Life_under_Siege_The_Jews_of_Magdeburg_under_Nazi_Rule.pdf

These recollections provide an insight into his character as an individual; into
the congregation he served; and the religious and value systems this group of
people generally held. Wilde held steadfast in his position and provided generous
support of every kind to his fellow Jews as the situation continued to deteriorate.
He, like so many of his male congregants after the Reichskristallnacht, was
incarcerated in Buchenwald Concentration Camp for eleven days, where he
attempted to maintain his pastoral role. 150 He continued his religious duties up
until his emigration to England in March 1939. 151
In addition to the rabbi, the synagogue employed a number of staff. From
1933 up until the pogrom, Max (Meier) Teller served the synagogue as cantor and
Rudolf Rosenberg as teacher. In addition, Wilde and Teller also performed
teaching duties at the synagogue’s Religionsschule. 152 The synagogue also
employed up to three office staff in any given year. 153 In 1933 an organist was
employed for the budgetary period and in this same year the sexton of the
synagogue, Samuel Nußbaum, retired. 154 In 1933 Max Arensberg was employed
as a Shochet, a position which became redundant on 21 April 1933 when kosher
butchering was prohibited, 155 and upon Nußbaum’s retirement he took on the role
committed suicide, a girl of fourteen or fifteen. They sent her to a school in Jerusalem
and she could not interest herself; she couldn’t take it somehow.’
150
George Wilde, Eleven Days in the Concentration Camp Buchenwald, 1938–1939,
File ME 687; MM82, LBIA NY, op. cit.
151
Personal file on Rabbi Dr Georg and Mrs Martha Wilde, Bestand Pe, Signatur Nr.
50, ASGM, op. cit.
152
Synagogen-Gemeinde zu Magdeburg Haushaltsplan für 1933/1934, 1934/1935,
1935/1936, 1936/1937, Bestand Rep. A II, Signatur Nr. 2478 J 13a, Band 7, STAM,
op. cit.
153
Ibid.
154
Synagogen-Gemeinde zu Magdeburg Haushaltsplan für 1933/1934, ibid.
155
Kaplan, op. cit., p. 33.
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