In Germany, young and old bear witness to Holocaust horrors

DW (English)

At 92, Ingeburg Geissler is still bearing witness to the horrors of Nazi terror. Her experiences as a Holocaust survivor, and the stories of many other victims, are being told to educate today's schoolchildren.

Transcript

00:00For these students, this holocaust project has become personal.

00:05That's because a former student of their school

00:08was murdered by the Nazis 82 years ago.

00:11Werner Spandau was persecuted by the Nazi regime

00:15and imprisoned in several concentration camps

00:18because he stood up to fascism.

00:20Now they're learning about his story.

00:23The highlight of the project was installing a stumbling stone

00:27in front of Werner Spandau's former home in Berlin.

00:31At first I didn't realize that I was reading and learning

00:34about a story about people that really happened.

00:37But then I understood, yes, this really happened.

00:40Ingeborg Geisler is a holocaust survivor.

00:43She's looking through pictures as she tells her story.

00:46Her mother had this photo taken of her when she was about 9 years old

00:50to convince the authorities that the way Ingeborg looked

00:53didn't fit the Nazis' racist ideology.

00:57I don't know if my mother explained to me

01:00what she needed the picture for.

01:03I can't say.

01:06But later, of course, I realized it.

01:10And then, I have to admit, I also looked at the photo

01:13to see if there was anything about me that looked Jewish.

01:17I didn't find anything.

01:22Ingeborg's father was Jewish and her mother was Christian.

01:26Her father was able to emigrate to China,

01:29but her mother tried to remain inconspicuous.

01:32Ingeborg Frank, as she was called back then,

01:35stayed with her aunt and uncle in a small town in eastern Germany.

01:40I was the only one in Marbach who had to wear a star.

01:44There was a teacher there named Möbius

01:47who was the local leader of the Nazi party.

01:51And he made it clear to the children

01:54that they could do whatever they wanted with Inge Frank.

01:57I was an outcast.

02:02And children can be very cruel.

02:08In 1941, she was banned from attending school,

02:11something that hurt her deeply.

02:14Somewhere in 1945, she was transported

02:17to the Theresienstadt concentration camp.

02:20A local police officer had tricked her

02:23by saying that she would be able to attend school there.

02:28There on the train, when I told others

02:32what the local policeman had told us,

02:37the adults said that it was all a big mistake.

02:44We would be killed.

02:46We are going to our deaths.

02:50Ingeborg wrote a postcard to her aunt and uncle

02:53and threw it out of the train window.

02:55By some miracle, the card was delivered.

02:58Dear aunt, dear uncle, I'm fine.

03:01It's all a lie. I'm not coming back.

03:05But Ingeborg did come back.

03:08Unlike Werner Spandau and six million Jews

03:11who became victims of the Holocaust.

03:14The students want to know how this could have happened.

03:17We delivered their questions to Ingeborg Geisler.

03:21Did you expect it before it all happened

03:24or did you somehow see it coming?

03:27There were many intellectuals, highly educated people,

03:31scholars and so on who stayed in Germany

03:34because they thought, well, it couldn't get that bad.

03:39It got worse.

03:42What was it like after the war,

03:45when things started to get back to normal

03:48and people went back to school?

03:50How were Jewish people treated then?

03:54As someone persecuted by the Nazi regime,

03:58I was very well looked after in the former East Germany.

04:03But officially, there wasn't any interest in what happened.

04:07I've spoken to relatives from West Germany

04:10who went to school after the Second World War

04:13and they said these things weren't part of their history classes either.

04:23She's been talking to young people about the Nazi era

04:27and her childhood for over 30 years,

04:30to keep history from repeating itself.

04:33The students are worried about Germany's political climate,

04:36its parallels to the past and the shift to the right.

04:42You get a bit scared when you watch the news.

04:46And also TikTok.

04:49There are always things where foreigners are being targeted by hate

04:53and I think that's kind of stupid.

05:00That's why the students want to continue telling the story of Werner Spandau.

05:05They want to ensure no one forgets Germany's reign of terror under the Nazi regime.

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