Status: 07.11.2020 3 p.m.
As a Jew, Arthur Samuel survived the era of National Socialism almost unmolested in Cadenberge. He remained loyal to the place in the district of Cuxhaven – and even became king of the shooters in the 1960s.
It still hangs in the showcase in the rifle club in Cadenberge: the plaque of the Schützenkönig from 1961. His name on it: Arthur Samuel. Just 16 years after the end of the Second World War, here – in the small community at the mouth of the Elbe near Cuxhaven – a Jew became the shooter king. How did it come about? How did he even survive the Nazi era? Many decades later, Dietmar and Rudi Zimmeck set out to research this extraordinary story.
“How can that be?”
Rudi Zimmeck (left) and his brother Dietmar have researched Arthur Samuel’s life in Cadenberge.
–
While drinking tea, the brothers had recently remembered that this Arthur Samuel had always passed their house on his Sunday walk in the 1960s. They greeted each other in a friendly way, and one day the mother said casually that Mr. Samuel was probably Jewish. This incident was the starting point for the brothers who live in Hanover today to investigate: “The question was, how can that be? Did he escape, was he hidden, was he in a concentration camp and was released afterwards? We were very interested in that “says Rudi Zimmeck.
Samuel left an affidavit
The research of the two led, among other things, to the home administrator of the region, Günter Lunden. He runs the local history museum in the neighboring town of Geversdorf and unearthed an important document: an affidavit from Arthur Samuel, which he had given in 1947. In it, Samuel describes how he survived the Nazi era in Cadenberge. He was “apparently not removed” because he lived in a “mixed marriage”: “My wife is Aryan.” But he had to wear the Star of David. However, it is very likely that “nobody saw the Jewish star on me because I was wearing a work smock over my suit without this star and did not go out on Sundays.” “So he has already tried to remain inconspicuous,” says Rudi Zimmeck.
From cattle dealer to day laborer
–
Arthur Samuel lived with his wife Eugenie in a “so-called mixed marriage”, as he wrote in his affidavit.
–
The brothers’ research also met with great interest in Cadenberge. The mayor, Wolfgang Hess (independent), also asked around and recently spoke to a very old citizen of the community who can still remember Arthur Samuel well. After the Nazis had withdrawn his license as a cattle dealer, Samuel had to work as a laborer for farmers, in road construction and in a sawmill. The wealthy and respected cattle dealer had become a day laborer who had to work for entrepreneurs in the region during the Nazi era in order to keep himself and his wife afloat.
Merchants supplied the couple with groceries
Dietmar Zimmeck wonders how these entrepreneurs treated Arthur Samuel – because they knew the man from the time before the Nazis came to power: “Did you tease him and treat him badly or did you turn a blind eye to him? also helped a bit? ” Apparently there was at least one grocer in town who supplied the Samuel couple with food during the Nazi era.
Samuel does not mention his police detention
However, research by the Zimmecks in the Lower Saxony State Archives also revealed that Arthur Samuel was also in custody at the time: for 17 days in Bremen. Interestingly, he does not mention this police detention in his affidavit. There he even writes that he was hardly bothered during the Nazi era. Today we can only speculate about the reason. Maybe he wanted to leave these experiences behind. For Dietmar Zimmeck it is obvious that Arthur Samuel “liked to live in Cadenberge, even before that and that he wanted to continue living there after the war”. He identified himself very strongly with the place, the festivals and the society.
Passionate member of the shooting club
This also fits what the brothers found out during their research: The man was obviously a passionate member of the shooting club and became the shooting champion in 1961. Isn’t that surprising after everything that happened after World War II and the Holocaust? “Maybe he wasn’t that much of a fan of uniforms or marching music,” says Rudi Zimmeck. “Perhaps he was also interested in socializing, and he was certainly interested in his place in the Cadenberg village society.”
Jews were deported to neighboring communities
“In the end, it was a huge stroke of luck that Arthur Samuel and his wife survived,” said Zimmeck. In fact, only a few kilometers away from Cadenberge, in the east and in Basbeck, two Jewish families were deported and murdered during the Nazi era. Dietmar Zimmeck draws a bow from history to the here and now. Even in this day and age, when there is exclusion and anti-Semitic and right-wing extremist attacks, one always has to decide: do I accept that or “I oppose it”.
Name the street after Arthur Samuel?
The brothers have now written down their research and hope that it will be published. People in town are now thinking about how to remember Arthur Samuel in the future, for example by naming a street after him. The tomb of the Samuel couple, which still exists today, is already preserved by the community. Arthur Samuel turned 91 in the end. With everything you don’t know, one thing is clear – that was only possible because his home town of Cadenberge stood by him.
Further information
–
–
