Jewish life in Harxheim: Fritz Mayer
The eldest son of Ferdinand Mayer, Moritz Fritz, call name Fritz, born on August 21, 1907, went to elementary school in Harxheim and graduated in 1926 (in Mainz or Frankfurt). 1) 3)
According to the stories of his sons Thomas and Bernard, their father loved the walks in the vineyards and also the Rhine-Hessian wine during his time in Harxheim. Father Fritz also mentioned to them the wine festivals, where sometimes one too many glasses were drunk. Fritz’s father Ferdinand, a strictly observant member of the Jewish community of Ebersheim-Harxheim, envisioned an education as a rabbi for his son and sent him to Frankfurt at a young age for the appropriate training. At the age of about 15, however, Fritz realized that he did not want to take this path and there were heated arguments about this with his father. Fritz prevailed and studied literature and humanities in Frankfurt and Paris/Sorbonne. In 1936 he was awarded the degree of Dr. phil. doctorate, probably one of the last doctorates awarded to Jews in Frankfurt. As a Jew, he had to wait for some time for official recognition of his doctorate, but in the end he received the title. 2)
Fritzchen Mayer Untergasse, 1914
Image source: Franz Götz
Fritz married on February 25, 1936, Karola Berta Lorch, born in Frankfurt on June 24, 1906. The couple lived at Hölderlinstraße 7 in Frankfurt, not far from the Zoological Garden.
The prevailing restrictions on access to the profession or the prohibition of Jews from practicing by the Nazi regime offered Dr. Mayer hardly any opportunities to develop professionally in accordance with his education. From March 1934 to November 1938 he ran the day home for unemployed Jewish youth in Frankfurt. The home was destroyed in the pogrom night of the 9. on the November 10, 1938 was destroyed, Fritz Mayer was killed on November 10, arrested by the Gestapo and deported to Buchenwald concentration camp one day later. 3) 4)
The conditions in the overcrowded camp were indescribable, coupled with the permanent terror of the SS camp guards. Fritz Mayer’s story My name is Fritz Mayer appeared in Twice a year: A Book of Literature, the Arts and Civil Liberties (1945). It gives a harrowing account of his experiences as Prisoner 7636 on one day in Buchenwald concentration camp. (6)
My Name is Fritz Mayer – My Name is Fritz Mayer from “Twice a year: A Book of Literature, the Arts and Civil Liberties” (New York, 1945).
Image Source: Twice a year: A Book of Literature, the Arts and Civil Liberties” (New York 1945).
My Name is Fritz Mayer – My name is Fritz Mayer from “Twice a year: A Book of Literature, the Artsand Civil Liberties” (New York 1945), translated into German 2022
Image source: Twice a year: A Book of Literature, the Arts and Civil Liberties” (New York 1945), Translated by Siegfried Schäfer and Birgit Korte 2022
Fritz was released from Buchenwald on December 10, 1938, on the condition that he leave Germany by January 16, 1939, at the latest. In the weeks from December 1938 to January 1939, he was again employed by the Jewish community in Frankfurt, where he took care of Jewish youths in the prevailing difficult situation. At the same time, he obtained entry visas to England for himself, his wife and his son Thomas Ferdinand, born on September 27, 1937. Fritz Mayer left Germany in mid-January to avoid further arrest. He traveled to Great Britain via the Netherlands. 2) 3)
In March 1939, his wife Karola traveled with little Thomas Ferdinand by train, first to Amsterdam. From there we continued by plane to London. It was not until December 1939 that the entry visas for the USA were available. 2) 3)
In an interview in January 2022, son Thomas Mayer reported on this time:
“Like many Jewish emigrants, Father Fritz was interned after his arrival in England (until October 24, 1939), since England did not want to keep Jewish adults in the country. Those who wanted to or could leave for the USA were put on a waiting list. My mother Karola and I were also placed in an internment camp, which was evacuated when the German bombing began. (Thomas has not liked loud fireworks since that time.) The internees were distributed to private homes in smaller towns around London.” 2) 3)
His wife Sara adds: “The family with whom Karola was staying with Thomas behaved very dismissively and disdainfully toward the guests who were perceived as ‘uninvited’. After all, their guests were Germans who were at war with England. In addition, mother and son were given an additional negative credit for their Jewishness. As a result, Karola avoided spending as much time as possible with her son at the home of her “hosts.” The stay there as well as the costs for travel documents and tickets for the intended onward journey to the USA had to be paid in foreign currency. Here the family was again financially supported by relatives already living in New York.” 2) 3)
The Mayers left the port of Liverpool on December 23, 1939, on the steamer New Foundland as part of a convoy bound for the United States. After their arrival in Boston on January 8, 1940, they also initially stayed with Fritz’s sister Sara, alias Saerri Zapun, and her husband Gerhard in New York. Thus the Mayer family was reunited. 2)
This meant that all the Mayers and the Halle family, who had taken them in, now lived in one apartment with a total of eleven people.
