Dedicated pediatrician in Krefeld
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Stolperstein commemorates Nazi victim Kurt Hirschfelder
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A portrait of Hirschfelder was put up when the Stolperstein was laid.
Photo: City of Krefeld / Jochmann, Dirk (dj)
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Krefeld The pediatrician shot himself 80 years ago with his service weapon from the First World War. As a Jew, he was threatened with deportation. He left traces in Krefeld, especially for pediatric medicine.
(ped) A street and a square in the city center are named after Kurt Hirschfelder. A plaque in the children’s clinic of Helios also pays tribute to his work. Now a stumbling block also reminds of the Krefeld pediatrician Kurt Hirschfelder, who died during the Nazi era. It was relocated at the height of east wall 142 in front of the new passage – on October 29th.
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The date is not a coincidence. Hirschfelder committed suicide 80 years ago, on October 29, 1941. He shot himself with his service weapon from the First World War. He had learned that he was about to be deported. As a doctor of the Jewish faith, Hirschfelder suffered reprisals and harassment from the Nazi regime – and was banned from working.
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Mayor Frank Meyer and Sandra Franz, head of the NS documentation center Villa Merländer, as well as Sibylle Kühne-Franken (chairwoman of the Friends’ Association Villa Merländer), Thomas Siegert (board member of the residence) and Tim Niehues (chief physician of the Center for Child and Adolescent Medicine). Meyer recalled numerous services and traces that Hirschfelder left in the city.
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OstwalI 148 was the address of Hirschfelder for more than 30 years, this is where he lived and where he had his practice. “The perfidious and inhuman anti-Semitic politics of the National Socialists can be particularly well understood in Hirschfelder’s biography. He was a highly relevant person for the Krefeld city population for several decades and was systematically marginalized and ultimately driven to suicide, ”said Sandra Franz, summarizing Hirschfeld’s biography.
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On March 11, 1878 he was born in Rexingen / Württemberg as the son of the businessman Max Hirschfelder. After graduating from high school in Tübingen, he studied medicine in Freiburg, Munich and Berlin. As a specialist in childhood diseases, Dr. Hirschfelder settled in Ostwall 148 in April 1906. In 1908 he volunteered in the maternity care center; He worked closely with the Krefeld women’s association and the association for infant care. In 1914, an infant home was opened in Petersstrasse 71, and he became its medical director.
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In the First World War, Hirschfelder served as senior staff doctor and was awarded the Iron Cross 1st class. Shortly after the National Socialists came to power in Krefeld, however, he was dismissed as a school and welfare doctor. He lost his job in the nursery, was banned from the home and his doctorate was revoked. Although he was only allowed to treat Jewish patients, despite the danger he also helped non-Jewish children in emergencies.
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In December 1938 he moved into a so-called Judenhaus at Hohenzollernstrasse 46, and in August 1941 he was forced to move to the “Judenhaus” Westwall 50. Hirschfelder was not married. With him went his servant Simon Friedemann, who had previously worked for Richard Merländer’s partner, Hermann Heymann, until 1940. Friedemann was deported to Litzmannstadt on October 25, 1941 when he was first deported. Hirschfelder saw no way out for himself.
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