On June 23, 2024, our dear friend the former Jawne pupil Lore Robinson died at the age of 100. We are so grateful that we could get to know her in 2009. Her visit to the Jawne Memorial and Educational Center in Cologne was the beginning of a long series of impressive encounters in Cologne and in London. Through Lore, we learnt a chapter of Jawne history from the perspective of a bright and self-confident student. She also told us a lot about her experience of the “Kindertransport” to England in 1939, growing up without her parents and coming to terms with Nazi history after 1945.
How good that our current exhibition also commemorates Lore. The poster for the exhibition shows her as a child in front of her parents’ house on Salierring, climbing up a rather dangerous fence. She was as courageous as in the photo even in her 80s, and even at the age of 100 she still radiated serenity and cheerfulness.
We mourn with the family. Goodbye Lore, we will never forget you.
Lore Robinson, née Michel | January 29, 1924 – June 23, 2024 (Bild: Axel Joerss)
Tuesday, May 21, 2024
Guest from the USA
On Sunday, May 19, 2024, Lisa Aronson from Ojai (California, USA) visited the Jawne Memorial and Educational Center. Lisa is the daughter of former Jawne student Hanneliese Fürst, who was able to leave for Great Britain in February 1939 on a “Kindertransport” organized by the school’s principal Dr. Erich Klibansky, thus saving her from further persecution by the Nazis.
The Fürst family lived at number 81 Mauritiussteinweg, in the Cologne city center and ran a factory there that made hats, masks and carnival accessories. During Pogrom Night in November 1938, the interior of the factory was largely destroyed, and it was later “confiscated” by the Nazis. By a stroke of luck, Hanneliese’s parents, Herta and Erich Fürst, managed to find jobs as domestic servants in Scotland and were able to leave in August 1939. Their son Helmut Max had already been accepted at an art school in London in 1937, their second son, Hans Hermann, was able to travel to Belgium on a “Kindertransport” and finally to England. On May 16, 1940, the Fürst family, now reunited in Great Britain, was able to board a ship in Liverpool and emigrate to the USA. Other members of the family died in various ghettos and concentration camps.
In the USA, the former Jawne student Hanneliese was now called Jan (Janet). Among other things, she worked as a secretary for the well-known cartoonist Bill Mauldin and had three daughters.
Following in the footsteps of her mother and family, Lisa Aronson visited the archive of the Cologne NS-Documentation Center, the Jawne Memorial and Educational Center as well as Mauritiuswall 81. Except for the stumbling blocks (memorial stones) for her murdered great-aunt Irma and her husband Ernst Schönholz, nothing there reminds of the Fürst family and their factory. In 2025, more stones will be laid for the family at this location, and Lisa is already planning to be there with members of the family.
We very much look forward to welcoming you back, Lisa!
Tuesday, March 14, 2023
Current special exhibition (extended until October 22, 2023)
Former Jawne student Jona Hatsor (formerly Jonas Koenigshoefer) and the Jawne Memorial and Educational Center were closely connected through various projects between 2007 and his death in April 2015. The five children of the Koenigshoefer family attended Moriah Elementary School, and sons Samuel and Jonas later attended Jawne High School.
In reviewing the extensive estate of Jona Hatsor, various documents directly related to teaching at Jawne were found in the form of exercise books, textbooks, separate essays, linoleum prints, and drawings. Some of these very special and valuable documents are now on public display for the first time. We have been able to make high-quality reproductions of Jonas’ exercise books and some of his drawings. In the light of the almost complete erasure of the history of the Jawne and the Jewish center that was located on St. Apern Street, the testimonies of the creative activity and learning that took place at this site are of the utmost importance.
In addition to a series of individual photographs by photo enthusiast Jonas, annotated reproductions of three very different photo albums are on display, including the lovingly prepared documentation of a trip to Palestine in 1936, which he won in an essay contest when he was only fifteen years old.
Letters and postcards provide insight into the lives and development of the siblings, who arrived in England on Kindertransports. Due to the strict censorship, their mother Else could not express her despair and tried to hide the description of her personal situation and the conditions in Germany between the lines.
Other documents give information about Jonas’ voluntary service as soldier in the British Army as well as about the arrest, deportation and murder of his parents – Else and Leo Koenigshoefer – in Auschwitz.
We appreciate your interest!
Group tours are also possible outside of opening hours by prior arrangement. Please send your inquiries by e-mail to info@jawne.de
Saturday, November 28, 2020
November 28, 1900 | November 28, 2020
Photo: Jona Hatsor
On the occasion of his 120th birthday we remember Erich Klibansky. He was principal of the Jewish Gymnasium Jawne between 1929 and 1942. By virtue of his organisational talents he was able to help about 130 students flee Nazi Germany.
Erich Klibansky was murdered aged 41. He was deported with his family from Cologne to Minsk July 20, 1942, and shot in the Blagovshchina forest July 24, 1942.
