Werner Händler

Werner Händler was born on October 29, 1920 in Bismarckhütte, Upper Silesia. He spent his childhood in Hirschberg, went to school and was separated from his family. Händler's parents Albert and Selma (née Gillis) had two other children besides Werner, Marianne (1918 in Bytom until unknown) and Martin (1911 in Bytom until 1985 in Uruguay).

In Hirschberg, Werner attended the Adolf Hitler Gymnasium, which he had to leave early in 1938. (Cf. Inv. No. 2013/439/12) Albert Händler (1881 in Woischnik until 1942 in Auschwitz) first ran a hardware store here, later a wholesale business supplying the Silesian mountain villages. His mother Selma Händler (1884 in Züllichau to 1942 in Auschwitz) took over the hardware store, expanded it to include toys and kept a kosher household; regular synagogue attendance was part of family life. In 1933 Werner Händler celebrated his bar mitzvah.

In 1936/37, members of the Nazi regime forced Albert and Selma Händler to sell the family home as well as their business. In 1938, the Hirschberg synagogue was completely destroyed in the train of the November pogroms. Werner, after ending his school career prematurely, took up the profession of a carpenter in a Schmiedeberg factory. He was deported to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp shortly thereafter during the November pogroms of 1938, along with his father Albert, and interned there. While the National Socialists released Albert a month later, Werner Händler had to do forced labor and help build shelters for SS guards. In the concentration camp, he came into contact with political prisoners who made it easier for him to get through his time in prison.

Just before Christmas, Handel's mother Selma was able to secure her son's release. She had procured him a visa for Panama, upon presentation of which Händler was released. In April 1939, Händler left Germany for England. Attempts to catch up with his parents failed; both were murdered in Auschwitz in 1942. Händler only learned of this with final certainty in Berlin in 1948, after a letter from family friend Cezilia Maliszin reached him in Berlin. (Cf. inv. no. 2010/30/19)

On arrival in Great Britain, Händler was initially housed in the Kitchner Camp. Here he worked as a carpenter until he was taken to the Isle of Man in May 1940 as part of the general internment wave. Before his internment, Händler made intensive efforts to catch up with his parents. When his efforts finally failed, he volunteered for the British Pioneer Corps to fight with the Allies against Nazi Germany. However, the Corps rejected him because of his young age.

Handler spent only a few months on the Isle of Man. He spent the bulk of his internment in an internment camp near the Canadian capital; he did not return to Britain until 1942. (Cf. Inv. No. 2010/30/2) In Canada, Händler's manual skills once again came in handy: together with two other internees, he founded a camp carpentry workshop that produced utilitarian objects from old ammunition crates.

In the camp, formative friendships developed: Werner Blumenthal, who is also in the picture, would later become Handel's best man in London. (Cf. 2013/439/1) In Canada, Werner Händler also received the last letters from his parents before both were murdered in Auschwitz.

The last surviving sign of life from his father addressed to Werner is headed, like all his letters, "Mein innigstgeliebtes Piefkerle!" (My dearly beloved Pief guy!). The different sender addresses show that Händler's parents had to move several times shortly before their deportation and last lived in Beuthen in the circle of the Gillis family. This last letter, dated November 13, 1941, states: "[...] There is nothing special to report about us, we are G.s.D [thank God, author's note] healthy, and that is the main thing. [...] How did you spend your birthday, our thoughts were even more with you than usual. If we should live to see you again, and we have one wish that you and we remain healthy. [...]" (Cf. Inv. No. 2010/30/18)

In 1942, Händler returned to England and found a new home in the northwest London borough of South Hampstead. It was here that an exile community of liberal German Jews began to emerge in 1939, manifesting itself a few hundred yards behind Händler's new home in the founding of the Belsize Square Synagogue. The community, born out of exile, is still one of the most active Jewish communities in London.

Händler, however, was less interested in cultural than in political life: Immediately after his return from Canadian internment, he joined the Free German Youth (FDJ). His membership card bore the membership number 19. He was very active among like-minded people in Belsize Park in the newly founded FDJ Youth House. As an employee of a sawmill, he also became a member of a trade union for German workers in Great Britain a year later. (Cf. Inv.-Nos. 2013/439/13, 2010/30/12) His longest employment, which was to accompany him until he left for Germany, found Händler at the London O.R.T. School, a craft training school for Jewish survivors.(Cf. Inv.-No. 2013/439/12)

In the FDJ, Händler also met his future wife Hella (née Simon, born 1923 in Quakenbrück, died 2012 in Berlin). The two were married in London on March 17, 1945. Two children were born of this marriage: Ellen, born in 1948, later Händler (her husband took the name Händler in memory of the murdered members of the family) and Friedel (born in 1950, later Beier). The marriage certificate shows Werner as a carpenter and his wife Hella as a nurse in training. Both had become members of the foreign organization of the Communist Party of Germany in their early FDJ days

.

At the end of 1946, both arrived in Hamburg to participate in the construction of the new Germany. The Händlers were drawn to the waterfront, as they were later in Berlin: Together with other FDJ members from England, they rented an apartment in Othmarschen near the Elbe. (Cf. Inv. No. 2013/439/12) Werner Händler had given up his career as a carpenter in Hamburg. Instead, he applied for a journalistic apprenticeship at Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk (NWDR), which would later become NDR.

