Stolpersteine in Kassel
the Israelite Orphanage
The Israelite Orphanage, also known as "the Philipp Feidel and Emilie Goldschmidt Foundation
It emerged from the legacy of the banker Philipp Levi Feidel with a foundation capital of 20,000 talers and the donation of the wife of the merchant male Elias Goldschmidt, Emilie, geb Feidel. It was the undisputed "pride of the whole community".
The orphanage was founded in 1856 and provided Jewish children from Kassel and Kurhessen Food, clothing, education and instruction. It was rebuilt in 1899 due to lack of space. It was also modernized. The total cost was 65,000 talers.
It offered space for 40 orphans from Kassel, from 1908 from all over Prussia. But already with a number of 33 children it reached its limits of receptivity due to the limited means. It relied solely on donations from friends or bequests from rich parishioners. The children lived there up to the age of fourteen until they were released into their Profession.
After the death of her husband in November 1934, Sara Nussbaum, the community nurse and later Kassel's honorary citizen, took over the care and supervision of the orphanage. This was also stormed during the Reichspogromnacht in Kassel on 7 November 1938. The male orphans were driven to the streets and deported. In 1939 Levi Heilbrunn, the orphanage inspector, was arrested and died during the police interrogations. In 1942 the orphanage was closed. In the 2nd World War it was completely destroyed like many other Kassel Buildings.
The contemporary witness Friedmann Ernst from Kassel reports from the night of the storming of the Orphanage the following:
"On the evening of November 7, 1938, around 8:00 p.m., SA men stormed into the Israelite orphanage in Kassel at Gießbergstraße 7. They drove all the male Residents from the house on the street, including me and two of my friends.
Many men were already gathered on the street and we all had to go together to the
Stand square march. On the way there the Nazis forced us to sing the song „Hänschen klein“ to sing. Since I was one of the smallest, I went at the end of the column. Behind us Hitler Youth ran and kicked us in the ass for their pleasure. With brooms, scrubbers and toothbrushes we had to clean uo the place. Two hours later we were loaded onto trucks and drove into the night. When we stopped we were in the Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar. In Buchenwald we spent the night outside and froze to death. Early in the morning we were three Boys and some other men were loaded onto a truck and brought back. Apparently we weren't man enough yet, I don't know why they brought us back."
