Annotations
Ludwigshafen
10/22/1940
In the blurred shot, a man carries a heavy bundle of luggage on his left shoulder to a bus, the rear of which juts into the right edge of the picture. Behind the persecuted person, young people with bicycles have gathered at the entrance to the schoolyard located on Maxstraße, laughing as they watch what happens.
Image: MARCHIVUM
Annotations
Historical context
Deportation von Ludwigshafen nach Gurs am 22.10.1940
On October 22, 1940, the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot), the municipal and security police deported more than 6,500 Jews from Baden and the region then known as Saar-Palatinate (German: Saarpfalz) to the Gurs internment camp in unoccupied southwestern France. About three-hundred people from Ludwigshafen am Rhein and the surrounding area persecuted as Jews were arrested by the municipal police and given two hours to present themselves at Max school early in the morning with a maximum of 50 kg of luggage and 100 Reichsmark in cash. The municipal and security police used buses to collect from the surrounding towns all those deportees who could not get to the assembly point on foot.
After registration, buses took the people to Mannheim's main train station. Traveling by train via Mulhouse and Chalon-sur-Saône, they probably reached Oloron-Sainte-Marie in the Basses-Pyrénées department on October 25 or 26, 1940. They were taken to Gurs by truck. Starting in August 1942, the prisoners were deported to Auschwitz via the Drancy assembly camp near Paris.
It is not known how many people from Ludwigshafen survived the Shoah.
About the image series
The picture series from Ludwigshafen am Rhein comprises 21 black-and-white photographs, all but four of which are in landscape format. Names and places are handwritten on the backs of these original prints measuring 12 x 8 cm. Stadtarchiv Mannheim (Mannheim town archives) recorded one image twice, glued 3 to 4 images at a time onto pieces of orange cardboard – the glue was applied along a transverse edge, so the captions on the back remain legible – and annotated three images.
The series documents the Jews waiting for their registration in the courtyard of Max school. Several of them look directly into the camera. Officers from the municipal police guard them and finally instruct them to board waiting buses. Bystanders watch from the edge of the schoolyard as well as from windows of the school.
37 persons depicted are known by name (35 persecutees and two people involved in the crime).
Photographer
Unbekannt
It is not known who photographed the deportation on October 22, 1940, in the courtyard of Max school in Ludwigshafen am Rhein. It is highly likely that the photos were taken with official permission and were probably commissioned by the Gestapo head office in Neustadt an der Weinstraße, the police, the NSDAP (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei / National Socialist German Workers’ Party), or the Ludwigshafen am Rhein city administration.
Provenance
The pictures of the deportation from Ludwigshafen am Rhein come from the estate of Lina and Leo Alsbacher, who were themselves deported to Gurs on October 22, 1940. They survived, returned to Ludwigshafen after the war, and joined the Jewish community in Mannheim.
After the couple’s death, the Jewish community handed over the picture series to Stadtarchiv Mannheim in October 1971 via the assistant mayor of Mannheim, Karl Otto Watzinger (1913-2006). The entry in the inventory book was made in 1972. It is probable that the handwritten inscriptions on the backs of the pictures were made by Mr. and Mrs. Alsbacher. It is not known how the pictures came into their possession.
Call number at source archive
MARCHIVUM, Bildsammlung, KF013136 – KF013156.
Title at source archive
Deportation der pfälzischen Juden von Ludwigshafen aus
Acknowledgements
Many thanks go to Dr. Marco Brenneisen and Dr. Christian Groh from MARCHIVUM for the close cooperation and for generously sharing their knowledge about the Ludwigshafen picture series. The description of the photographs for #LastSeen is largely based on research findings provided by Dr. Marco Brenneisen. Many thanks also go to Stefan Mörz from Stadtarchiv Ludwigshafen for the information he provided about Max school and the Jewish residents of Ludwigshafen.
Text und Recherche: Kerstin Hofmann.
Kooperationsverbund #LastSeen. Bilder der NS-Deportationen Dr. Alina Bothe Projektleiterin
c/o Selma Stern Zentrum für Jüdische Studien Berlin-Brandenburg
Freie Universität Berlin
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14195 Berlin
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