In his application of January 5, 1947, he wrote: "[...] I have returned from England from emigration a few weeks ago and would like to take my full share in the developing cultural life. I would see my duties primarily in youth radio, since, through my participation in international youth life in London, as well as through in-depth study of the slow developing youth life here, I believe I have special knowledge, experience and ability in this field. [...]" (Cf. Inv. No. 2013/439/12)

At the age of 27, Händler also let it be known that he wanted to work in political reporting: "[...] I would like to add that my stay in a democratic country has given me the opportunity to follow political developments in England as well as in the international field, e.g. the UN. I assume, however, that more experienced staff members are available to the Politics Department. [...]" (Cf. Inv. No. 2013/439/12) Händler's application was successful.

As early as 1947, he was able to start as NWDR youth editor, until he was dismissed shortly thereafter, however, due to his political stance. Hella and Werner Händler then moved to the Soviet-occupied part of Berlin, where Werner had accepted a position at Berliner Rundfunk.

"Good afternoon, my listeners" - this is how Händler, who had made it to editor-in-chief of Deutschlandsender in the late sixties, greets his listeners as a discussion leader and participant in numerous rounds of political commentary. He also fulfilled a function as SED propagandist and, for example, turned the Vietnam War into the "liberation struggle of an indomitable people" or declared GDR foreign policy to be the gold standard. (Cf. DRA archives OMS03120 and 2032157)

It was particularly exciting when Händler, who certainly appeared on the radio as a Sachsenhausen survivor, developed a position on Israel in 1967. (Cf. DRA archive 2032607)

"Which side do you have to take in the Middle East crisis?" asked, for example, the Aktuelle Spätsendung of Zeitfunk in the evening at the end of May 1967: letters from young listeners from West Germany had reached Deutschlandsender, asking - following an understandable impulse, according to the head of the conversation - whether for a German, after the crimes of the Second World War, Israel should not always be supported first.

To this, editor-in-chief Händler said: "[...] The very first opinion, to which morality, political reason and common sense oblige, is to do first of all that this crisis is solved peacefully, that no war breaks out here. [...] Of course, one must know against whom one is taking a stand, and that can only be the authors of this crisis. And the authors of this crisis are not in Cairo. They are in Washington, they are in London, they are in Bonn, and some of their tools are in Tel Aviv. [...] The worst thing that could happen to the Jews in Israel would be a war. That is the very worst. And I think you have to put an end to such a diabolical abuse of feelings, which though grow out of a decent attitude, to defend such a dirty policy there. [...]" (Cf. DRA archival OMS00101)

Between 1970 and 1975, Händler broadcast from Bonn and explained the politics of the FRG to the GDR. Hella accompanied him and was herself briefly employed at the radio station. In Pressehaus II of the "Tulpenfeld" office complex within walking distance of Langer Eugen, Händler was an exceptional phenomenon in Bonn: a foreign correspondent - from a Western perspective - without his own (recognized) country.

That's why it must have been a special appointment for Händler when, on December 17, 1971, he and his colleague Wolfgang Dost reported from the Chancellor's Office, where the transit agreement between the GDR and the FRG had been signed that day. The agreement was the first international agreement between the two German states and therefore signified the recognition of the sovereignty of the GDR by the now social-liberal ruled Federal Republic.

For Händler, commenting on the speeches of the GDR's Permanent Representative Michael Kohl and Egon Bahr at the end of the contribution, the agreement was an "[...] expression of the active and constructive foreign policy of the GDR. [...]" (Cf. DRA archive file 2032157)

According to Händler, it would be "[...] foolish to overlook the fact that nonetheless opponents and bitter enemies of this course of reason and recognition of reality are at work here in Bonn. Only the day before yesterday, a spokesman for the opposition in the Bundestag reiterated the CDU/CSU's hard 'no' to the agreement just signed and to the treaties with Moscow and Warsaw. [...]" (Cf. DRA-Archivalie 2032157) Nevertheless moderating, Händler added in a postscript: "[...] Just in the hour of the signing of the first agreement under international law between the GDR and the FRG, it should also be noted that it has come to this, to which all democratic forces here in the FRG striving for peace, who for many years have been advocating and promoting the relations of peaceful co-existence between the Federal Republic and the GDR, have their great share. [...]" (Cf. DRA archive file 2032157)

After his time in Bonn, Werner Händler remained faithful to radio, now doing longer features in addition to interviews and sound bites, and portraying various scenes in Berlin. (Cf. DRA-archival 30078161970) In his later years, Händler can look back on a career rich in awards.

Already in 1970 he had been awarded the Gerhart-Eisler-Plakette in silver, an important journalism prize of the GDR. In 1980 the Journalists' Association of the GDR presented him with the Golden Feather for "merits in the field of socialist journalism." 

In 1980 and 1986, Händler received the Fatherland Order of Merit (VVO) in silver and in gold, respectively. Since 1949, Händler was also a member of the Association of Persecutees of National Socialism (VVN) and remained associated with its reappraisal, especially in an honorary capacity, in addition to his journalistic activities throughout his life.

After 1990, Händler held the office of Secretary General of the International Sachsenhausen Committee for a long time. What remains of Händler is above all an eventful career as a correspondent and countless radio contributions. (Incidentally, he was probably still a formidable tennis player and skier even at over 80 years of age.)

All information is taken from documents in the Händler/Simon family collection, which are available for inspection in the archive of the Jewish Museum Berlin.