The First Jewish Wedding after the War

On 18 November 1945, around six months after Germany's unconditional surrender and the end of the war in Europe, a small wedding party in Leipzig celebrated what was probably the first Jewish wedding since the end of the war, at least in what was then the Soviet occupation zone. The couple were married in the Brody Synagogue in Keilstraße, right next to the Jewish Religious Community of Leipzig, which was re-established after 1945. The synagogue had been desecrated in November 1938 and the interior destroyed, but was preserved as the neighbouring residential buildings would have been damaged by fire. The synagogue was consecrated again on 28 October 1945. After the ceremony, the party moved on to the nearby Hotel Norddeutscher Hof at Löhrstraße 4, which had since been closed down, where the two photos were taken.

Anna (Anni) Gewürtz was born on 27 April 1924 in Leipzig. April 1924 in Leipzig into the family of Bruno (Baruch) and Eva (Chawa) Gewürtz. Her brother Wolf was born in 1926. The family lived in Pariser Straße, now Virchowstraße in the Gohlis district. The parents ran a small textile shop in the neighbourhood. The children attended the Higher Israelite School, which was founded in 1912 by Rabbi Ephraim Carlebach as the first Jewish school in Saxony. After graduating, Anni and Wolf were initially able to find apprenticeships in Berlin, but this came to an abrupt end when Jews were banned from training in 1941. Both tried to leave the country during this time, but were unable to do so. Anni initially returned to her parents in Leipzig. On 21 January 1942, the family was deported with over 1,000 other people from Leipzig via Dresden to Riga. There they initially had to live in the Riga ghetto. Anni was transferred to the Riga-Kaiserwald concentration camp in November 1943 and had to perform forced labour for the army clothing office in the newly established Krottingen subcamp from May 1944. Anni's brother Wolf was deported from Berlin to Auschwitz in December 1942 and presumably murdered immediately. Her mother, Chawa, died in the Stutthof concentration camp in 1944. Anni and her father Bruno (Baruch) were also deported to the Stutthof concentration camp in August 1944. She was liberated on an evacuation march in April 1945. Her father also survived after being deported from Stutthof to Buchenwald concentration camp.
Abram Grynbaum was born on 22 June 1913 in Łódź. Little is known about his life before the German invasion of Poland. The Litzmannstadt ghetto was set up in December 1939 and Abram Grynbaum was forced to live there. He was later sent to Auschwitz, where he was registered under the number 56383. The surviving information does not allow for a more detailed reconstruction. In September 1944, he was deported to the Friedland (now Mieroszów) satellite camp of the Groß-Rosen concentration camp. As a locksmith and car mechanic, he probably had to perform forced labour in one of the armaments factories. The subcamp was only liberated by the Red Army on 9 May. It is unclear whether Abram Grynbaum was still in the camp at this time.

It is not clear from the documents when and where the two met. The earliest trace is the Record of the Jewish Religious Community in Leipzig, which lists Anni Gewürtz on 1 October 1945. After their wedding, the couple lived at Waldstraße 56, a former centre of Jewish life in Leipzig. The Sächsische Israelitische Altersheim zu Leipzig, which was opened in 1931 and is now the Ariowitsch-Haus cultural and meeting centre, was located nearby. The couple appear to have left Leipzig as early as the summer of 1946. During this time, they appear on lists of the Displaced Person (DP) camp Schlachtensee near Berlin. These transit camps set up by the Allies served to accommodate the numerous survivors who had to be cared for after the liberation and who left these places partly for their home countries, but mostly for the USA, Great Britain or the British Mandate in Palestine.
Anni and Abram Grynbaum also travelled to Israel, which was founded in 1948. After a brief stopover in Lübeck, where they lived at Stresemannstraße 30 outside the Old Town, they both emigrated in June 1949, taking a flight from Munich to Lydda, Israel's only airport at the time. Their daughter Niza was born there. After a few years, however, the family left the country to join Anni's father Baruch. He had left Leipzig in 1947 and emigrated to Great Britain, where he lived as Bruno Gee in north London. However, as Anni and Abram Grynbaum were unable to obtain a visa, they initially lived in Lübeck again and later moved to Hamburg. They ran a car parts business in the St. Georg neighbourhood and lived close to the Outer Alster lake. After reunification, Anni Grynbaum visited Leipzig again. She died in Hamburg in 2019.

(Alexander Walther)