FRIEDBERGER,
Markus,
The Jewish
Community
of
La
Book Pages 213 - 219
FRIEDBERGER,
Markus,
Cattle
trade, 58
and 60 Ulmer Strasse
Translated by:
Maja Mrakovčić, Nadine Höfer, Dominic Häusler, Helena Fischer
Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg,
ROBERT
Eß
Markus Friedberger, born September 21, 1863 in Laupheim, died September 14, 1942 in Theresienstadt (today’s Czech Republic), OO Theres, née Landauer, born October 5, 1864 in Binswangen, died August 28, 1942 in Theresienstadt.
-[Emanuel Emil, born 1891, died 1909 in Binswangen]-[Recha Reutlinger, née Friedberger, born 1892, murdered 1942 in Auschwitz],
-[Emma, born 1893, died 1893 in Laupheim],
-Klara (Klärle) Adler, née Friedberger, born 1894, murdered 1941 in Riga,
-Cilly Obernauer, née Friedberger, born 1895, immigrated to Argentina in 1940,
-Mina, born 1897, murdered 1941 in Riga.
Markus Friedberger with his sisters, around 1920.
(Photograph: Leo Baeck Institute NY, John-Bergmann Estate)
This photograph was probably taken when the youngest sister Emma Kurz (born
in 1876, married in Gailingen), visited her family in Laupheim. In the front
row, from left to right: Pauline Obernauer, Emma Kurz (with the white fur
collar) and Mathilde Bach. In the back row, from left to right: Luise Bach
(married in Augsburg), Markus Friedberger and Cilly Einstein.
Pauline Obernauer, née Friedberger, (1861-1925), was the mother of all
Obernauer children mentioned in this book. The sisters Mathilde (1866-1936)
and Luise Friedberger (1867-?) celebrated their marriage to brothers Max and
Heinrich Bach from Mühringen with a double wedding.
Cilly Einstein, née Friedberger (1871-?) is pictured at the very right,
carrying a little white handbag. It is uncertain to which Einstein family
she belonged.
The Parents
Markus Friedberger was the third child out of ten and the only son of
Leopold Emanuel Friedberger (1832-1912) and his wife Rosalie, née Stern
(1840-1902). She was the granddaughter of Rabbi Jakob Kaufmann. On June 2,
1890 Markus married Theres Landauer from Binswangen. Five of his eight
sisters who reached adulthood can be seen in the picture. Markus was a horse
trader and lived with his family at 52 Ulmer Strasse.
After the expropriation of their house in 1941, the couple was relocated to
the Jewish home for the elderly at
2 Judenberg.
On August 22, 1942 they were deported to Theresienstadt. Unfortunately, it
was only a week later, on August 28, 1942, that Theres Friedberger died. Her
husband Markus died on September 14, 1942. They were probably both weakened
due to the long transport and lack of food.
The Children
Emanuel Emil was the only son of Markus and Theres Friedberger. He was born
on March 2, 1891 in Laupheim and died on March 6, 1909. Emanuel was named
after his grandfather Emanuel Emil who was born in 1833 in Laupheim and died
in 1912 at the age of 80 (N 21/7). Three years prior to his death, in 1909,
his grandson committed suicide in Munich. Nathanja Hüttenmeister wrote the
following: “Commis Emil,
unmarried, died in Munich and was buried three days later in Laupheim.
Suicidum was documented as the
cause of death.” On his headstone (N 20/3) (a broken pillar made
by stonemason Müller) in Hebrew it is written: “Here lies dear Menachem, son
of Mordechai. He entered eternity on Adar 13, 669 according to the Jewish
calendar. May his soul be embedded in the bundle of life.”1
Recha Reutlinger, née Friedberger,
born on February 7, 1892 in Laupheim, murdered in Auschwitz in 1942.