Of the furniture, clothing and household goods that Fritz Mayer had given up in Frankfurt to the general transport company for the so-called lift to the USA in exchange for a large sum of money, nothing ever arrived at its destination. The property was confiscated in Frankfurt due to the war. Thus, the Mayer couple was initially penniless in the USA and had to start from scratch. Fritz studied again from January 1940 to August 1941 at the New York School of Social Science at Columbia University in New York to obtain an accredited degree. 2) 3)
From September 1941, he was back at work, initially with the Jewish Board of Guardians (JBG) in New York as a social worker. The JGB was a private Jewish welfare organization that looked after the welfare and concerns of Jewish immigrants and refugees, especially children, and supported them in many ways. A few years later, the family moved to Cleveland, Ohio for work reasons. On March 12, 1946, the second son Bernhard Simon was born there. 2) 3) 5) 7)
Social work accompanied Dr. Fritz Mayer throughout his professional life. He later specialized in the treatment of traumatized and psyschically stressed children and adolescents and published various books and writings on this subject. In Cleveland, he served for many years as director at the Bellefaire Italic Treatment Center for young trauma patients. At the same time, he held lectures and seminars on this subject at various universities. 5) 7)
Fritz Mayer passed away on December 22, 1977 in Cleveland, Ohio. His wife, Karola, lived to be 89; she died August 9, 1995, in Boulder, Colorado. 2) 5)
Fritz’s wife Karola was the daughter of Bernhard and Ida Lorch, née Kaufmann, who lived in Frankfurt at Beethovenstraße 59. As a girl in Frankfurt, she attended the Philanthropin, the high school of the Jewish community. Her father Bernhard was a merchant and worked as a plant manager during his professional life. He was best man at the wedding of Fritz and Karola. Bernhard Lorch died shortly before the deportation. Carola’s mother Ida (born May 2, 1870 in Ladenburg/Baden) was deported from Frankfurt to Theresienstadt on August 18, 1942, and then on to the Treblinka extermination camp. She was murdered there on September 26, 1942 3) 5) 8)
References:
1) Archiv der Verbandsgemeinde Bodenheim, Personenstandsregister der Mairie Harxheim-Gau-Bischofsheim; Standesamtsregister Harxheim.
2) Information from Thomas, Sara, and Bernie Mayer, (1/2022).
3) HHStA Wiesbaden 518-20314.
4) City Archives Frankfurt/M., Registry Office Registers
5) Information from Bernie Mayer, (1/2023).
6) My Name is Fritz Mayer from “Twice a year: A Book of Literature, the Arts and Civil Liberties” (New York 1945), provided by Bernie Mayer, USA, (1/2022). (translated into German 2022).
7) www.bellefairejcb.org, retrieved 02/2023.
8) The Memorial Book of the Federal Archives for the Victims of the National Socialist Persecution of Jews in Germany (1933-1945).
