Sara-Ruth Schumann

Sara-Ruth Schumann was born in Bremen on March 11, 1938. Her father August, formerly Ephraim, was a locksmith and came from a Jewish family that converted to Christianity in 1922. Her mother Maria came from a Christian family of craftsmen who owned a large carpentry shop. Along with her sister Anni, nine years older, and her brother Karl, eight years older, she was the youngest in the family. Her mother was already exposed to anti-Semitic accusations during her pregnancy, due to the child's Jewish father. However, this rejection only made the family stronger, and even as a child her brother took special care to protect her from harm. The family lived on Diepenau Street in downtown Bremen, very close to the Stephani parish.

With the outbreak of World War II, a hard time dawned for the family, who had to spend many nights in the air-raid shelter. Little Sara-Ruth went from one adult to another, singing them songs against fear, until one day the whole city center of Bremen burned. She suffered shock paralysis and from that day on, she always sat in a handcart when the family had to go to the air-raid shelter again, until they were denied this safety as well. On November 18, 1941, seven aunts and uncles and their grandmother were deported to Minsk. Despite the helplessness of the family, they took in Sara-Ruth's cousin Hannelore, whose parents were deported. Due to a mix-up with the master tailor who lived with the Abrahams in the attic and died in a fire, August was declared dead, and the family managed to escape to Bockel, near Rotenburg, in 1944 with the help of the Hammerstein family. There the family managed to survive on an estate under a false name. The whole village knew about their origin, but kept it to themselves, and August was even able to resume work under a false name. In February 1945, three more aunts were deported to Theresienstadt, but survived. On February 15, 1945, at the age of only 15, their brother Karl died in a low-flying air raid. This was a hard blow for the family, and little was said about him.

During the Second World War, the Stephani congregation was the only congregation in Bremen that had spoken out against the National Socialists. Sara-Ruth's parents were very well integrated into this congregation, which put them before the Abraham family during the war. Sara-Ruth remembers this in particular. Thus Sara-Ruth was confirmed at the age of 14 in this very congregation. Moreover, she attended elementary school, where she felt that she was not wanted at school. Thus she was denied the possibility of a higher education. Her father did not see the need for it, because she was a woman. Sara-Ruth therefore decided on a commercial apprenticeship and later trained as a nurse. In the Bremen hospital she then met and fell in love with the doctor Friedrich-Wilhelm Schumann, so that they married in 1959. Already in the following year her son Thomas was born under great efforts, from which she recovered only slowly. She always had the desire to have six children, but she put this desire on hold after the first birth. The first years of marriage she spent, then usual for the wife of a doctor, at home, taking care of her son.

"We'll move in here, even if we throw away half the furniture" (Schumann 2014: 2).
These were the words of Sara-Ruth Schumann when she moved with her family into a small house with a beautiful garden at Bäkeweg 12 in Oldenburg in 1968. However, the role of mother was not enough for her and she started to work as a saleswoman in a small fashion store and later in a fashion store in Herbartgang. Due to her husband's disapproval of her activity, Sara-Ruth had many self-doubts in the beginning, but she wanted to be independent from her husband and earn her own money.

In 1972, Sara-Ruth spoke for the first time in the close circle of her family about the time of the Third Reich and what happened to her and her family. It was a long and painful process, but one that was necessary for her to come to terms with what had happened.

The family expanded their small house and set up a small gallery. The Schumann couple had been interested in art for a long time and collected some works of art. Due to great growth of the project, they acquired gallery space in Achternstraße 42. This is how the city of Oldenburg became aware of Sara-Ruth, and she was offered a position in the cultural office, which gave her the opportunity to promote art to a greater extent, which is why she accepted the position. For many years she was part of the organization of the Cultural Summer in Oldenburg, and within this framework she managed to bring many exhibitions to the city. Because of her success, she was elected head of the cultural office.

At the end of the 1980s, Sara-Ruth, still Hedwig at the time, became strongly involved with the Jewish faith. Throughout her life, she found herself religiously grappling with the question of why she survived while many other people lost their lives in the Third Reich. So she found her way back to her roots and converted to Judaism. Since then she bore the name Sara-Ruth. Only two years after the conversion, on August 8, 1992, the Jewish Community of Oldenburg was founded, and she was one of the 16 co-founders. Her experience with politics, the city of Oldenburg as well as the press and the organization of events, but also her financial independence and her commercial education helped her to become the first chairwoman of the Jewish Community. She said it was a miracle that this was possible at all and saw it as her life's work (cf. Schumann 2014). Without Sara-Ruth, the reestablishment would probably never have happened. From the beginning, she advocated for equal rights for women in the congregation, where women are full members of the worship service. Sara-Ruth Schumann also made efforts to find a new rabbi, bringing Bea Wyler to Oldenburg. Ms. Wyler was the first female rabbi in all of Germany after the Shoah.

In March 1995, Sara-Ruth Schumann accepted the key to the new synagogue at the former Wilhelmstraße 17, now Leo-Trepp-Straße 17.

On December 31, 1996, Sara-Ruth had the "Gallery 42" in Achternstraße closed, which she gladly gave up for work in the cultural office. In addition to chairing the Jewish Community, she became deputy chairwoman of the State Association of Jewish Communities of Lower Saxony in 1996 and had been a member of the Broadcasting Council of the North German Broadcasting Corporation (NDR) since 1997. In addition, she was a member of the Board of Directors of the Central Council of Jews in Germany since 1998 and a member of the Board of Directors of the Coordinating Council of the Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation. Due to her outstanding leadership style of the Jewish community, with which she integrated immigrants from the former Soviet Union into the community, who made up 90% of the Oldenburg community, she was presented with the Federal Cross of Merit by the Lower Saxony Minister of Culture Renate Jürgens-Pieper in Hanover on April 19, 2001. The honor was done with the words: "Your work has made the participation of Jews in the city culture in Oldenburg visible again" (o.A. 2001).

"One's own happiness cannot arise on the misfortune of others" (Sara-Ruth Schumann's motto). On 08 May 2007 Hergen Garrelt was elected as the new head of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Kunsthandwerk e. V. as Sara-Ruth Schumann's successor.

In addition to her many business activities, she was fortunate in her private life to have grandchildren and a happy marriage with her husband. However, after 50 years together, he passed away in 2009 after a prolonged illness. Three years later, in the summer of 2012, Sara-Ruth also fell ill. She suffered from meningitis, which forced her to resign from the position of chairwoman of the Jewish community that same year, on October 03. Due to her services within the city of Oldenburg and Jewish life, she was awarded the Great City Seal of Oldenburg by Mayor Gerd Schwandner on January 21, 2014.

Due to her illness, she lived the last part of her life in the Hamburg nursing home Senator-Ernst-Weiß-Haus, near her son. Then on Sunday, October 26, 2014, she died at the age of 76 in the nursing home in Hamburg, but was buried in the new Jewish cemetery in Oldenburg on October 30, 2014. To this day she is considered the 'Good Soul' of the community and is still very much present, as without her the community would not be where it is today.