She married Jakob Reutlinger from Königsbach before the outbreak of the
First World War, on March 26, 1914. Both were abruptly deported from their
place of residence in Pforzheim to the internment camp Gurs in Southern
France on November 22, 1940, together with another 7000 Jewish people from
Baden and the Palatinate.
Camp de Gurs internment camp was formerly a big barrack camp, which in 1939
was set up by the French government for Spanish refugees of the Spanish
Civil War.2
Around 1,300 Jewish people were housed there under inconceivably bad
hygienic conditions.
The cold winter of 1940/41 and a dysentery epidemic led to widespread
deaths. By the middle of March 1941, there were 1050 new graves at the
cemetery of the camp.3
Transports from Gurs going directly to the assembly and transit camp Drancy
near Paris were set up.
For Recha Reutlinger, née Friedberger, as well as for her husband, Drancy
was the last station on the way to the gas chambers of Auschwitz, where they
were murdered in 1942.
Klara (Klärle) Adler, née Friedberger,
born on May 30, 1894 in Laupheim. On July 18, 1921, she married the merchant
Josef Adler who lived in Munich. Josef Adler was also born in Laupheim, on
April 23, 1893.
The marriage was already annulled two years later in 1923 and Klara moved
back to Laupheim where she lived at 24 Radstrasse. After her house had been
seized and sold to someone else by the Nazis, Klara was resettled to 8
Wendelinsgrube in 1941.
Klärle Friedberger (in the middle of the first row) in 1911 at the final dance of the dance classes,
named “Tanzkränzchen”, in the hall of the guesthouse “Zum Kronprinzen” (today’s Alexis Sorbas).
Anna Knoll, née Stuber, and Lina Raff, née Stumpp, are standing behind her.
(From: J. Braun, Alt-Laupheimer Bilderbogen, p. 120)
From 1927 onwards, a barrack camp including improvised accommodation was
constructed by the town of Laupheim. It was located on the outskirts of the
city, at the so-called Wendelinsgrube (between the two train stations
Laupheim West and
Laupheim Stadt). The first assigned deputy mayor of Laupheim
announced on October 28, 1941 that 31 Jews were currently living in those
barrack camps. The non-Jewish families who had lived there before were
mostly resettled into the houses of the Jewish community after the
expropriation.
On November 22, 1940 Klara Adler was also deported to Gurs in Southern
France (like her sister Recha) and further to Riga on November 24, 1941 in
an unheated wagon at -30 to -40°C (-22 to -40°F). The same happened to her
ex husband Josef Adler. Both died in the extermination camp Riga and were
declared dead on December 31, 1945.
Cilly Obernauer, née Friedberger,
born on September 21, 1895 in Laupheim immigrated with her husband Max
Obernauer to Argentina on September 30, 1940. Pauline Obernauer, née
Friedberger, is shown on page 412
in the German version of this book. She is the mother of Max Obernauer,
which means that Max and Cilly were cousins.
After her husband’s death, Cilly Obernauer declared her parents and her
three murdered sisters dead on January 11, 1954.
The date of death was determined to be December 31, 1945.
Mina Friedberger,
unmarried, was born on September 20, 1897. She was deported to Riga on the
first transport on November 28, 1941, together with her sister Klara Adler
and 17 other Jewish people from Laupheim. She was murdered in Riga.
Mina Friedberger as pupil of the Israeli elementary school
in
1909 and as a student of the Frauenarbeitsschule in 1913.
Pauline-Friedberger-Foundation 1934
Simon Friedberger, who was the great-uncle of Markus Friedberger, and his
wife Babette had eleven children, of whom nine reached adulthood. Seven of
them immigrated to the United States between 1855 and 1870. The second
youngest daughter, born in 1851, was Pauline Friedberger. After her death in
1934 she left a foundation to the Jewish community of Laupheim. She
deposited 2000 dollars for the following purpose:
“The interest rates of the 2000 dollars deposited shall be annually given to
the Israeli community of the city of Laupheim (…) and shall, on October 14,
which is my birthday, be used to entertain Jewish and Christian pupils in a
hotel or a place in the named city as the churchwardens consider
appropriate.”
