"And they were our neighbours..."

From 10 December to 27 January, the city of Bocholt is presenting the exhibition "And they were our neighbours... - Deportation of Jewish men, women and children to Riga 1941/1942" at the LernWerk.

The exhibition focuses on the deportation and fate of Jewish citizens from Bocholt who were deported to the Riga ghetto in 1941. One focus is on the events in the Riga ghetto, where thousands of Latvian Jews became victims of mass murder.

This is where the exhibition "Zwei Tage im Winter - Zachor: erinnere dich!" by the Bremen artist couple Dagmar Calais and Chris Steinbrecher comes in, which is also part of the exhibition programme. It shows the effects of the National Socialist extermination policy on the Jewish population in Latvia and the Jewish citizens of Bocholt.

Opening in the new artist appendix of the LernWerk

This exhibition is the first in the LernWerk's new Artists' Appendix and is funded by the "Heimat-Fonds" of the Ministry of Regional Identity, Communities and Local Government, Building and Digitalisation of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia and Volksbank Bocholt eG.

The city of Bocholt is realising the exhibition in cooperation with the Bocholter Kunst- und Kulturgemeinschaft e.V., the Stadttheater Bocholt e.V., the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge and Europe Direct Bocholt.

Admission to the exhibition and participation in guided tours are free of charge.

The earliest mention of Jewish life in Bocholt dates back to 1562, when a Jewish medical student was granted the right of residence for the town of Bocholt.

In 1852, the Bocholt synagogue district was founded, which included the Jews from Anholt, Dingden, Liedern, Rhede and Werth in addition to the main community of Bocholt. One year later, 21 Jewish families were registered in Bocholt.

In 1932, around 220 people belonged to the Jewish community in Bocholt. This made it the second largest community in Münsterland after Münster and represented just under 1 per cent of Bocholt's population. Despite their relatively small number in relation to the total population, Jews also played a decisive role in shaping social life in Bocholt.

They were politically active, established associations, set up as doctors or tradesmen, founded companies and built their own synagogue, Israelite school and cemetery in the town. Naturally, Jewish members of the Bocholt community also fought for the German Empire during the First World War.

At the end of the First World War, the Jewish community in Bocholt mourned a total of eleven losses among its members.

Gottfried Albersheim, Erich Braunschweig, Fritz Gompertz, Paul Hochheimer, Paul Löwenstein, Julius Metzger, Dr Erich Rosenberg, Otto Rosenberg, Gustav and Siegfried Sander from Werth and Walter Wolff.

With the promulgation of the Weimar Constitution in 1919, Article 136 gave Jews full equality with the rest of the population. From then on, all state offices and civil rights were to be available to them without restriction.

In the first free, secret and equal local elections on 3 March 1919, Emil Cohen was elected to the city council in Bocholt. Jeanette Wolff, Emil Cohen and Richard Friede stood in the 1924 municipal elections. They belonged to Bocholt's Israelite community.

In retrospect, the years from 1924 until the Great Depression of 1929 are regarded as the "golden years" of the Weimar Republic. In this environment, Judaism was also able to flourish politically, culturally and religiously. Various associations such as the 'Association for Jewish History and Literature', the travelling association 'Kameraden' and the 'Reichsbund jüdischer Frontsoldaten' were founded in the aftermath of the World War. The local group in Bocholt, led by Bertold Löwenstein, began its work before 1922.

It therefore did not take long for the first measures against Jewish culture and Jewish fellow citizens to be implemented. As early as 1 April 1933, the first business boycott was called for under the slogan "Don't buy from Jews". Prior to this, German daily newspapers had claimed that Jews were responsible for the boycott of German goods abroad. The Bocholter Volksblatt also spread the story and the first riots broke out in Bocholt.

The propaganda of the NSDAP also quickly had an effect in Bocholt. National Socialist groups such as the NS-Volkswohlfahrt, the NS-Frauenschaft or the NS-HAGO (organisation for craftsmen and tradesmen) were founded and established themselves in the city.

