1904 saw the establishment of a Jewish kindergarten in Munich. Jewish families were among those affected by the political upheaval early in the 20th century, which saw eastern European Jews flee from pogroms in their homelands, the First World War, and the consequences of disease, starvation, and poverty. Children whose parents had died needed to be looked after. 1918 initially saw three children housed at the Jewish children’s home on a long-term basis. The home was operated by the Israelite Youth Welfare Association, which bought the house at Antonienstraße 7 in Schwabing in 1925.
While the house initially served more as a shelter for children living in precarious conditions, from 1933 it also became a home for children whose parents had already emigrated in the hope that the family would eventually be reunited abroad. For Jewish children and adolescents faced with the restrictions and discrimination prevalent in the Third Reich, the home was an oasis of peace and a treasured refuge from the hatred of the outside world. One former resident of the children’s home, Ernst Grube, recalls an “absolute paradise” with a “magnificent garden” in which the children were sheltered as far as possible (Grube, p. 44).
Especially after the pogrom of November 1938, many Jewish people fled abroad and attempted to secure a livelihood before having their children sent to them. The pogrom sparked international outrage, as a result of which more than 10,000 Jewish children from the German Reich (including Austria), Poland and Czechoslovakia were sent to Britain with the so-called ‘children’s transports’ between the end of November 1938 and the outbreak of the Second World War. Among them were children from the home in Munich.
Jewish children were among the most vulnerable victims of the Third Reich. The first deportation from Munich in November 1941 included 20 children and four staff from the children’s home, who were murdered in mass shootings immediately after their arrival at the Kaunas ghetto in Lithuania. The home was evacuated on April 15, 1942, and the last 13 children had to move into the barracks in Milbertshofen. They were subsequently sent to the extermination camps, either from the barracks or from the ‘Home for Jews’ in Berg am Laim. Home director Alice Bendix accompanied the children on their ill-fated journey.
The building was then unlawfully appropriated by ‘Lebensborn e.V.’ but was destroyed during the war. Today, a column of texts and photographs designed by Hermann Kleinknecht and erected in Antonienstraße bears testimony to the home and the fate of its residents.
