{"id":305,"date":"2021-10-25T08:25:58","date_gmt":"2021-10-25T08:25:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stolpersteine-goeppingen.de\/?page_id=305"},"modified":"2025-01-14T10:49:21","modified_gmt":"2025-01-14T10:49:21","slug":"dreifuss-lothar","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/stolpersteine-goeppingen.de\/en\/goeppingen\/dreifuss-lothar\/","title":{"rendered":"Dreifu\u00df, Lothar"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Gartenstr. 2<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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Jewish citizens had lived for two-and-a-half centuries in the small Baden town of K\u00f6nigsbach, located between Karlsruhe and Pforzheim, and represented a considerable proportion of the population. Lothar Dreifu\u00df was born there on April 24, 1916, in the house that still stands at Schulstra\u00dfe 9. His father Jakob was a cattle dealer. Lothar was the second child of his parents Jakob and Selma, born four years after his sister Norma.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Norma and Lothar<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Lothar is described as a \u201clarge, clumsy and simple-minded fellow\u201d in the ‘Heimatbuch’ [regional record book] of the K\u00f6nigsbach community.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Lothar Dreifu\u00df<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Subjected to mockery<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On November 10, 1938, the Jews of K\u00f6nigsbach were persecuted during the Pogrom Night as occurred in other cities nationwide. It has been documented that Nazi storm troopers came from out-of-town to K\u00f6nigsbach where they began their work of destruction. But they found plenty of locals who willingly pointed out where the Jewish citizens lived whose houses were then attacked. The synagogue was ordered to be burned down, but the mayor would not allow this because the surrounding houses would easily also catch on fire. Instead all the interior contents of the synagogue were dragged outside and burned in a bonfire at the square in front of it. Jewish men were forced to assist with the destruction of the sacred objects and one of them was beaten for no apparent reason and badly injured. Then the Nazis decided to tear off its roof because the synagogue had hardly been damaged. Some of the spectators objected because lots of good shingles would be smashed. According to the ‘Heimatbuch’ local Jewish citizens were forced to participate in the destruction, among them the handicapped Lothar Dreifu\u00df. A witness from that time remembered that Lothar \u201cwas terribly afraid that he would be forced to go up on the roof.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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left: K\u00f6nigsbach synagogue (Source: ‘Spuren J\u00fcdischen Lebens in K\u00f6nigsbach’, p. 80)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Entry not welcome<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even though Lothar was not transported to the Dachau concentration camp like his father, he must have been traumatized during the Pogrom Night. The family decided immediately afterwords to flee Germany. They prepared for emigration to Brazil and were lucky enough to receive visas \u2013 everyone except Lothar.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The parents Selma and Jakob at the crossing to Brasil<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

In the restitution documents of 1964, his sister Norma is quoted as stating: \u201cHe was not allowed to emigrate with his parents because he did not meet the health stipulations for an immigration visa. He was mentally handicapped.\u201d Of course his parents did not want to leave their son behind without anything. A chest was packed for him which was described in correspondence as a \u201chope chest\u201d. In 1951, Lothar\u2019s father Jakob Dreifu\u00df made the following official statement in Rio de Janeiro: \u201cI hereby certify under oath that I spent the amount of RM 7,500.00 for outfitting my son Lothar Dreifu\u00df for emigration. A chest had been prepared for him, officially sealed and was ready to be shipped.\u201d This shows that the family had planned to bring Lothar to Brazil in the future, but until that could be arranged they arranged a safe home for him: in G\u00f6ppingen, where his aunt Lotte Sinn<\/a>, the widowed older sister of his father, lived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finding refuge with the aunt in G\u00f6ppingen, murdered in Riga<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the summer of 1939, Lotte Sinn was 59 years old. For quite some time her own children had not lived any longer in her large house at Gartenstra\u00dfe 2, where her deceased husband Theodor had operated a horse dealership. Not much is known about Lothar’s time in G\u00f6ppingen. After a few months he and his aunt were forced to leave the house in the Gartenstra\u00dfe and move to Geislinger Stra\u00dfe 6 with the D\u00f6rzbacher family who had to take in many of their fellow believers in Judaism. Lothar often spoke about his upcoming emigration, and his fantasies centered around his hope chest. As Hulda D\u00f6rzbacher remembered, he assumed that besides clothing, pillows and shoes it contained valuable jewels \u2013 however, that would have been highly unlikely because of the very restrictive export regulations.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Mother Selma and sister Norma<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

But Lothar’s hopes were dashed; much worse, his family was unable to save him. On December 1st, 1941 Lothar and his aunt Lotte were deported to Riga, where he led a miserable existence under inhuman treatment at Jungfernhof camp. He was probably shot at the end of March 1942 in the Bikernieki woods, like most of the inmates of the camp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other members of the Dreifu\u00df family were also murdered by the Nazis: Lothar\u2019s cousin Elsa Kooperberg, along with her husband Abraham and their children Theodor and Bethrina; as well as his uncle Hermann Dreifu\u00df and his wife Victoria. (See Stolperstein-page Lotte Sinn<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lothar’s mother died in 1948 and his father died in Brazilian exile in 1954. His sister Norma married and had two children. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Stumbling Stones Initiative was able to make contact with Lothar’s niece, Mrs. Marion Gideon, who lives in the USA. We are very thankful to her for the photos she made available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On November 25, 2011, Gunter Demnig placed a Stumbling Stone in front of the house at Gartenstra\u00dfe 2 in memory of Lothar Dreifu\u00df.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Gartenstra\u00dfe 2<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

(20th<\/sup> of December 2016 kmr\/ir)<\/p>\n\n\n

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Gartenstr. 2 Jewish citizens had lived for two-and-a-half centuries in the small Baden town of K\u00f6nigsbach, located between Karlsruhe and Pforzheim, and represented a considerable proportion of the population. Lothar Dreifu\u00df […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":118,"menu_order":10,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-305","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","post-preview"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"en","enabled_languages":["de","en"],"languages":{"de":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false}}},"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-23 04:31:53","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stolpersteine-goeppingen.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stolpersteine-goeppingen.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stolpersteine-goeppingen.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stolpersteine-goeppingen.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stolpersteine-goeppingen.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/stolpersteine-goeppingen.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7636,"href":"https:\/\/stolpersteine-goeppingen.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/305\/revisions\/7636"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stolpersteine-goeppingen.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stolpersteine-goeppingen.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}