a  „We came to Lübeck and went to the German Bürgermeister, to the mayor of Lübeck who had not been elected, he had been put into the position by the British because the British had occupied Lübeck on May 3. and we told him, ‘What about your commitment? Did you provide apartments or rooms for those people?’ And he said, ‘No, we have made provisions in a barrack for all these people to be accomodated.’ At this moment my friend and I looked at each other and he did something that is only understandable under the situation then. He afterall was an American soldier, though a staff sergeant. But he was in a territory occupied by the British. But he assumed a certain jurisdiction he wasn’t entitled to but in order to help it didn’t matter. He actually touched his rifle and told the mayor in Lübeck in no uncertain terms in German that they had made a commitment for people who had enough of barracks, who had lived for years under the most unbelievable conditions because the Germans wanted it that way. That therefore if he doesn’t fulfill his commitment, he would see to it that he will sweat it out in the jail of the Allies. And that fellow when he heard those words said, ‘Certainly he didn’t mean it that way.’ And this and that; so to cut a long story short, a bus with our people were waiting and then another bus was provided which went from apartment to apartment according to a certain list which had been prepared by the administration in Lübeck and we were all put as subtenants into rooms of German landlords. And this is how I came to Lübeck in June 1945. There I lived until I left for the United States in fall 1951.“

(Norbert Wollheim, Interview mit Nikolaus Creutzfeldt [Eng.], New York 1986–88 (Heinlyn Productions; produziert von Leslie C. Wolf). Archiv des Fritz Bauer Instituts, Transkript, S. 164–165.)

 b  „Ich habe für die Menschen hier und für mich selbst an Sie eine grosse Bitte: Versäumen Sie bitte keine Gelegenheit und suchen Sie bitte jede Möglichkeit, die Menschen dort zu unterrichten, sie aufzumuntern oder besser gesagt, aufzurütteln. Wir haben vor 14 Tagen in Belsen ein Massenmeeting gehabt, das unter dem Motto stand: „6 Millionen vergaste Juden, – Welt, wo ist Dein Gewissen?“ Dieses Motto ist kennzeichnend für die Situation, in der wir zur Zeit leben. Wir sind gerettet, aber wir sind nicht befreit. Wir wissen, dass es eine Reihe jüdischer Menschen gibt, – und wir haben viele hier getroffen –, die von dem, was sie hier gesehen und erlebt haben, so tief betroffen sind, dass sie alles tun werden, um unserer Stimme Gehör zu verschaffen. Helfen Sie uns dabei! Helfen Sie uns dabei, es jedem eindringlich klar zu machen, dass wir auf vieles warten, was bisher nicht realisiert worden ist. Was sind uns heute Rationen oder Zigarettenliebesgaben oder Schokoladespenden! Gewiss, eine wertvolle Hilfe für die wir dankbar sind, aber entscheidend ist und bleibt der Wunsch, der uns doch letzten Endes die Energie und die Kraft zum Durchhalten gegeben hat, endlich einen Platz für uns zu finden. Und sollte es für die Gruppe der nur 60000 Übriggebliebenen keinen Lebensraum ausserhalb dieser blutgetränkten Erde geben?“

(Norbert Wollheim, Brief an Hermann E. Simon, 26.8.1945. USHMM, Wollheim-Nachlass, Box 9, Correspondence File, Simon Letters, S. 2.)

 c  „Ein weiterer Unterschied zur amerikanischen Zone war die Tatsache, daß es bei uns mehr Spannungen mit der Besatzungsbehörde gab, da die Briten in Palästina ja gegen unsere Interessen handelten. Ich möchte nur an die ‚Exodus‘-Affäre erinnern. Wir brauchten daher ganz besonders Einstimmigkeit in den eigenen Reihen, und ich muß sagen, es klappte ausgezeichnet.“

(Norbert Wollheim in: Michael Brenner: Nach dem Holocaust. Juden in Deutschland 1945–1950. München: Beck 1995, S. 144.)

 d  „There was still another job to be done in which I participated and that was, under the military statute, a so-called successor organization was built to claim the heirless and community property of the Jewish community. This was under Allied law with the seat in London and I became one of the founders and we were able then to solve the problems by putting all the funds which accumulated out of community property which was not used by new communities, and heirless property into one fund and this fund was administered by a mutual committee of the communities and the major Jewish organizations and then distributed especially for social purposes for needy people in Israel and in America, so that was the Jewish Trust Corporation and then I came to the United States.“

(Norbert Wollheim, Second Interview [Eng.], 17.5.1991. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Transkript, S. 63–64 [sprachlich bereinigt].)

 e  „Q: Why did you decide to come to America? As opposed to England or Israel?

NW: Well, there were personal reasons.

I was looking for my friends and I was looking for my family. Because we had approxim[a]tely eighty or ninety members of my family. Because both my father and my mother had eight sisters and brothers. None of them survived except a cousin now living in Paris. And a cousin who had lived underground in Germany. That was all. So I was looking for people who were near and dear to me. I had a few relatives in the United States and I then found gradually the lost friends of my Youth Movement and others in the United States. And also I had acquired a better knowledge of English.

Also my second wife was always together with a group in these years. Had a very close relationship with her sister. And the sister and her husband decided to come to the United States and my wife didn’t want to be separated from her sister. So that had nothing to do with ideological reasons. It was more personal reasons. I had come to experience the United States in ’46 when I was invited to come over as a so-called messenger of the remnants and had gone all over the country to speak to people and to give them an idea of the situation. So at this time I had solidified my relationship with the people I hadn’t seen for years and years. Including my Youth Leader, Marin Sobotka [Martin Sobotker].“

(Norbert Wollheim, Interview mit Nikolaus Creutzfeldt [Eng.], New York 1986–88 (Heinlyn Productions; produziert von Leslie C. Wolf). Archiv des Fritz Bauer Instituts, Transkript, 180–181.)

[1] Norbert Wollheim, Second Interview [Eng.], 17.5.1991. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Transkript, S. 54 [sprachlich bereinigt].

[2] Norbert Wollheim in: Michael Brenner: Nach dem Holocaust. Juden in Deutschland 1945–1950. München: Beck 1995, S. 147.