. »Why did we only manage to install a commemorative plaque in 2019? Why not sooner?’ You didn’t want to remember, you ignored what could disturb your own self-image.
His own generation was also left in the dark. Before Langecker became mayor, he was a police officer. »Thus, during my time in the Frankfurt police force, the crimes of the police battalion housed in the Gutleut barracks came to my attention. Frankfurt police officers, colleagues of mine, had murdered tens of thousands of people of the Jewish faith in Poland and Russia. Including babies, children and women. Only a few were convicted,” said the mayor. It was incomprehensible to him that criminals would have been in the service of the general public. Langecker said that Ruth Wertheim’s 1934 school enrollment photo also showed his grandmother. Not only that. 55 years later, also for school enrollment, he stood there in the schoolyard in the same place. It showed him that the history of the Londorf Jews was also part of his own history.
What happened in the first half of the last century must not be repeated. »Every silence, looking on or looking away, neutrality towards injustice, sticking your head in the sand, cowardice lays the building block for an unjust state. May the steles keep the memory of the Jewish citizens alive and thus make a contribution to ensuring that everyone here can live in law and freedom forever,” concluded Langecker. The celebration in the community center was accompanied by music from the band »Classic«.
‘Never have met«
From there, they walked through the streets and alleys where Jewish fellow citizens once lived to the memorial. After the descendants of the victims of the Nazis had cut a blue ribbon, they were left to look at the steles in peace and quiet. Names were read, the plaques on which they are now immortalized gently touched.
“I heard about them, from my great-grandparents, grandparents, my relatives, but never got to know them,” Lawrence Bacow looks over the memorial, the steles with all the names, and smiles softly: “Now they’re all here.”
(For further report see page 30)
