Submitted by Gaby Schuller
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I was born in Coburg, as were my parents and most of my grandparents. I grew up knowing that there had been two world wars and that one of my grandfathers had died in World War II. My Oma, whom I loved very much and with whom I grew up after my parents' divorce, had remarried later in life, and her second husband was simply my Opa to me. I knew that my father was only two months old when the war began and that his father, my Oma’s first husband, was killed in Poland within the first few weeks. It was right at the beginning of the war, when the German army invaded Poland and attacked the country. It was an attack, not a defense. I don't think anyone in my family ever thought about that.
My Oma hardly ever spoke about the War. When my Oma did talk about that time, it was about how her beloved first husband and her two brothers had been killed and that they had “given their lives for their Fatherland.” And my father had grown up as a half-orphan. My other grandfather had a leg amputated and wore a prosthesis.
So that was my knowledge of the war and of the suffering my grandparents had endured. I never asked any questions because my grandmother was always so sad when she talked about it, and I felt sorry for her.
I didn't learn much about World War II at school, and almost nothing about the fact that there had been Jewish people in Germany – or that some of them had even lived in Coburg. I went to school in the late 1960s and 1970s, a time in which this topic was hardly discussed in Germany. People looked forward, not backward. Even within my family, other people’s fates or even the topic of persecution were ever discussed; they only talked about the tragedies in our own family, if at all.
When Anne Forchheimer-Rubin visited Coburg in 2008 for the first time since her escape with a "Kindertransport“ and gave her lecture, I was utterly shocked that this aspect of Coburg's history was so little known and that I knew virtually nothing about it. Anne Forchheimer-Rubin was a few years younger than my Oma, but it is entirely possible and even probable that they had met. Coburg is a small town, and the Forchheimer family was very well known in the 1930s. Of course, this also applied to all the other Jewish business people who had their companies or shops here. It is impossible that there were no points of contact, but, after the war, such acquaintances were simply no longer talked about.
Anne Forchheimer-Rubin's visit opened my eyes and shocked me about what had happened in my home town. Of course, I wasn't responsible for it, but I was very ashamed because it was “my town.” It also made me want to find out more about that time, about Anne‘s life, the lives of other Jewish families in Coburg, and the possible connections to my own family.
My grandparents were no longer alive at that time, so I couldn't ask anyone in my family. While I still understood my grandmother‘s great and lifelong grief over the loss of her first husband (my grandfather) and her two brothers, her silence about all the other aspects of the Nazi era suddenly appeared to me in a different light. How had they all behaved? What had they done? And thought?
I began researching and reading, in particular Hubert Fromm's book “The Jews of Coburg.” I also started copying down the names on the gravestones in the Jewish ​cemetery, because this was the only visible evidence left of decades of Jewish life and history in Coburg. And I wanted to find out what kind of people had been deported from Coburg in 1941 and 1942 – people who had been neighbors, who had been known in Coburg, and who no one talked about anymore.
At first, I felt ashamed of coming from Coburg myself. But then I began to feel responsible for the people who had lived in my hometown and in whose history and fate hardly anyone was interested anymore, apart from the people who initiated the first few stumbling blocks.
After meeting Anne Forchheimer-Rubin, I stayed in touch with her daughter Rachel Rubin-Green. That was the first step, followed by many more.
Through the genealogy portals Ancestry, MyHeritage, and especially GENI, I found not only family trees but also descendants of former Coburg residents. I received continued assistance from a remarkable historian in Canada: Sharon Meen. Her support, knowledge, and friendly advice were extremely important. They helped me discover and understand more and more connections.
At the time, I had no idea what my first steps back into the past would lead to, how much they would influence my own life, and what encounters they would bring. At first, I just wanted to understand what had once happened here in Coburg. Through many contacts with descendants worldwide, a whole new perspective opened up to me. I suddenly became involved in the present lives of Jewish families and learned how their lives and those of their families had unfolded outside Germany.
The best part is that I got to meet some of them in person when they visited Coburg. I am very grateful for the friendships that have developed and for the trust that has been placed in me.