Ludwigshafen am Rhein
Ludwigshafen, officially Ludwigshafen am Rhein (; meaning "Ludwig's Port upon Rhine"), is a city in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, on the river Rhine, opposite Mannheim. With Mannheim, Heidelberg, and the surrounding region, it forms ...
; died 27 or 28 September 1944 in the Little Fortress of
Theresienstadt
Theresienstadt Ghetto was established by the SS during World War II in the fortress town of Terezín, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia ( German-occupied Czechoslovakia). Theresienstadt served as a waystation to the extermination camp ...
) was a German sociologist, Zionist and elder in the
Theresienstadt ghetto
Theresienstadt Ghetto was established by the SS during World War II in the fortress town of Terezín, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia ( German-occupied Czechoslovakia). Theresienstadt served as a waystation to the extermination ...
.
Life
Paul Eppstein was the son of the traveling salesman Isidor Eppstein (1869–1916) and his wife Johanna, born Scharff (* 1874). He spent his early childhood in Ludwigshafen am Rhein before the family moved to Mannheim in 1908. His brother Lothar was born in 1909 (passed away in 1977 in the USA). After his father's death, the family moved back to Ludwigshafen in 1918. In 1920 he took his
Abitur
''Abitur'' (), often shortened colloquially to ''Abi'', is a qualification granted at the end of secondary education in Germany. It is conferred on students who pass their final exams at the end of ISCED 3, usually after twelve or thirteen yea ...
in Mannheim at the secondary school, then he studied law and political science, sociology and economics at the
University of Heidelberg
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Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg, (german: Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg; la, Universitas Ruperto Carola Heidelbergensis) is a public university, public research university in Heidelberg, B ...
. He received his doctorate in 1924 from the Faculty of Philosophy, the topic of his dissertation: The average as statistical fiction.
In 1928 he became director of the Mannheim Adult Education Center, which in a few years developed into one of the most important institutes of this kind in Germany. On August 14, 1930, he married Dr. Hedwig Strauss (1903-1944). Eppstein taught sociology at the University for the Science of Judaism in Berlin in the 1930s. In 1933 he published the paperback "The Symptoms in Business Cycle Research".
In the same year he had to resign the management of the adult education center due to the rise of the Nazis. At the request of the board of the Reich Representation of German Jews in Berlin, he joined the latter, where he was mainly concerned with administrative issues and social tasks. After the
November pogroms
() or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (german: Novemberpogrome, ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's (SA) paramilitary and (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation from ...
, Eppstein received an invitation from England to lecture in sociology, which he refused because he did not want to leave Germany. In the following period he was arrested several times by the
Gestapo
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one or ...
.
From July 1939 he worked in the
Reich Association of Jews in Germany
The Reich Association of Jews in Germany (german: Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland), also called the ''new one'' for clear differentiation, was a Jewish umbrella organisation formed in Nazi Germany in February 1939. The Association branc ...
and had to appear several times in the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) in the so-called Eichmann department. In late summer 1941, as representative of the Reich Association, together with Josef Löwenherz from the Vienna Israelite Community,
Adolf Eichmann
Otto Adolf Eichmann ( ,"Eichmann" '' Rolf Günther and Friedrich Suhr announced that in September 1941 all Jews in the Reich would be required to be labeled:Esriel Hildesheimer: ''Jüdische Selbstverwaltung unter dem NS-Regime.'' Mohr Siebeck, 1994, , S. 204. As of September 19 the
Star of David
The Star of David (). is a generally recognized symbol of both Jewish identity and Judaism. Its shape is that of a hexagram: the compound of two equilateral triangles.
A derivation of the '' seal of Solomon'', which was used for decorat ...
had to be worn by anyone who legally was considered a Jew.
In January 1943, he was deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto with his wife and
Leo Baeck
Leo Baeck (23 May 1873 – 2 November 1956) was a 20th-century German rabbi, scholar, and theologian. He served as leader of Reform Judaism in his native country and internationally, and later represented all German Jews during the Nazi era ...
, where he was elected to succeed
Jakob Edelstein
Jakob Edelstein (AKA Yacov, Yaakov, Jakub Edelstein or Edlstein; 25 July 1903 – 20 June 1944) was a Czechoslovak Zionist, social democrat and the first Jewish Elder in the Theresienstadt ghetto. He was murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Life and ...
as leader. As such, he was forced, among other things, to prepare deportations to the extermination camps. On September 27 or 28, 1944, he was shot by SS men in the Little Fortress of Theresienstadt for alleged breaches of the law. His wife Hedwig was deported to Auschwitz on October 28, 1944, where she was also murdered.
Literature
John F. Oppenheimer (editor) u. a .: ''Lexicon of Judaism''. 2nd Edition. Bertelsmann Lexikon Verlag, Gütersloh u. a. 1971, , col. 187.
Karl Otto Watzinger: ''History of the Jews in Mannheim 1650–1945''. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1984, , pp. 89–92.
Israel Gutman (ed.): ''Encyclopedia of the Holocaust: The Persecution and Murder of European Jews''. 3 volumes, Piper Verlag, Munich / Zurich 1998, .
Beate Meyer: ''Deadly Tightrope Walk: The Reich Association of Jews in Germany between Hope, Coercion, Self-Assertion and Entanglement (1939–1945)''. Göttingen 2011, .
Wolfgang Benz: ''German Jews in the 20th Century: A Story in Portraits''. Munich: Beck, 2011, , therein: “Jewish elder” in Theresienstadt: Paul Eppstein, pp. 65–77
Claus-Dieter Krohn: Eppstein, Paul. In: Harald Hagemann, Claus-Dieter Krohn (ed.): ''Biographical handbook of German-speaking economic emigration after 1933''. Volume 1: Adler – Lehmann. Saur, Munich 1999, , pp. 142–143.
Eppstein, Paul, in: Joseph Walk (ed.): ''Short biographies on the history of the Jews 1918–1945''. Munich: Saur, 1988, , pp. 81f.
Eppstein, Hedwig, in: Joseph Walk (ed.): ''Short biographies on the history of the Jews 1918-1945''. Munich: Saur, 1988, , p. 81