Annotations
Weiden
04/03/1942
Adelheid Kohner and Paulina Steinhart in front of Weiden train station.
Image: Stadtarchiv Weiden
Annotations
Historical context
Deportation von Weiden in der Oberpfalz nach Piaski am 3. April 1942
On April 4, 1942, 987 people persecuted as Jews were deported from Bavaria to the Lublin district. One day earlier, on April 3, 1942, the police had taken at least eight Jews registered in Weiden along with Ernst Ansbacher from Floß to Regensburg, where there was a temporary assembly camp. After a journey lasting four days, the train arrived in the Piaski ghetto with 987 people on board.
The Piaski ghetto near Lublin came into existence in April 1941. Prior to and in preparation for the deportations from the German Reich, about 5,000 Polish Jews living in the ghetto were murdered in Belzec. All the inmates of the ghetto were murdered in the camps of “Operation Reinhard” during the course of 1942 and 1943, or died as a consequence of the catastrophic conditions in Piaski. The ghetto itself was dissolved in the spring of 1943.
None of the people deported on this transport are known to have survived. At least 44 Jews from Weiden were murdered in the Shoah.
About the image series
Four photos have been preserved as original prints. The words “Fotograf Hanns Töpfer” (photographer Hanns Töpfer) are stamped on the backs of all the pictures. The prints were mounted on white cardboard and labeled when they were archived.
Professional photographer and chemist Hanns Töpfer took three photos on the station forecourt and one on the platform. The documentary intention is clear, because except for Luise Kohner, Töpfer photographed all the people who were deported that day. The group portrait of the Hausmann family particularly stands out.
Photographer
Hanns Töpfer, Photographer
The photographer Hanns Töpfer ran a drugstore and a photo studio in Weiden. He was also head of the local district picture and film archive of the NSDAP (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei / National Socialist German Workers’ Party). However, no other photographs taken by him have survived in the Stadtarchiv Weiden. Töpfer was commissioned by the mayor, Hans Harbauer, to document the deportation by taking photographs. Because of the stamps on the backs of the photos, the authorship is clear.
Provenance
The four photographs were commissioned by Hans Harbauer, who was the mayor of Weiden at the time. The photographs were probably taken for the purpose of official documentation. The photographer Hanns Töpfer handed them over to the Stadtarchiv on April 10, 1942, where they are still kept to this day. The photo series was added to the archival holdings under the title “Weggang der letzten Juden von Weiden u. Umgebung am 3. April 1942” (Departure of the last Jews from Weiden and the surrounding area on April 3, 1942.)
Call number at source archive
Ohne Signatur
Title at source archive
„Weggang der letzten Juden von Weiden u. Umgebung am 3. April 1942.“
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Dr. Sebastian Schott, archivist of the town of Weiden, whose research and essay titled “Die Geschichte der jüdischen Gemeinde Weiden bis zur Mitte des 20. Jahrhunderts” (The History of the Jewish Community of Weiden until the Middle of the 20th Century) provided the basis for the present description.
Text und Recherche: Malte Grünkorn.
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
lastseen@zedat.fu-berlin.de
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