Evening Event for the 34^th Stumbling Stone Laying

In addition to the 34th Stumbling Stone Laying in Würzburg an open evening event took place in the local University Hospital under the heading “Jewish Physicians in the National Socialist Era”. Philip Rieger, the Commercial Director of the University Hospital, welcomed the audience of some 500 people. He was joined in this address by Dr Josef Schuster, the President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany and by Judith Roth-Jörg, one of the deputy mayors of the city of Würzburg.

The main address of the evening was held by the historian Linda Damskis. She based her talk on the contents of her book „Zerrissene Biografien – Auswirkungender nationalsozialistischen Verfolgung auf das Leben jüdischer Ärztinnen und Ärzte“ (“Disrupted Biographies – The Effect of the National Socialist Persecution on the Lives of Jewish Physicians”), describing how the Nazi regime robbed Jewish doctors of their professional, social and financial livelihoods.

She described in detail the fates of a number of the Jewish doctors in the region, some of whomdied in concentration camps, others who survived the Holocaust some of whom emigrated and then returned. She also went into some of the history before and after the Nazi period, including the later disputes about compensation for the wrongs suffered.

Dr. Christina Burger und ChristophZobel presented the KlaraOppenheimer Route which has been developed by the Würzburg Stolpersteineinitiative in cooperation with the Johanna Stahl Centre for Jewish History and Culture in Lower Franconia. The Route is named after a Jewish doctor and its aim is to appeal in particular to younger people and make them aware of the historical context of the Nazi era.

In their presentation, Ingrid Sontag und Elke Wagner from the Stolpersteineinitiative described the decline the number of Jewish practices in Würzburg after 1938. They gave more detailed accounts of the fates of selected individuals and in addition provided a handout in which they had documented the lives of some 40 local physicians.

In their meticulous research of Jewish medical practitioners in the Nazi period, Prof. Dr. Eva-Bettina Bröcker and Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schmitt-Buxbaum discovered 960 who had not yet been published in the memorial lists of the Medical Association.

Their names and areas of specialisation are listed at the back of the book „Von Dr. Abel bis Dr. Zwirn – das schwierige Gedenken an jüdische Ärzte und Ärztinnen im Nationalsozialismus“ (“From Dr. Abel to Dr.Zwirn – the troubled commemoration of Jewish physicians under the National Socialists”)

The musical accompaniment for the evening was provided by five students from the Matthias Grünewald Gymnasium.