We are a student group consisting of 8 – 10 students under the guidance of Anja Listmann. We are all studying at the Winfriedschule in Fulda and study the Jewish history in Fulda. We are working on various projects and campaigns primarily to keep the memory of the victims of the Holocaust alive. In particular we have focused on the deportees from Fulda after 1938.
Our contribution to the International Holocaust Remembrance Day is related to this topic. In the course of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we too want to make a contribution to preserving memory.
Two of us will briefly introduce ourselves and explain our motivation for participating in this project.
David
Hello, my name is David and I am in class 10 at the Winfriedschule in Fulda. I joined this project because I am very interested in the history of the Second World War and therefore want to learn more and not just hear what is being told in class. I’m also interested in individual people, because you only ever hear huge numbers but have no relation to them. I really hope that more people will remember this time as it is a very important time and must not be forgotten. That’s why we try to do things together with our group to keep the memory alive, even if it’s just little things. The commemoration is very important, because under no circumstances should it ever come to the point where something like the Second World War happens again. It is also important to keep thinking about the families who have lost their children, uncles, parents or other members of the family, so that the descendants see that their families have not been forgotten.
Leni
My name is Leni and I am a 15-year-old female student, who is currently part of the project “Jews in Fulda”. Major reasons for me joining said project were my already existing interest in Jewish history and the time of the Third Reich. Other than that, I’d say our current political climate definitely contributed to this decision as well. Right-wing parties and far-right movements are steadily gaining power and with this, as well as conspiracy theories like QAnon, it’s clear that Anti-Semitism is on the rise again.
A hope of mine for the future would be an improvement in commemorating the victims of the Shoah by reaching as many people as we can through establishing a deeper bond with more locally oriented projects like this one. Personally, I find the remembrance of these events and commemoration extremely important since, sadly, history tends to repeat itself. Therefore, I believe, we should all continue to remember the lost lives and let them live on in our memory. Their lives shouldn’t have been taken so brutally for nothing. I thus hope they can be a reminder for our humanity and empathy in the future and present.
Due to the current lockdown in Germany, we unfortunately couldn’t proceed with our planned project for the International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Said project consisted of holding presentations concerning the deported Jews of Fulda in the classes of our school and then encouraging the pupils to create remembrance stones. Following this, said stones would’ve been placed on our school yard in the shape of the star of David with a small memorial ceremony held afterwards. Substitutionally we have now written this article.
Eva Lehmann, Antwerpen
Among the 411 deported Jews from Fulda were 61 children and adolescents, one of whom is Eva Lehmann. Eva was born in 1929 and lived with her family in Fulda. For a short time, she and her brother Adolf escaped to Belgium on a Kindertransport, when she was 10 years old. A year later there was no place of refuge in Belgium, so they both h adad to return to Fulda.
On December 8, 1941 the family was deported to Riga. Eva was murdered in the Stutthof concentration camp in 1944 at the age of 15.
Today we would like to commemorate all those who were murdered. It’s not just “6 million people”, but each was an individual person – each had a story that must be told. In order to let the memory of these people live on, we ask you to take a moment and remember the victims. To preserve their legacy you can, for example, light a candle, say a prayer or lay down a stone.
Memory is like water: it is essential to life and it finds its own way to new spaces and to different people. Memory is always concrete: it is alive with faces, and places, odours and sounds. It has no expiry date …
Noach Flug (1925-2011)