Stumbling stones for Salomon, Chaja, née Feder, Samuel, Anton and Emma, Moritz, Heinrich and Josef Schwarzwald

Salomon Schwarzwald was born in Lopitza near Warsaw in 1883. He married Sarah Friedrich, who was born in Rawa Ruskaja in 1878. Their first three children, Samuel in 1908, Anton (Anschel) in 1910 and Emma (Esther) in 1911, were also born in Poland. Due to economic problems, Salomon emigrated to Germany around 1912 and came to Offenbach, which was considered an "insider tip" at the time. His sons Moritz, Heinrich and Josef were born in Offenbach. Moritz in 1912, Heinrich in 1914 and Josef in 1923.

Salomon Schwarzwald worked as a self-employed shoemaker in Offenbach from the very beginning. His wife Sarah worked as a peddler on the side to help support the family. They first lived in Bleichstraße, then in Domstraße, finally in Herrnstraße and later in Große Marktstraße, where the shoemaker's shop was located.

Sarah died at the beginning of 1925, so the last-born son Josef grew up temporarily in the children's home in Neu-Isenburg. Around 1930, Salomon Schwarzwald married Chaja Feder (born in Tomaszow in 1891), whom he brought to Offenbach from his native Poland.

Like almost all so-called "Eastern Jews", the family lived in poor circumstances, but the economic situation improved over time. Solomon's sons worked as belt makers, Anschel/Anton as a clerk and Moses/Moritz as a portefeuiller.

Father Salomon Schwarzwald was an educated and devout Jew. He spoke Hebrew and attended services in the synagogue in the small prayer room twice a day whenever possible.

With the support of Rabbi Dr. Max Dienemann, Salomon sent his son Heinrich to a religious school at the age of 9 to train him as a prayer leader. However, Heinrich was not only interested in the later synagogue service, but also in sport and politics.
At the beginning of the 1930s, he joined the Socialist Workers' Youth through his brother Moritz, and they became members of the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold and the SPD with the aim of defending the Weimar Republic against the enemies of democracy. Heinrich and Moritz were well aware that there was anti-Semitism in Germany, but before 1933 neither of them saw any direct threat to the Jews in Offenbach. This changed shortly after the National Socialists seized power. Josef Schwarzwald remembers April 1, 1933 very well:
"The Nazis painted on the windows of Jewish stores with white paint: 'Don't buy from Jews' and 'Juda verrecke'. We had a small shoemaker's shop in Marktstraße. My father's business was not affected at first. But then, over time, the customers stayed away."

The idea of emigration now became more concrete in the family. Heinrich broke off his training as a cantor and trained as a carpenter in Siegburg in preparation for emigration. Samuel was the first to emigrate to Palestine with his wife in 1934. After Heinrich received his certificate for entry to Palestine, he also urged his father to emigrate. But he firmly refused. Heinrich finally decided to leave on his own and arrived in Palestine via London in 1935, where he worked in various professions.

Father Salomon stayed behind in Offenbach with his wife, daughter Emma and sons Anton, Moritz and Josef. In the years that followed, they witnessed the increasing disenfranchisement of the Jewish population, culminating in the pogrom night. On the early morning of November 10, 1938, Josef Schwarzwald witnessed the brutal attack by SA men on the people attending the service in the small synagogue. In his memoirs from 1985, he describes with horror how hundreds of people stood outside the synagogue and watched as the large synagogue burned inside and Torah scrolls and Hebrew books were thrown outside. While Josef watched the destruction of the synagogue, the other family members witnessed the attack by Nazis on their apartment at Große Marktstraße 15.

They escaped arrest and deportation to a concentration camp that day. But the family members were subsequently hit very hard: they had to leave the apartment, the shoemaker's workshop at Herrnstraße 11 and the small store at Große Marktstraße 15-17 on the instructions of the owner of the house. From January 1939, the family found refuge in the house of an old Jewish furniture dealer at Kleiner Biergrund 31. Nothing is known about their economic situation.

Regular emigration was no longer an option for them due to their poor financial circumstances. Their sons Samuel and Heinrich, who lived in Palestine, were unable to vouch for their parents and siblings in view of their own precarious situation. In addition, the British Mandate decided on the number of applications for admission to Palestine and restricted immigration from 1939 for older and less well-educated people.
Anschel/Anton Schwarzwald managed to escape to England in July 1939. How and by what means he was able to do so shortly before the outbreak of war is unknown.

On September 9, 1939, Salomon Schwarzwald and his sons Moses/Moritz and Josef were arrested and imprisoned in Offenbach prison. On October 26, 1939, they were deported to the Buchenwald concentration camp. Father Salomon was transferred to the Pirna Sonnenstein killing center in 1941, where thousands of sick people who were no longer able to work were murdered as part of the secret Nazi "Aktion T4". Salomon Schwarzwald died there on July 14, 1941.

Chaja Schwarzwald and Ester/Emma Schwarzwald remained living in Offenbach until 1942. On September 30, 1942, they were deported from Darmstadt and presumably murdered in Treblinka.

In the Offenbach registration cards of Moses/Moritz and Josef, the following entry was made for their stay in the Buchenwald concentration camp from 1939: 1942 and 1943 on trips. Josef Schwarzwald remembered the years in Buchenwald only with horror. In 1985 he said:" ... I still suffer physically and emotionally from this horrible time... My brother and I were liberated by the US Army on April 11, 1945."

Josef and his brother Moritz returned to Offenbach from the concentration camp seriously ill and unable to work and were dependent on the help of the American occupying forces and the city administration. Due to the humiliations they experienced in Offenbach, their time in the concentration camp and the murder of family members, they decided to leave Germany. Moritz Schwarzwald emigrated to the USA in 1946. Josef Schwarzwald first went to France in order to gain admission to Palestine through further training. He arrived there in March 1946 and fought as a soldier in the wars of liberation in the following years.
Heinrich Schwarzwald also fought for the newly founded state of Israel, and Palestine was also a land of refuge for him. But he did not feel at home there in the long term. He returned to Offenbach in 1957. He found work at the municipal utilities and reconnected with the active SPD works group. "But he wasn't just a member and functionary. His credo was: peace and forgiveness. (...)", wrote former SPD Lord Mayor Wolfgang Reuter on the occasion of Heinrich Schwarzwald's death on April 1, 2006.

Shortly before, Heinrich Schwarzwald had confided to the editor of the Offenbach Post, Lothar Braun, that he repeatedly reproached himself for not being able to persuade his father to emigrate in 1935. In memory of the parents and their sister who were murdered by the Nazis, the surviving sons have erected a gravestone in the Jewish cemetery.