Library Exhibit: The Courage of "Ordinary People" in Ergoldsbach, Germany, during the Holocaust
An exhibit examining the story of thirteen Jews who escaped from a Nazi death march during World War II is currently on display in the Libraries' Diversity Room. "Anyone Would Have Done That: The Rescue of the Thirteen Jews from Ergoldsbach" (Germany), coordinated by Gerhard F. Strasser, Emeritus Professor of German and Comparative Literature, is sponsored by the Jewish Studies Program, the Gene and Roz Chaiken Endowment for the Study of the Holocaust, the departments of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures, History, and Comparative Literature, and the Penn State University Libraries.
The exhibit highlights the rescue of thirteen Jews on one of the death marches from the Buchenwald concentration camp at the end of World War II. While thousands perished, some 200 prisoners reached the small town of Ergoldsbach in Bavaria at the end of April, 1945, and from there thirteen of them managed to escape. They were found by Max Maurer, the local police sergeant, who-contrary to SS orders he had received that morning-did not shoot them on sight. Instead he arranged for a cart to take the emaciated men to a barn belonging to a farmer who was known for her opposition to the Nazis. They were hidden in the hay loft, fed by the farmer Anna Gnadl, and later rescued by the arriving U.S. troops.
John Weiner, the last surviving member of this group, was instrumental in creating this exhibit, which was first shown in Ergoldsbach and Bavarian schools in 2005. Weiner himself weighed fifty-three pounds when Anna Gnadl took him in; he finally left a Regensburg hospital after almost a year. Gerhard Strasser arranged for the English version of the exhibit.
The exhibit includes various German newspaper clippings from the 1930s translated into English that give some insight into local politics during the Nazi regime. Additional documentation and material is accessible online (http://www.personal.psu.edu/gfs1/exhibition.html). After the exhibit closes at Penn State, it will be available through the American Association of Teachers of German (AATG).
phone: 814.863.0589 | fax: 814.863.8882 | email: cmlit@psu.edu
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