At the same time, visible Jewish life was increasingly suppressed. In 1934, for example, the Israelite school was allowed to take part in the traditional St Martin's Day procession organised by the Verein für Heimatpflege Bocholt e.V. for the last time. Larger and larger sections of the population changed the way they treated and viewed their Jewish neighbours.

"I feel like a political soldier of the Führer, who has nothing else to do than to fight for the idea of National Socialism, who exemplifies National Socialism to you and brings it to its complete realisation in the local administration."

Bocholt city archives, Slg newspapers: Zeno-Zeitung of 3 January 1935

The disenfranchisement and exclusion of Jews culminated on 15 September 1935 in the so-called "Nuremberg Race Laws". Within the laws, three individual issues were regulated and enshrined in law. The "Reichsbürgergesetz" divided the German population into "Staatsbürger" and "Reichsbürger". From then on, Jews were "citizens" without any political rights. Only "Reichsbürger" with "German or related blood" had such rights.

The "Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour" regulated or criminalised relationships between Jewish and non-Jewish Germans. A plethora of grotesque laws and ordinances made it impossible for the Jewish population to participate in society.

In Bocholt, Hitler Youth extinguished the street lamps from 9.00 pm on the orders of the local NSDAP group. At around 10.30 p.m., National Socialists then marched through the city centre in several groups, destroying Jewish shops, forcibly entering private Jewish homes and vandalising the synagogue.

Very few people stood up to protect their neighbours that night. One of them was the building contractor August Vallèe, who prevented SA and SS men from entering the house of Edith Zythnik and her family at Königstraße 9 that night.

A contemporary witness report reads: "Shortly before midnight we heard a group of wild and drunk men in front of the house and a few seconds later the window panes rattled. Immediately afterwards the front door was broken down and the brown mob forced their way into the flat. They immediately went on the rampage, throwing all the china on the floor, which was then covered in broken glass. The carpets were cut up. - We were scared to death..."

With the enactment of the " law on tenancies for Jews on 30 April 1939", Jews were largely unprotected against evictions. As a result, the first so-called Jews' houses were set up in Bocholt. The forced relocation of all Jews to "Jewish houses" meant that they were now completely isolated from the rest of the population, removed from their traditional neighbourhoods and deprived of their homes. Their homes were then made available to "Aryan" families.

"According to my recollection, the Jews still living in Bocholt had to move to Stiftstraße 32, three houses down from my parents' house, in 1939 or 1940. A total of 10 to 12 people were crammed into this large, two-storey house. [...] As soon as the Jews moved into the house at Stiftstraße 32, my father Carl Becks received a written order from the Bocholt city council to supply the Jews still in the city with the most basic foodstuffs.

He was only allowed to sell the Jews rations that were considerably smaller than those of the rest of the population. The Jews were excluded from the sale of special rations as well as tobacco products, coffee and alcohol. Nevertheless, they also received these from my father. The Jews came to him across the field in the evening or at night, for example Mr Hochheimer received cigarettes. They were only allowed to buy from us at certain times - daily from 1.00 pm to 2.00 pm and from 5.00 pm to 6.00 pm. No other customers were allowed in the shop during these times. [...]"

Private property Josef Niebur. Transcript of an interview with Mrs Inge Becks (* 1926), Bocholt, on 10 December 1993, conducted by Werner Sundermann and Josef Niebur

"On the orders of the Secret State Police, 26 Jews* were deported from Bocholt to Riga.

The deportation took place on [...] day, in the morning, by a bus provided by the police administration in Bocholt. The luggage was transported to Münster on the trailer of a lorry. The costs were borne by the Secret State Police.

Securities, foreign currency, savings bank books etc., valuables of any kind (gold, silver, platinum, with the exception of wedding rings) were not allowed to be taken along. The deported Jews were also required to take tools of the trade (spades, hoes, scales, etc.) with them. The majority of Jews took these tools with them.

Bicycles, binoculars, typewriters, cameras, etc., over which the State Police had reserved the right of disposal, were provisionally seized at the local police station. Between 7.00 a.m. and about 8.30 a.m., the bus provided by the local police authority drove up to the houses where the Jews lived."