Five years ago, in October 2020, the ErinnerungsWerkstatt München e. V. (Munich Remembrance Workshop) was founded. It is a non-profit association run exclusively by volunteers who are deeply interested in the fates of Munich victims of the Nazi regime. They meticulously reconstruct the life stories of Munich citizens who did not fit into the National Socialists' worldview. To date, the life stories of over 100 women, men and children have been researched.
The biographies are about people who were persecuted and murdered for a variety of reasons, who fled abroad to escape persecution or who committed suicide out of despair. The aim is not only to describe the suffering of these people, but also to remember their lives before persecution, their professional careers, and their families. The ErinnerungsWerkstatt is closely linked to the Memorial Signs. To mark its fifth anniversary, we are placing Memorial Signs for 14 people whose biographies have been researched and written by the ErinnerungsWerkstatt:
Flora Fromm, Siegfried Gerstle, Emil Loeb, Alice and Isidor Neuburger, Max and Lilly Rothschild, Ignaz Velisch, Alice Jaffé, and Agathe, Anneliese and Klaus-Robert van Wien were considered Jewish under the racist Nuremberg Laws. They were forced out of their professions, humiliated and marginalised by the Nazis.
Anneliese van Wien was a Jewish victim of the Nazi euthanasia programme. Georg Bautler was persecuted as a homosexual and sent to several concentration camps. Marine soldier Franz Fellner evaded military service. The Wehrmacht court sentenced him to death for desertion. They all succumbed to the murderous persecution by the Nazi regime.
On Tuesday, 21 October 2025, a central memorial event will take place at Goethe-Institut. Afterwards, the Memorial Signs for Georg Bautler and Franz Fellner will be installed. The following day, Wednesday, 22 October 2025, twelve more Memorial Signs will be installed in cooperation with the ErinnerungsWerkstatt München e. V.
