Family Josef and Emma Salomonson

Josef Salomonson, born in 1860 in Nordhorn, was a leading member of the Jewish community. For a long time he held the chair, led the services and taught the boys in religious matters of Judaism. The fact that he knew a variety of languages: the regional Low German, Yiddish and Hebräisch, Dutch, English and French, came in handy in his commercial life.

Josef Salomonson died already in 1930; his wife Emma née Dankwert followed him in 1937. Both lie in the Nordhorn Jewish cemetery in a double grave – a relative novelty in view of the single graves prevailing so far.

The two sons Erich (b. 1897) and Walter (b. 1903) überlegt, where they could build a new future as merchants because of the ever more strongly growing needs by the Nazi regime. An initial exploration in the British mandate territory of Palästina brought no results. So the brothers decided to emigrate to England. In the registration files it is called with date of 27.12.1938: „departure to London“.

1941 met the Brüder a bad fate: Erich got under a tram and died from the injuries.

Walter Salomonson, who had been completely blind since 1938, was able to master his life excellently, supported by his wife Paula.

As he was still the owner of a house in Nordhorn for a long time, he visited his former hometown almost every year. He died in 2004 at the ripe old age of 101 in London/Edgware.

At the time of the November progroms in 1938, the family had the niece of the Osnabrück painter Felix Nussbaum, Auguste Nussbaum, as a guest. She had fled from Emden to Nordhorn to escape the anti-Semitic attacks there – and experienced firsthand the Nazi storming of the Salomons' apartment at night on November 9. Immediately she took an opportunity to flee to the Netherlands and was able to save herself, albeit by very circuitous routes. Today she lives near Tel Aviv/Israel.