By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson
MEVASSERET ZION, Israel — My connection with the city-state of Hamburg in Germany is due to the fact that my late father, Manfred Vanson, was born and brought up there. He lived there from his birth in 1916 until 1938, when he managed to flee to England after the November 9th pogrom (‘Kristallnacht’).
My father had fond memories of Hamburg, where his family were prominent members of the Jewish community, but refused to have any contact with the authorities there after the war. However, until his death in Israel in September 2003 he cooperated with researchers to create a a book containing the letters written in German by his mother before she was deported to Theresienstadt, and in the few months remaining to her there until her death in 1942. When this was published, in 2005, a ceremony was held in Hamburg, and a stolperstain (memorial marker) was set in the pavement outside the building where his mother had lived.
After my father’s death the Hamburg municipality kept in touch with me through the office of the Jewish Community there. To this day I receive a newsletter every year with information about their activities together with a beautiful wall-calendar with photos of Hamburg. On my 80th birthday I even received a letter of congratulations from the President of the Hamburg Senate (i.e., the mayor).
Approximately two years ago I was contacted by the Institute for the History of the German Jews, based in Hamburg which, together with the Association for Culture and Media, was embarking on a project to commemorate the Jewish families which had once lived in Hamburg. I was asked to send some family photographs of life in Hamburg as well as to write a few words about our connection with the city.
This I duly did to the best of my ability, trying to keep to the timetable that had been set and to send digital photos of the right quality (this involved another round of photos, this time taken by one of my sons whose mastery of the digital medium far exceeds my own).
Eventually the end-product of this enterprise arrived in my postbox. It contained a large-format soft-cover volume with four pages devoted to each of the seventeen families whose photos appear in the book. The book’s subtitle, ‘Visualizing the Past, Creating the Future,’ sums up the essence of the editors’ concept in creating it. In the photos of the various families we see smiling faces as people enjoyed the life of the city – swimming, hiking, attending concerts and plays, and above all benefiting from a tranquil family life.
Each page is set up in a pleasing and aesthetic way, combining photos and text in both German and English. The book in its entirety gives a picture of the settled, comfortable life enjoyed by Hamburg’s Jews before the cataclysm engendered by Nazi rule. It’s worth noting that of the approximately 12,000 Jews living in Hamburg before the war about half managed to emigrate, the rest being murdered during the Holocaust.
I found the book very moving, and wrote to the editors to thank them for the three copies sent to me and my sisters. I was overjoyed to receive a reply stating that they had felt “honoured and privileged” to work with the families and expressed their commitment to continuing the work of commemorating the life of Hamburg’s once-vibrant Jewish community.
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Dorothea Shefer-Vanson is an author and freelance writer based in the Jerusalem suburb of Mevasseret Zion, Israel.