City walk Frankfurt am Main: Places of remembrance in Ostend

Passenger and freight traffic from Bavaria and Saxony used to terminate at the former Hanau railroad station - today's Ostbahnhof - from where passengers could easily travel by streetcar from Ostend to Frankfurt city center. The first station building was located a little further west of the current site on an area on Hanauer Landstraße between Windeckstraße and Rückertstraße. Around 1900, a new station building was erected in the Wilhelminian style. The goods station was expanded; Osthafen, the wholesale market and numerous production facilities located in Ostend were soon handling goods there. Ostbahnhof has links to the most shameful chapter in Frankfurt's history. From 1943 onwards, transports with goods wagons repeatedly departed from there, often to the Theresienstadt transit and concentration camp. On February 14, 1945, 302 women, men and children persecuted as Jews were forcibly deported and on March 15, 1945, another five people were deported; eleven days before US troops reached Frankfurt to liberate the city. The dilapidated Ostbahnhof was demolished in 2023.

Since 2015, the "Memorial at the Frankfurt Grossmarkthalle" has commemorated the deportations from Frankfurt. Within less than a year - October 20, 1941 to September 24, 1942 - more than 10,000 people were forcibly deported to ghettos, concentration and extermination camps in ten mass deportations. Further smaller transports from here or other assembly points followed until March 1945, mostly affecting members of mixed-denominational families. The Grossmarkthalle was designed by the architect Martin Elsaesser in the mid-1920s. It was designed to the highest structural standards for modern trade and the smooth handling of fruit and vegetables: with practical loading ramps, generously dimensioned refrigerated cellars, rail connections with covered tracks and its own signal box. From 1941, the Secret State Police and NSDAP Gauleitung perverted the functionality of the building for their murderous purposes. This location was chosen because it was close to the city center and conveniently located between the harbor railroad and Ostbahnhof. The terror authorities rented the eastern basement area as a collection point for the deportations. The cellar offered protection from prying eyes on the crime and provided makeshift space for the many hundreds of tortured people. Women, men and children were humiliated and physically abused by the personnel deployed. Robbed of their last possessions, they were finally forced onto the track in front of the hall. The Deutsche Reichsbahn trains were waiting there to transport them to their deaths. Daily market operations continued on the site. Not only Gestapo officers and party functionaries were on duty at and in the wholesale market hall. "Normal" police officers, finance and railroad officials as well as employees of various municipal offices were also involved in the deportations. The city administration and many non-Jewish private individuals profited from the property left behind by the deportees. Others moved into apartments and houses from which Jews had been expelled. According to the design by the KatzKaiser architecture firm, quotes from anti-Semitic persecutees and observers of the deportations depict the horrific events at the memorial site. Embedded in the floor and on wall surfaces, the quotes follow a chronological dramaturgy of the crime. Indirect events and emotions are also addressed: the suicides in connection with the deportations, the reactions of the city's population or the reflection on the mass murder in Frankfurt. Guided tours: https://www.juedischesmuseum.de/besuch/fuehrungsangebote/

Rosa Marx, née Schwab (1888- 1942), was born in Randegg (Baden). Together with her husband Isidor Marx, she ran the Israelite Orphanage at Röderbergweg 87 from 1918, which was one of the welfare institutions of the Israelite Religious Society (IRG). From 1935 at the latest, more and more applications for admission were made, especially by families from the surrounding area. Despite overcrowding and material hardship, the orphanage always remained one of the "islands of human warmth" (Salomon Adler-Rudel). In the months following the November pogrom of 1938, Isidor Marx succeeded in rescuing numerous children and young people to England, Holland and France. On Rosa Marx's advice, he did not return to Frankfurt from Great Britain just before the start of the war - and was thus able to survive in exile. In the end, Rosa Marx had to sell furniture to make a living. Daughter Hanna was able to escape to the USA. Rosa Marx was probably forcibly deported from Frankfurt "to the East" on June 11, 1942 and murdered. Since 2006, a path to the west of the European Central Bank has commemorated the courageous home director.

