in German here
Wednesday, November 13, 2024.
Since Tuesday, nine Stolpersteine have commemorated the fate of the Jewish Marcus family. Descendants from Uruguay and the USA also came to Halle for the laying ceremony.
By Walter Zöller
HALLE/MZ. Ana Caviglia speaks forcefully. She is standing in front of the building at Mozartstraße 24 in the Giebichenstein district. Her native language is Spanish, but on Tuesday morning she is speaking in English to an audience of around 70 people. “I am the daughter of the girl who was born and grew up in this house,” a translator says. “The residents were forced to leave the country in 1938, they fled to Uruguay.”
This is not the Uruguayan’s first time in Halle; she came to the city with her mother in 2009. They rang the doorbell of the practice at Mozartstraße 24, where the doctor Michael Büdke was practicing at the time. They told their life story and asked to see the rooms. The doctor agreed without hesitation. “Can you imagine, my mother entered this house after 70 years?” says Ana Caviglia. “We sat in the waiting room of the practice. That used to be the living room of the house, where the adults could hang out.”
“There was a lot of fear, a trauma.” Ana Caviglia
Doctor Felicia Baum now practices in the rooms, and on Tuesday she too willingly opens the doors to Ana Caviglia — and around 20 other people who have also traveled here from Uruguay and the USA. They are all descendants of the Jewish Marcus family who were expelled from Halle by the Nazis. Since Tuesday, not only have nine Stolpersteine (stumbling blocks) commemorated the fate of the family members, but also detailed biographies, for which Anne Kupke-Neidhardt, Managing Director of the “Zeitgeschichte(n) – Verein für erlebte Geschichte” (Contemporary History – Association for Experienced History), has conducted many interviews with the descendants.
Siegfried Marcus had already endured years of harassment and threats when the situation for the lawyer finally came to a head in the late summer of 1938. During interrogation in the police building on Hallmarkt, even the Iron Cross that he had been awarded for his service as a front-line fighter in the First World War did not protect him. Police officers knocked it out of his hand. Siegfried Marcus was accused of offering a cigar to a bailiff — a judicial officer — while playing skat in a pub. This was an attempt at bribery, according to the absurd accusation.
Marcus was imprisoned. After a few days, he was released thanks to the intervention of a friend from their time together in the army, who was a member of the NSDAP and apparently had some influence. The friend advised him to pack his bags immediately and flee, as the next imprisonment was imminent. His wife Emma accompanied Siegfried Marcus to Rotterdam, where he boarded a ship to New York. She herself returned to Halle to join her three sons. The family was only reunited in the USA in 1948 and built up a new life there.
Siegfried Marcus had two brothers, who also had no choice but to flee. Erich Marcus was taken to Buchenwald concentration camp in April 1938. His arrest was part of a large-scale campaign against Jews in particular, with which the Nazis allegedly wanted to reduce anti-social behavior and criminality. In fact, the main aim was to force Jews to emigrate by means of massive threats and to steal their assets. Erich Marcus was released in exchange for a promise to leave Germany immediately. He was forced to dissolve his company “Erich Marcus, Maschinen für Land und Hauswirtschaft” and a so-called “Reich Flight Tax” of 20,000 Reichsmark was extorted from him. He also emigrated to the USA.
Like his two siblings, his eldest brother Paul and his wife [Hertha, née Loeb] were also respected citizens in Halle before 1933. In 1923, he opened a practice as a general practitioner in Große Ulrichstraße; Paul Marcus was a member of the Association of National German Jews and the Jewish Front Fighters’ Association. In 1938, however, Jewish doctors — deprived of their license to practice medicine — were only allowed to provide medical care to Jewish patients as “Krankenbehandler,” if at all. The situation became increasingly threatening. Paul and Hertha Marcus fled to Uruguay, deprived of most of their possessions. They began to build a new life for themselves. Due to the social atmosphere in Uruguay, they converted to the Catholic faith. The family did not talk to their descendants about their past in Europe or about their Jewish origins. “There was a lot of fear, a trauma,” says Ana Caviglia. It was only the grandchildren who began to research the family history as it is known today.
The fact that the lives of the Marcus brothers and their relatives in Halle have not been forgotten is thanks to the artist Gunter Demnig and the “Zeit-Geschichte (n) – Verein”. Demnig launched the Stolpersteine (Stumbling Stones) project in 1992, and since then small plaques have been placed all over Germany to commemorate people who were persecuted, expelled and murdered during the Nazi era. The “Zeit-Geschichte (n) – Verein” has been overseeing the project in Halle since 2003.
Until Tuesday, there were 289 Stolpersteine in the city, and now nine more have been added. The couple Paul and Hertha Marcus and their daughter Marion Beate lived at Mozartstraße 24; Paul’s brother Erich Marcus, and the couple Siegfried and Emma Marcus and their three children, lived at Kirchnerstraße 17 near the main railway station. The descendants from the USA and Uruguay came to Germany on their own initiative and at their own expense. Before their visit to Halle, some of them were in Themar in Thuringia, where Emma Marcus [mother of Paul, Siegfried, and Erich] comes from. The “Zeitgeschichten-Verein” organized the stay in Halle. This included a discussion between pupils from Hans Dietrich Genscher High School and the descendants of the Marcus family.
The example of Siegfried and Emma Marcus’ eldest son [Erich, b. 1927] illustrates the suffering suffered by people persecuted by the Nazis. As a “half-Jew,” he had to do forced labor in Normandy, managed to escape, made his way to Halle and was denounced here. The 17-year-old was sent to a laboreducation camp in Sitzendorf, Thuringia. He never spoke to his family about this terrible time.
Nine sponsorships
Mozartstraße 24: The Giebichenstein Gymnasium, the Cyranka family and the family doctor Felicia Baum have taken on the sponsorships for the Stolpersteine commemorating Paul Marcus and Hertha Marcus and their daughter Marion Beate Marcus.
Kirchnerstraße 17/formerly Kirchnerstraße 21: The “Helen Keller” School of Life, the August Hermann Francke School and the Hans-Dietrich Genscher Grammar School as well as Marcus Riemer and Georg Prick are sponsoring the Stumbling Stones in memory of Siegfried Marcus, Erich Marcus, Emma Marcus and their children Erich, Dieter and Peter.
See as well:
Mozartstraße 24, The Family of Paul & Hertha (née Loeb) Marcus
Kirchnerstraße 17/formerly Kirchnerstraße 21, The Family of Siegfried & Emma (née Becker) Marcus
lived with her parents in the house in Mozartstraße. They were expelled by the Nazis.
