Obermayer German Jewish History Award

Fritz Kilthau 

Zwingenberg, Hesse

Fritz Kilthau grew up in the town of Wald-Michelbach in Odenwald, where bullet-pocked houses bore witness to the last days of war. When a wave of vandalism against Jewish cemeteries rocked Germany in the 1950s, Kilthau – born in January 1945 – was still a schoolboy. In response to the events, his teacher “showed us some films about the cruelty of the Nazis,” recalled Kilthau, who started wondering what had happened to the Jews of his region.

More than half a century later, he has done a lot to make sure that local Jewish history is not forgotten. In the process, he has established strong ties with Jews who have roots in the area. Since 1978, Kilthau has spent his spare time in archives, particularly in the towns of Zwingenberg and Bensheim in the State of Hesse, where he now lives. His work is a personal response to right-wing extremism, which he believes is, unfortunately, alive and well.

“We do still have some right wing organizations, also in our area here,” he said. “It is very important to give detailed information about National Socialism to young people, so they can see what the result of these ideas were.…We have to give humane ideas to young people.”

His efforts take many forms: Researching the lives of former Jewish residents of the Bergstrasse – a hilly, winegrowing region – and publishing the results of his work;

organizing public programs and tours of local sites related to this history, including the Jewish cemetery in Alsbach, the Zwingenberg synagogue and the concentration camp in Osthofen; responding to queries from descendants of former Jewish residents; organizing annual Holocaust memorial commemorations; and – of particular importance to him – educating students about these topics.

It all started with his curiosity about local history. He began reading old newspapers and visiting the Bensheim archive. There, he met others who were similarly driven. At first, the local archivist was very slow to provide documents. “But then I found a little book written by a protestant minister about the Jews of Bensheim. And on the very last page, there was a description of a massacre in Bensheim carried out by Nazis three days before the liberation on the 24th of March, 1945.” Those killed were mostly Jews and army deserters who had been held in a local prison. He and his friends decided to find out more about the victims, “to give people their faces back.”

This project led to others. Kilthau produced brochures about local history during the Nazi period. As co-founder and board member of the Bensheimer History Group and head of the Zwingenberger Synagogue Working Group, he still gives lectures and tours tracing local history. “I go into schools and talk about Kristallnacht in our area and about the Jews of Zwingenberg.”

His 256-page history of Zwingenberg between 1933 and 1945, published in 2000 at the behest of the town, has generated numerous other projects, including a walking tour tracing Nazi-era history; two plays co-written with author Heribert Pauly and performed by pupils of the Schuldorf Bergstraße school; and a successful initiative to add the names of Jewish victims to a commemorative plaque in city hall. Kilthau hopes it will prompt Zwingenberg citizens to ask, “Who were these people? Where did they live? Why and how did they die?”

In 2009, he started working on a biography of the Bauers, a Jewish family in Bensheim up until the Nazi period. He found descendants abroad, but not all were happy to hear from him. Why did a German man want to know about their family history?

Joanne Epstein was one of those whom he contacted. Until hearing from Kilthau, she knew little more about her maternal grandparents than their names – Julius and Hedwig Bauer. Julius was murdered in the Buchenwald concentration camp after the November 1938 pogrom, and Hedwig committed suicide shortly afterwards. Epstein’s late mother rarely talked about her own parents. “It must have been too painful,” says Epstein, who lives today in Houston, TX.

Thanks to Kilthau, “I now have a good understanding of what their lives were like,” Epstein says. “How incredible that a complete stranger was interested in writing about my grandparents!”

In May, 2011, “stolpersteine” – small brass memorial “stumbling stones” with the names, dates of birth and circumstances of their deaths – were set in the pavement at the Bauers’ last freely chosen address. According to Epstein, Kilthau paid for the stolpersteine. “In all the time I have known Fritz, he has never asked for remuneration,” she writes. And what he has accomplished is priceless. “All of us with roots in the area are in his debt,” wrote nominator Joan Gluckauf Haar of Riverdale, NY. Kilthau’s first approach to her family was met with rejection. “My mother’s sole reply was that I should ‘throw the letter into the trash.’ But of course I didn’t,” said Gluckauf Haar.

“People should know there was a very lively Jewish population [here],” Kilthau said. “It was not very big– about two percent of the population. But they made a tremendous contribution. When you have different cultures in one place, this is a benefit to our lives.”

Epstein admits that when Kilthau first contacted her she didn’t understand his motivation. “But I have come to be inspired by his selfless devotion to this project. He has brought Julius and Hedwig Bauer to life again for me, my family and the whole world.”