Just a few weeks after coming to power on January 30, 1933, the National Socialist city administration of Frankfurt under Lord Mayor Friedrich Krebs began renaming streets and squares. In particular, the names of prominent Jewish citizens, personalities of the labor movement and democratic politicians of the Weimar Republic were to disappear from public space and consciousness. In February 1935, the so-called Street Naming Committee in the municipal building department sent the Lord Mayor a list of "streets to be renamed immediately". Item no. 6 concerned Sonnemannstrasse, which was to be called Max-Eyth-Strasse from then on. The reason: "[Leopold] Sonnemann was editor of the Frankfurter Zeitung and as such, as well as a member of the Reichstag, a fierce advocate of liberalism." Leopold Sonnemann was also Jewish. At the time, large properties belonging to the Landwirtschaftlicher Verein and, since 1928, the Grossmarkthalle were located on the street. It therefore fitted in ideologically with the city's concept to name Sonnemannstraße after the engineer, writer and draughtsman, a promoter of agriculture and the inventor of the steam plow. After the Second World War, Max-Eyth-Straße was again named after the generous patron Leopold Sonnemann.

In 2010, the city of Frankfurt am Main named a square between Sonnemannstraße and Ostendstraße after the lawyer, journalist and historian Paul Arnsberg (1899-1978); in 2011, a stainless steel memorial column was installed there for the namesake, designed by the sculptor Clemens M. Strugalla. A simple relief shows a portrait of Arnsberg with biographical details, stylized motifs of former Jewish life in Ostend and Jewish festivals. Paul Arnsberg was born in Frankfurt am Main in 1890. He studied law and received his doctorate in 1922. After Hitler came to power, Arnsberg was dismissed from the judiciary and fled to Palestine in 1933; 25 years later he returned to the city of his birth. Arnsberg was passionate about journalism and history. As early as the 1920s, he wrote for the Frankfurter Zeitung, the Frankfurter Wochenblatt and the Jüdisches Wochenblatt; he also edited the Jüdisches Familienblatt für Wissenschaft, Kunst und Literatur and - as a committed Zionist - the Zionistische Nachrichten. From 1919 to 1933, he was a member of the board of the Frankfurt Zionist Association and its chairman in 1925/26. From 1931 to 1933, Arnsberg was a member of the Frankfurt Jewish community council. In exile, he married Rosl Abramowitsch; the marriage produced four children. In Israel, Arnsberg founded the country's largest distributor of newspapers and books. Arnsberg returned to Frankfurt in 1958 and worked as a journalist again, from 1960 for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. He was a board member of the Jewish community and worked to promote understanding between Germans and Jews. As a historian, Arnsberg became known above all for his documentation of the history of Jews in Frankfurt and Hesse. Paul Arnsberg died in 1978. In memory of the couple, the Polytechnische Gesellschaft Foundation has awarded the Rosl and Paul Arnsberg Prize for research into Jewish life in Frankfurt am Main every two years since 2008.

In 1877, Charlotte Speyer, née Stern, founded the Mädchenstift (Philipp and Charlotte Speyer Foundation) in memory of her late husband Philipp Speyer. The facility at Rückerstraße 9 (later house number 49) provided space for 22 women and was intended to give "young working girls a home and family". Around 1935, the foundation became a "Jewish Apprentice Home" attached to the Counseling Center for Economic Aid. From 1941, the building served as a "Jewish old people's home". After the November pogroms, many elderly people had moved to Frankfurt from the Hessian countryside. In the anonymous city, they hoped for protection and the chance to save themselves after all. On August 18, 1942, during the seventh mass deportation, the more than 40 elderly residents of the house were deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto. The building was destroyed during the war or demolished after 1945.

In memory of the Frankfurt banker Zacharias Wertheimber, a foundation of the same name was established in 1888. According to its statutes, the purpose of the foundation was "the establishment and endowment of a synagogue and a teaching foundation in Frankfurt am Main". The synagogue to be built was to bear the name Klaus Synagogue. This was a reference to a synagogue of the same name, which had been built by Zacharias Wertheimbers' ancestors in 1680 and had been located in Frankfurt's Judengasse from 1711. This original Klaus Synagogue was demolished in 1875 when the Judengasse was redeveloped. With the help of the foundation's capital, the building at Ostendstraße 15 was completed in 1902. The prayer hall had a capacity of 70 seats for men and 56 for women. In addition to the prayer room, the first floor of the building also housed a classroom and a Hebraica library. A particular concern of the foundation was the free support of "unprivileged Jewish children" in the Jewish religion, Hebrew language and secular subjects. The foundation's statutes also required a daily religious service to be held. Furthermore, "self-study in the subjects of Jewish religious studies" was to be made possible for all interested parties. The foundation felt committed to Orthodox Judaism and was close to the Israelite Religious Society. According to Paul Arnsberg, the services in the "Klaus" were conducted by Rabbi Josef Breuer (1882-1980) from 1919. During the November pogrom of 1938, the interior of the synagogue was "completely destroyed by fire and the rest of the building was also damaged". A mob threw prayer books and religious objects onto the street. Eight Torah scrolls and the library with around 500 volumes were destroyed. The property was acquired by Reinhold and Antonie Betz in 1941 for less than it was worth. The notary justified the loss in value by pointing out that the synagogue had been vandalized in November 1938. The members of the foundation's board of directors managed to flee the German Reich in time.

