Walter Brill

Walter Brill was born on 13.10.1910 as one of four children of the master butcher and furniture manufacturer Hugo Brill and his wife Selma Brill, née Blume in Herzebrock, North Rhine-Westphalia. With his parents he moved into an apartment at Neuerweg 41 in Wolfenbüttel and also attended the Samson School here from Easter 1920. As one of 9 students in the class, he was certified for his behavior and order in the house with "Very Good" and his attention, diligence, order in school with a "Good" in 1924. From 1927 to 1929, Walter Brill was trained as a master carpenter and "passed his journeyman= (assistant=) examination in the carpentry trade today before the undersigned examination committee." Only finding a suitable job after his training did not seem to be easy for him. Thus Brill wrote to his later wife Irmgard Levy in November 1929: "Despite all efforts, I still have no job. Today I sent another letter and yesterday I was already on the way to Borken i. W. by car at 8 o'clock. Everywhere you hear the same thing. They all don't want to create their own competition, much less let a furniture manufacturer see their calculations. For the time being, I have no choice but to search, write, wait and possibly write again. When Walter Brill was 24 years old, his mother Selma Brill died.

At about 19 years of age, Walter Brill met his future wife Irmgard Levy. In many preserved letters, the young couple exchanged ideas about dance balls, Jewish holidays such as Yom Kippur, or visits to the synagogue in the neighboring village of Rheda. Over time, "Dear Irmgard" became "My beloved birthday girl" and then "My dear sweet girl". Thus, as a reader of the letters, one observes the tenderly growing love of two people in a politically increasingly difficult time due to the takeover of power by the National Socialists in 1933. The letters reveal that Irmgard and Walter were already engaged in 1936. For example, on March 25, 1936, Walter Brill wrote to his future wife Irmgard: "Does a fiancé now have any mind left for meaningful thoughts, or is it enough if everything is set on love." At a later time and with a different pen, he continued: "I have just read through the above and must now conclude that I am still lacking a great deal in sentence structure and expression. You will nevertheless understand the meaning and therefore I will not tear in two this attempt at unsuccessful love letter writing. Darling, on Saturday we are all expecting you and your mother. [...] Hopefully we will have as good weather as now, so that my mother-in-law will find sunshine over Herzebrock." On July 29, 1938, the wedding with Irmgard Levy followed in the prayer hall Herzog-Max Straße 3/5 in Munich.
 

Irmgard and Walter Brill married both civilly and religiously through the rabbinate of the Jewish Community of Munich. Already in his youth Brill attended synagogue and also the religious marriage testifies to the fact that Judaism was a relatively fixed part of his life. Nevertheless, he also seemed to deal with it with a certain looseness in his youth, for example, Brill wrote in a letter to Irmgard on November 6, 1929 "I was not as pious as you were on Yom Kippur." and further flirted "I was in the synagogue for 3 minutes at the most. Until 11 o'clock I slept. Then I drove with my friend to Rheda, there is the synagogue, just went in and since it was too boring for us and the air was not as fresh as outside, we first drove around a bit with the B.M.W. and then we sat down in Rheda in the Fürstl. Park and read." Less than nine years later, the synagogue in Rheda was destroyed by the Nazis during the November pogroms of 1938. Walter Brill was already living in Munich at that time. In the November pogroms of 1938 throughout Germany, the anti-Semitism that had been state-sponsored since 1933 culminated in an open outbreak of violence against German Jews, and the Brills were also exposed to this danger.

In 1939, the Brills managed to leave for England. On April 1, 1939, now already forced as "Israel Walter Brill", the Brills were issued a visa in Berlin to enter England. Thus they were able to save themselves from the persecution and murder of millions of Jews. In a letter from France on May 21, 1945, Brill's sister, also Irmgard, described the catastrophic conditions of imprisonment at the Auschwitz death camp, which she survived: "Dear Walter, lb. Irmgard, [...] I was liberated by the Americans on April 1 in Kaunitz near Lippstadt [...] Unfortunately, I no longer have any hope of seeing our lb. Bruno [brother] again, after what I have personally seen done to the people. [...] Upon arrival, my fate was approximately decided. To live or to die, because as one gets out of the cattle car one is chosen and all that on "good luck". Of us 1500 people, women and children, 37 young girls and 60 young men were sent to the camp. All the others were sent to the gas chambers and later to the crematorium. [...] I did not write to you that I was bald + tattooed. I have the NR. 75911 + a triangle under it, which means Jew now on my arm. Unfortunately I could not go to Herzebrock or Rheda after the liberation because I was considered French by the French. [...]" Irmgard Brill's father Philipp Levi was declared dead on May 8, 1945. Walter Brill's father Hugo Brill managed to emigrate to Belgium, where he remarried.

In England were born sons Walter and Irmgard Brills Winston Jonas (1939 in London),  Ralph David (1944), and Peter Beno (1946). The last place of residence in England was 4 Chatham Road, in Worthing Sussex. Ten years later, on November 17, 1949, the entire family emigrated to the USA on the "SS Ile de France". On April 25, 1951, the Brills applied for citizenship in the United States. Four years later, on April 13, 1955, Walter and Irmgard Brill were then granted American citizenship: "Be it known that at a term of the District Court of The United States geld pursuant to law at Newark on April 13th, 1955 the Court having found that WALTER BRILL then residing at 44 Wainwright St., Newark, N.J. intends to reside permanently in the United States [...] and was entitled to be admitted [...] as a citizen of the United States of America."  In 1975, Walter Brill was still living at 245 Parker Ave in Maplewood/New Jersey 07040 in the United States. Walter Brill's father, Hugo Brill, returned to Herzebrock after the war. Here Walter Brill visited him, for example, in 1956 for his 70th birthday. In 1989, Walter Brill passed away.

Theresia Ziehe, then Curator of Photography at the  Jewish Museum Berlin, met Walter Brill's son, Ralph Brill, there in 2009 and learned about his eventful life and family history. In 2013, Ralph Brill bequeathed his father's documentary and photographic holdings to the Jewish Museum in the presence of his own children. Therefore, 125 well-preserved photographs and documents (the oldest from 1913, the most recent from 2013) are now open to the historically interested public for research in the archive of the Jewish Museum. They provide information about the life and work of three generations of the Brill family. Among official documents and certificates, there are some personal treasures, such as love letters, but also the impressive letter of Walter Brill's sister with descriptions of the deportation, the daily life in the camp and the liberation from the concentration camp Auschwitz. A half-brother of Walter Brill, Simon Brill, also keeps the memory of the Brill family alive. He visited the Einstein-Gymnasium in Rheda-Wiedenbrückt to tell the story of his family to the students. For Ralph Brill it was important, in agreement with his brothers Winston and Peter Brill,   "to bring the over 200-year history of his family back to Germany", "where it began many years ago".