The Israeli local newspaper wrote an article about Pauline Friedberger in
the issue of June 1, 1934. According to this article, she immigrated to
America as a poor girl and has repeatedly shown, through her actions, her
love and devotion to her hometown, Laupheim. At that time, she apparently
was not aware that her hometown was segregating Jewish inhabitants and
punishing them horribly for their attachment to Germany. The interest rate
of the 2000 dollars deposited by the Pauline Friedberger Foundation was
surely not paid out very often. It was only eight years after the creation
of the Foundation that its recipient, the Jewish community of Laupheim, did
not exist anymore.
The name Friedberger derives from the village Friedberg, situated in Hesse,
where the existence of Jewish people can be traced back to the second half
of the 13th century.4
The lineage of all Friedberger families from Laupheim probably derives from
Josef Simon (Friedle) and Mathilde from Randegg near Gammertingen. The year
of death on the widely weathered tombstone (G-4/7) is incomplete. The date
of death is considered to be either 5560 or 5569 according to the Jewish
calendar, which means 1799 or 1809.5
Four of their children stayed in Laupheim:
Leopold Josef (1768-1829), married to Bertha, née Wohlgemut (1765-1849)
Simon (1783-1865), married to Lea, née Levigard (1788-1870)
Lazarus (1780-1854), married to Hannelore, neé Heilbronner (1788-1834)
Leopoldine (1790-1864), married to Baruch Mayer (1791-1882).
The grandchildren married into the following families: Lämmle, Einstein, Rosenthal, Dreifuß, Löwenthal, Laupheimer, Hochstädter, Neuburger, Bernheim, Rödelheimer and Kirschbaum.
In the Jewish cemetery of Laupheim, 77 tombs related to the Friedberger
family remain to this day. Amongst those, 43 were direct descendants and 34
married into the family.
Both of the bells installed within the right tower of the synagogue were
presumably sponsored by this family (statement of the deceased Deputy Head
Josef Braun).
Since it is unusual to install bells in a synagogue, this was something
extraordinary. It is likely that it was a rather symbolic act to align with
the Christian community.
After the synagogue fire during the
Kristallnacht on November 9, 1938 a citizen of Laupheim saved the bells
from the burned rubble and they were handed over to the local museum,
together with the promise not to make the donor’s name public. Nowadays they
are displayed as a remembrance at the
Laupheim Museum for Christians and Jews.
Leopold Josef Friedberger (1768-1829), mentioned above, belonged to the
second Friedberger generation. He was one of the first Jewish people in
Laupheim running an agricultural business. In a report to the administrative
unit of Wiblingen (Oberamt)
written in 1828, Rabbi Salomon Wassermann mentioned by name exclusively two
Jewish people under the rubric of
Feldbautreibende
(an old German term corresponding to present day fieldworker)
namely Hirsch Heumann and Leopold Friedberger.
During the mid 19th century agriculture seems to have become more popular
amongst the Jewish people, as four additional farmers were listed in the
files. Nevertheless, after 1850 this trend was on the decline again as until
then only one Jewish fieldworker was recorded in the files. However, trading
with agricultural products was more important. In their trades with cereal,
hop, cattle and property and as creditors and bankers of farmers they almost
had a monopoly.6 Working as a horse trader was also a prestigious
profession and more renowned than being a cattle trader. It would have been
beneath the dignity of a horse trader to trade with cattle as well.7
In contrast to other Jewish families from Laupheim, only a few documents
exist about the Friedberger family. When asking farmer families living in
Laupheim over generations about Markus Friedberger, the horse trader, they
would answer at best that he lived on outer Ulmer Strasse.
The Friedberger family had lived in Laupheim for over six generations and
for more than 150 years.