"If you want to see an eastern yeshiva with all its colorful, noisy hustle and bustle, you don't have to make the complicated journey to Kovno or Vilnius, just walk along Ostendstrasse and stop (...) in front of the simple house, which contains a piece of Lithuania in the best and most Jewish sense." (Der Israelit from April 11, 1922) Rabbi Mosche Schneider founded the yeshiva at Ostendstraße 18 in 1917. He was of Lithuanian origin and had received his education in Vilnius and Voronovo. Initially, the school was used for the religious instruction of Jewish refugee children from Eastern European countries. Later, pupils of German origin were also accepted. Over the years, the yeshiva grew to around 70-80 bachurim [Talmud students, author's note]. In 1929, the two rabbis Moshe Karpel and Judelewitz were named as teachers alongside Moshe Schneider. A shiur lasting several hours was held twice a day according to the "Lithuanian learning method". Between 1924 and 1933, the institution repeatedly found itself in financial difficulties, so that a board of trustees was founded to ensure the "collection of regular monthly contributions for the maintenance and promotion of Torah studies". From the mid-1930s, the Bachurim prepared for emigration to Palestine by completing craft courses. In 1935, the school was moved to Rechneigrabenstraße 12. After the November pogrom of 1938, Mosche Schneider went to London with some of the pupils, where he continued his teaching activities. On March 15, 1943, the address at Ostendstraße 18 was designated as "communal accommodation"; during the deportation phase, the City of Frankfurt and the Secret State Police turned former Jewish places of care, education and religious practice into places of violence.

Master baker Aron Mainzer opened the bakery at Hanauer Landstraße 1 in 1902. The bakery enjoyed great popularity until the National Socialists came to power - both with Jewish and non-Jewish customers. In the best times, Aron Mainzer employed around twelve workers and employees. In addition to bread and rolls, challot, a type of yeast plait for Shabbat evening, as well as crumble cake and Frankfurter Kranz were made on Fridays. The Mainzer bakery also took on large orders. For example, it supplied the Rothschild Hospital on Röderbergweg, Gumpertz'sche Siechenhaus and the Israelite Orphanage with baked goods. From 1933, especially after the April boycott, the economic situation of the family business deteriorated. The non-Jewish customers soon dried up. Even the bulk buyers now ordered smaller quantities. During the pogrom night in November 1938, the windows of the apartment and the store were smashed. In January 1939, Aron Mainzer gave up the business; he had to sell the bakery to the "Aryan" master baker Heinrich Reuschling at a price far below its value. Aron Mainzer, his wife Ida Mainzer, née Rosenbaum, and their four children managed to flee to Palestine. The family settled in Tel Aviv.

