Josef Zwienicki stands on a ladder outside his bicycle store in Bremen.
Overview
- Caption
- Josef Zwienicki stands on a ladder outside his bicycle store in Bremen.
Below him is his daughter Liesel. To her left is a German customer who later collaborated in the murder of his wife. - Date
-
1933
- Locale
- Bremen, [Hannover] Germany
- Photo Credit
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Jacob G. Wiener
Rights & Restrictions
- Photo Source
-
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial MuseumProvenance: Jacob G. Wiener
Keywords & Subjects
Administrative Notes
- Biography
- Jacob Wiener (born Gerd Zwienicki) is the son of Selma Stiefel and Josef Zwienicki. He was born in 1917 in Bremen, where his family owned a bicycle shop. Gerd had three siblings: a brother Benno (b. 1918), a sister Liesel (b. 1921), and a brother Alfred (b. 1925). Gerd left home in 1936 to study at the Breuer yeshiva in Frankfurt. A year later he began his studies at the Wuerzburg Jewish teachers seminary. On the night of Kristallnacht the students of the rabbinical seminary, including Gerd, were arrested and placed in protective custody, where they remained for eight days. Meanwhile, Gerd's family was facing tragedy in Bremen. His father was sufficiently aware of the threat posed by the Nazis that he fled from his home during the pogrom. However, he did not anticipate what they might do to his family in his absence. That night when members of the SA came looking for him at his home and failed to find him, they shot and killed his wife and arrested his son, Benno, who was then sent to Sachsenhausen. Following Benno's release, the family departed for Canada, leaving Germany on May 31, 1939.
- Record last modified:
- 2005-05-11 00:00:00
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1146944
