Remembrance of the Reich Progrom Night: Verden's Jewish fate in focus

Remembrance of the Reich Progrom Night: Verden's Jewish fate in focus

in Verden was reminded of the terrible events of the Reich Progrom Night on November 9, 2024, which shook the Jewish community in Germany 86 years ago. Hermann Deuter led the participants through the pedestrian zone and urged the Jewish business people who were persecuted and expropriated by the Nazis. Some escaped the horror while others were cruelly murdered.

The night of November 9, 1938 was a turning point of horror: synagogues burned all over Germany, and it was no different in Verden. Deuter described how Arnold Baumgarten's factory goods business in Große Straße became the first destination of the attacker. "The panes were smashed, the business was forced and the owner arrested," he recalled. Baumgarten, a prominent member of the Jewish community, was later deported to the Ghetto Minsk. However, his sons were able to flee and lived in Palestine under new names.

fate of the persecuted

Max Löwenstein, who led a flourishing clothing business, was also the victim of the pogrom night. His business was destroyed and the family did not survive the Nazi terror. Their fate remains uncertain to this day, and in 1964 the family was declared dead. Henriette Goldschmidt, the owner of a hat business, was also forced. Her niece Hanni Baumgarten was able to flee to Palestine in 1940, while Henriette and her family died in the Minsk concentration camp.

Leopold Rothschild, the last surviving Jewish businessman in Verden, also experienced the horror. His shoe store was attacked and he was already in the deportation train when the war came to an end. Rothschild and his wife emigrated to New York, but returned to Verden in 1949, where they found their last rest in the Jewish cemetery. These moving stories came to life at the memorial event in order to keep the memory of the victims awake and not to forget the atrocities of the past.