Frankfurt: April 1st + 2nd

DMAO Frankfurt Events

April 1st + 2nd 2023

On the trail of Jewish life in the “Diplomatic Quarter”

Saturday, 10-11.30 a.m. Walking tour

A walking tour in memory of the Frankfurt residents of the “Diplomatic Quarter”. It begins in Eppelinallee 47 in front of Villa Herxheimer, which was built in 1911 for Prof. Dr. med. Karl Herxheimer, a leading dermatologist of the time and co-founder of the University of Frankfurt.

At the age of eighty, Dr. Herxheimer was deported to Theresienstadt (Terezín). The “Diplomatic Quarter” was home to many Frankfurt Jews up until 1938/1939. Historian Dr. Cilli Kasper-Holtkotte talks about their lives and their work. The tour ends in Frauenlobstraße.

Meeting point: Zeppelinallee 47, 60487 Frankfurt- Bockenheim

Villa 102: A building as historical witness

Saturday, 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Guided tour

Dr. phil. Albert Sondheimer, his wife Margarete and his four daughters, Auguste, Ellen, Erna and Anna, moved into the villa in Bockenheimer Landstraße 102 in 1918. A visit to the villa gives an insight into this architectural monument from 1912 and tells the story of the Sondheimer family, who were forced to leave Germany in 1932. The chequered history of Villa 102 spans more than one hundred years and is evidence of Frankfurt’s upper middle-class Westend and Jewish life in Frankfurt, but also of expulsion and expropriation during the National Socialist era.

Venue: Bockenheimer Landstraße 102, 60323 Frankfurt- Westend

A Farewell to my Friends – Remembering Ernst Ludwig Oswalt

Saturday, 1 p.m. Film screening & Talk

Ernst Ludwig Oswalt (1922-1942) was a pupil of the Musterschule and head of the youth programme in St. Peter’s (Protestant) parish. Persecuted as a Jew by the National Socialists, he wrote a letter to his friends on the day of his deportation. A Farewell to my Friends is also the title of an 80-minute documentary about Ernst Ludwig Oswalt made by Frankfurt filmmaker Heiko Arendt and will be shown at this cinema. Ruth Oswalt, who is Ernst Ludwig Oswalt’s niece, is travelling from Basel for the talk with Heiko Arendt following the screening.

Venue: Kino Mal Sehn, Adlerflychtstraße 6, 60318 Frankfurt-Nordend

Boycotted – “Aryanised” – Expropriated: 90^th anniversary of the April 1933 boycott

Saturday, 2 - 3.30 p.m. Walking tour along the Zeil

Up until the 1930s, many of the department stores along the Frankfurt Zeil were Jewish-owned. The boycott that began ninety years ago on 1 April 1933 was the start of a systematic campaign by the Nazi regime against Jewish business owners. They were boycotted, pressured, criminalized, and forced into selling their businesses. The guided tour along the Zeil brings to life the history of several department stores and the lives of the owners and their families.

Meeting point: In front of Café Hauptwache, to the east of the square, 60313 Frankfurt inner city

A former “ghetto house” opens its doors: The Stern family lived here

Saturday, 3 p.m. Exibition & Talk

Selma and Seligmann Stern lived with their daughter Elfriede, who managed to emigrate to Palestine, in Kantstraße 6. When tenant protection was terminated for Jewish citizens, the house became one of the almost 300 “ghetto houses” to which Jewish families were forcibly relocated. A stairwell exhibition of photographs, documents and biographical notes extending from the ground floor to the fourth floor of the house in Kantstraße commemorates the Stern family and the 32 people who lived here. The current residents invite you to enter the house and learn more about its eventful history and former residents.

Venue: Kantstraße 6, 60316 Frankfurt Nordend- Ost

Dr. Julius Meyer wrote about the November pogroms in exile

Saturday, 4 p.m. Reading

Dr. Julius Meyer, a lawyer and notary, lived in Grüneburgweg at the time of the November pogroms in 1938. While in exile in London in 1940, he wrote about what he had experienced. His report tells of his arbitrary arrest in his Frankfurt apartment, the bus ride to the Festhalle, the harassment and humiliation at the prisonlike assembly point, and the transfer to Südbahnhof. Trains left from Südbahnhof for Buchenwald and Dachau concentration camps carrying approx. 3000 Frankfurt residents aged between 18 and 60 who were persecuted as Jews. Jochen Nix reads moving excerpts from Dr. Julius Meyer’s account of his arrest.

Venue: Autorenbuchhandlung Marx & Co Grüneburgweg 76, 60323 Frankfurt Westend-Nord

Expelled from an old people’s home – Elise Hofmann and her fellow residents

Sunday, 11.30 a.m. Lecture & Talk

Elise Hofmann, née Bloch, was a widow and one of the first people to move into the senior residence in Hansaallee 146, which was completed in 1930 and sponsored by the Henry and Emma Budge Foundation. Karen Levi and her sister Connie Levi are travelling from the United States to commemorate their great-grandmother Elise, who was murdered in Treblinka in 1942. By 1939, all of the Jewish residents in Hansaallee 146 were driven out of what they presumed was their final home. Dr. Gudrun Jäger talks about the eventful history of the house, an icon of Frankfurt’s Bauhaus architecture. Today it is the location of the Grünhof im Park residence.

Venue: Café Anschluss, Hansaallee 150, 60320 Frankfurt-Dornbusch

A Grave with no inscription: in memory of Siegmund and Rosette Una & family

Sunday, 2 p.m. Lecture & Talk

At Rosette & Siegmund Una’s graveside, Peter Lobbenberg, a family relative who is travelling from London, will tell the story of the Una family. Historian Christine Hartwig-Thürmer complements his words with her research on the widely scattered branches of the Una-Buseck-Fraenkel-Dreyfuss-Deutz family. They were Jewish citizens of Frankfurt who had their rights, their property and their lives taken from them by the National Socialists, and ultimately their memory by removing the inscription on their gravestone. Majer Szanckower, custodian of the Jewish cemeteries in Frankfurt, talks about Jewish burial culture and the history of the cemetery.

The remembrance takes place in the open air. For ritual reasons men are asked to wear a head covering.

Event location: Jewish Cemetery, Rat-Beil-Straße 10, 60320 Frankfurt- Innenstadt