Thanks to one of our members, Ms. Renie Cervone, (the daughter of Irma Landman Avery) our group is now on the internet with its own website. Anyone in the world who searches for second generation groups of Holocaust Survivors, (especially concerning Augsburg) will come up with our site. Our specific address is listed above.

Certain items will be mentioned in general, but not be listed on the website for confidentiality purposes, such as our names and addresses. Other items will be made available only after the searchers identify themself and explain why they are searching for the data. This will include such things as the list of those Jews from Augsburg who perished in the Holocaust. The directory of our names and addresses will only be available to fellow members of the group.

Other items on the website include, past newsletters, the history of the Jews of Augsburg, some articles or stories written by our members or their parents, a status report on the various committees or projects, and the Book of Memoirs (when it is written). There is also a chat room, for people to leave messages or discuss topics of interest to members of the group.

If you have any comments, please browse the website and click our webmaster your comments.

MEMBERSHIP LIST

We now have approximately 30 members in our group, with a few more trickling in each month. If you know of another second generation person who is not on the list, please send him/her a copy of the newsletter or give them our website address, in case they want to join. In the event of any errors, please contact me. Some of the handwriting was hard to read. This list will be available only to members. If others wish to contact us, they will have to do it through our mailing.

Our current membership list is now available.

REUNION

It doesn't look like there will be a reunion in the near future. But in time, I anticipate an event in Augsburg where we can participate. But this may be years away. 1998 will be the 700th Anniversary of when the municipality of Augsburg intervene and prevented a massacre of all their Jews. It was sort of a Purim story of our own. 2005 will be the 20th Anniversary of the rededication of the synagogue and the 90th Anniversary of the building of the synagogue. Maybe one of these events will be commemorated and we may decide to go with our new families and see where our parents lived.

If people travel to Augsburg on their own in the meantime, and would like a contact person to arrange to see the synagogue, cemetery, or current Jewish community, please contact Ms. Gertrud Kellerman, our honorary member from Augsburg. She is the director of the "Gesellschaft fur christlich- judische Zusammenarbeit, Augsburg und Schwaben e.V." An organization which brings together the Jews and Christians of Augsburg and Schwaben. She has made the offer of welcoming any our members to show them around Augsburg. Her address is:

Gertrud Kellermann
Geschaftsfuhrende Vorsitzende
Am Pfannenstiel 23
86153 Augsburg
Germany

MA NISHMA?

The organization listed above puts out a quarterly newsletter called "Ma Nishma?" or What's up? In the last edition, they wrote a story about our new group. A copy of a few pages are attached to the Newsletter. They are interested in our Memoirs project and in keeping in touch with us.

LIST OF TRANSPORTEES

In 1945, a list was compiled of over 450 Jews who were transported from Augsburg to their death in the camps. The list includes their names (maiden names) and the date of the transport. We also have an indication of the destination of certain major transport dates, which would show the first camp which your family member was sent. The list is available to members, or by request from others. Please notify me if you know of any corrections or additions. There is a slight possibility that some of these people survived, although to the best of their knowledge, this list represents those who were transported to their deaths. Those who were transported and survived were removed from the list. I believe that there are other lists in Germany, and I hope that someone can compare the two to create a more definitive and accurate compilation.

BOOK OF MEMOIRS

There seems to be some interest in having us compile a book of family memoirs. This will be our first major project in 1997. I would like to keep it simple and rather flexible, having two sections. One for our parents to write about their childhood memories, and about family members that they lost. We can write a section concerning what effects being the children of Holocaust Survivors had on our life (if any). I am still looking for some people to talk to about this project. The easiest way would be to ask everyone to either E-mail their stories to our website or to mail them in and someone will have to re-type them. But in the meantime, people can start drafting down some thoughts and feelings until we finalize how we are going to do this one.

IRONIC TWIST OF FATE

My father was preparing a shipment of artifacts to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum when he came across my aunt's prayer book. It was printed in 1917 and was given to her at her confirmation.

On the last page was a prayer for the country. It's prophetic and ironic quality speaks for itself. It just furthers the notion of how fast Nazism took hold in Germany. For in the 1930's, German Jews were still praying to willing sacrifice their wealth and lives for the Fatherland in their Sidurim. The quote now appears on the home page of the web.

CEMETERY MONUMENT

Several people have expressed an interest in having some sort of monument to remember the Jews of Augsburg who perished during the Holocaust. Since the precise location of their remains are not known, and there is no specific place where one can go to visit their grave, one possible solution is to erect a monument in the Jewish cemetery of Augsburg which would list the names of all the victims.

To this end, several designs have been drawn, but the cost involved at this time seems prohibitive. A monument with approximately 500 names would cost about $75,000. But no project is ever built without an initial dream. Who knows, the Swiss Bankers may feel guilty enough to look for places to donate unclaimed money,or some other funding source may be looking for projects. So why not put out the idea, and see if something arises in the future. First person who wins the million dollar lottery please give me a call.

Another possibility is to have the monument incorporated in the synagogue, where more Germans will be able to see it. This may be a more powerful way of expressing the loss of the lives of the Jewish community as a whole. By being placed in the center of town, it can be a constant reminder of what was lost.

Please feel free to write or use the website to give me your opinions on this topic. Anyone knowing about any funding sources, please feel free to discuss it with them.

HISTORY OF JEWS IN AUGSBURG

I received several requests to reprint the article on the history of the Jews in Augsburg, since the photocopy from the Encyclopedia was not clear to read. We have also placed this on our Website. With our group's creation and with the new Jewish immigrants moving into Augsburg, the pattern seems to be repeating. It seems that Jews have contributed to Augsburg 's history for over 800 years.

SON OF RABBI GOES BACK TO MUNICH PART-TIME ...

Dr. Walter Jacobs, the son of the last Rabbi of pre-war Augsburg (Dr. Ernst Jacob), is now going to be the part-time rabbi of the Jewish community in Munich, according to the Augsburger Zeitung, October 31, 1996.

SO WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT ...
OUR GROUP ... OUR NEWSLETTER ... AND WEBSITE?

Why not contact the website and give us your feedback? Or better still, why not volunteer a bit to get more things done. We could use someone to spearhead the Book of Memoirs project and to collate and distribute it. Or give me a call to discuss whatever else you might want to do. It may even be interesting to get opinions from the next teenager generation.

IF YOU KNOW OF ANY OTHER SECOND GENERATION PEOPLE PLEASE FEEL FREE TO MAIL THEM A COPY OF THIS NEWSLETTER OR GIVE THEM OUR WEBSITE ADDRESS.