Glossary

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Survivors’ Meeting in 2008

Siegmund Freund, Ernst Asriel Zimche, and Albert Ohnhaus, happy to see each other again'© Jessica Schäfer
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01/20
Siegmund Freund, Ernst Asriel Zimche, and Albert Ohnhaus, happy to see each other again
© Jessica Schäfer

In the context of the opening ceremonies for the Norbert Wollheim Memorial, the Goethe University and the Claims Conference, thanks to financial support from private foundations, once again invited survivors of the Buna/Monowitz concentration camp to come to Frankfurt am Main. After the two previous meetings, organized by the Fritz Bauer Institute and the Initiative of Students in the I.G. Farben Building, a large number of new addresses had been obtained, and as a result there were new faces to be found among the 37 participants in the 2008 meeting, while many participants in the previous meetings had died in the meantime or, in many cases, were reluctant to make the long journey again because of ill health.

 

The guests, accompanied by their wives, children, or grandchildren, had traveled from Israel, the United States, Hungary, France, Great Britain, Germany, Austria, and Sweden.

 

Many organizations contributed to the success of the meeting: The Claims Conference arranged the travel, accommodations, and program for the guests; all those in attendance had an opporunity to celebrate Shabbat together in the Jewish community; the Federal State of Hesse invited the visitors to a concert and dinner at Kloster Eberbach; and IG Metall organized the final evening. In addition to the opening of the memorial and the opportunity for the survivors to see each other again, the meetings and conversations with school students were a central feature of the meeting.

 

It was hard for many to say goodbye to the other survivors: they could not be certain that they would see one another again.

(SP; transl. KL)