Together with the Soltau High School, the citizens' initiative "Soltau Shows History" is organizing an art exhibition at the Waldmühle Library. It commemorates the pogrom of November 10, 1938, at Soltau's Marktstraße 8. The exhibition begins on October 30 at 5 p.m. and runs until November 8 at 1 p.m. It can be visited free of charge during the Waldmühle Library's opening hours.
The artist Gunter Demnig will lay seven Remembrance Stones in front of the building at Marktstraße 8 on November 6 at 9 a.m. Following this, a special ceremony will take place as part of the art exhibition starting at 10:30 a.m. Relatives of Ursula, then nine years old and granddaughter of Simon "Sally" and Ida "Henny" Lennhoff, are traveling from California and will sign the city's Golden Book at the library.
The exhibition features paintings and sculptures by students from Soltau High School and the artist Dietlind Horstmann-Köpper, who will guide guests through the second part of the morning starting at 10:30 a.m. The young people have spent a week exploring the Soltau pogrom. Dietlind Horstmann-Köpper co-initiated and partially accompanied the creative process. She herself has been exploring the topic of "remembrance" for years, particularly the memory of Jewish poets and artists, as well as other victims. At the Waldmühle, she is exhibiting a large, already completed triptych, which will serve as the opening to a further exhibition on the Lennhoff and Feilmann families. "Whether the current exhibition will subsequently travel to Soltau and the Heidekreis region is still unclear, but would be desirable," say members of the "Soltau Shows History" initiative.
"A teddy bear appears more frequently in the paintings and sculptures," says Ms. Mills, the students' history teacher, who, along with Ms. Killian, the art teacher, and others, supervised the project week before the summer holidays. "This has something to do with the eyewitness accounts," says Barbara Meier, historian and spokesperson for “Soltau shows history”. They describe how, after the shop and apartment were stormed, not only beds, furniture, and clothing, but also personal items such as the toys of Ursula, who was nine years old at the time, were thrown out of the first-story windows onto the street. With each impact, there were triumphant cheers from the rapidly growing crowd. Not only SA units, city employees, teachers, and school classes from what is now the Freudenthal School were part of the crowd, but also ordinary citizens. Cheers like "Jew, die!" came maliciously and noisily from the crowd. The idea of little Ursula seeing everything she held dear end up on the street apparently motivated the project's students to incorporate teddy bears into their work. In 2013, Ursula, then 84, described it as the end of her childhood in an interview with the Böhme newspaper. The exhibits clearly demonstrate how deeply the young people engaged with the girl. The knowledge of the relationship to favorite objects is presented expressively and with great sensitivity.
Soltau High School and the "Soltau Shows History" initiative would be delighted if as many people as possible could find the time to participate in the special exhibition after the Remembrance Stones laying ceremony. Visits from vocational schools and secondary school classes in the Heidekreis district with their teachers are expressly encouraged.
Attachments:
"That was the end of my childhood," a work by student Anastasia, became the cover image of the exhibition.
Crowd in front of the stormed building at Marktstraße 8, a work by student Josephine.
Replica of the building at Marktstraße 8 (as it was before the pogrom), a work by students Luk, Nik, Marlon, and Paul.
Colorful dress and no "invisibility" for Ursula, a work by student Hanna.
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