From its foundation in 1851, the neo-orthodox Jewish Religious Society recorded a steady increase in membership. Despite the expansion of the synagogue on Schützenstraße in 1873, its capacity was soon no longer sufficient. Thanks to donations from the ranks of the Jewish Religious Society and from Wilhelm Carl Baron von Rothschild, a new building was erected on the Friedberger Anlage between 1905 and 1907. With 1000 seats for men and another 600 for women, the synagogue on Friedberger Anlage was the largest Jewish place of worship in the city. In addition to neo-Romanesque forms, the architects Jürgensen & Bachmann quoted Oriental-Moorish and Art Nouveau motifs. In accordance with the Orthodox rite, the bima was located in the center of the elongated synagogue room. Women and men entered the building via separate entrances; the women were seated in the gallery. Salomon Breuer served as rabbi until his death in 1926. His successor was Josef Jona Horovitz, who survived the Shoah in the USA. The synagogue on Friedberger Anlage was set on fire several times in the early hours of November 10, 1938 and the following days. According to the compensation file, 35 Torah scrolls were destroyed. The demolition work took more than six months. The Israelite Religious Society had to cover the costs. In 1942/43, the German Reich had an air raid shelter built by forced laborers on the site of the demolished synagogue. A memorial was erected in front of the bunker by the City of Frankfurt in 1988. Since 2004, the 9 November Initiative has been showing exhibitions in the bunker and offers a varied program of events on the topics of Jewish history and the Shoah. The permanent exhibition curated by the Jewish Museum Frankfurt, "Ostend. View of a Jewish Quarter", curated by the Jewish Museum Frankfurt, is also located in the building. Opening hours and further information can be found on the website of the Jewish Museum https://www.juedischesmuseum.de/besuch/hochbunker-friedberger-anlage/.

The city of Frankfurt am Main realized the first Heine monument in the German Reich. In June 1910, the "Committee for the Erection of a Heine Monument" was founded in Frankfurt under the chair of the Frankfurt Free Literary Society Paul Fulda; at the request of the committee, the planned work of art was to explicitly honor the poet and not the revolutionary Heinrich Heine. The sculptor Georg Kolbe was commissioned to create the monument. Anti-Semitic hostility had already accompanied the inauguration of the "Dancing Youth" monument on December 13, 1913 on Heinrich Heine's 116th birthday in the Friedberger Anlage, right next to the synagogue of the Israelite Religious Society, which was completed in 1907. In 1923, after the "Hitler Putsch" in Munich, the memorial was smeared with a swastika by unknown persons. In April 1933, a mob toppled the work of art from its pedestal. According to an article in the "Frankfurter Generalanzeiger", the bronze group of figures was brutally loosened with a chisel and was then to be taken to the Museum of Ethnology (sic!). Disguised under the name "Spring Song", the slightly damaged work of art survived the National Socialist era and the Second World War in the garden of the Städel Museum. On December 14, 1947, the monument was re-erected to mark the 150th anniversary of Heinrich Heine's birth - but no longer in the Friedberger Anlage, but in the Taunusanlage, which is located opposite it in terms of the city's topography. It was given a new plinth and a portrait relief with the inscription "Heinrich Heine". The inauguration was performed by Lord Mayor Walter Kolb. In December 1964, at the time of the 1st Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial, unknown persons carried out an attack on the Heine monument; the profile portrait on the plinth was smeared with plaster. On September 20, 2023, the Heine monument returned to the Friedberg grounds - very close to its original location. The 110-year odyssey came to an end with an impressive ceremony organized by the Initiative 9. November e. V.

The original Café Milani was located on Roßmarkt from 1848. The owner was the Italian immigrant Christian Joseph Milani. At the time of the National Assembly in 1848/49, the elegant coffee house became a meeting place for the right-wing conservative faction. Milani also managed to lease the Bethmann'sche Museum in Frankfurt's ramparts, where he also ran a café. From 1853, the café bore the name Kursaal Milani. In his essay "Treffpunkt der Juden: das Kaffeehaus" (Meeting place for Jews: the coffee house) from 1970, the Frankfurt lawyer and historian Paul Arnsberg (1899-1978) describes the use of the location: "This is how the Kursaal Milani came into being in the promenade of the Friedberger Anlage. This Kursaal Milani, which today houses the ODEON establishment, was for many years a meeting place for the Ostend population, primarily the Jewish residents of the Ostend. Artists' concerts were held there and it was the meeting place for the entire 'Jewish Ostend', especially on the Sabbath." The Kursaal Milani was the clubhouse of the Frankfurt Zionist Association. The Jewish Women's Association and the Central Association of Israelite Community Members also held their general meetings here. Paul Arnsberg, himself a board member of the Frankfurt Zionist Association, even described the Kursaal as the "center of the Zionist movement". On January 13, 1911, the Frankfurt Zionist Fritz Sondheimer gave a lecture there on the subject of "Zionism and Germanness". Religious groups such as the "Tiferes Bachurim" association also regularly used the restaurant as a meeting place. In the 1920s, it was renamed the "Ballhaus Odeon". Today, the listed building houses a cocktail bar. As a Jewish place, the location is largely forgotten.