The inscriptions on the Jewish cemetery in Regensburg, built 200 years ago, tell many touching stories. Before they finally wither, the author Waltraud Bierwirth evaluated part of them. She came across biographies that combine glamor and misery like nowhere else.
From
Hans Kratzer, Regensburg
When the war ended in spring 1945, Berek Goldfeier was 14 years old and on his own. After all, he had managed to make his way from Poland to Regensburg. His sister and mother were murdered in the Auschwitz concentration camp. In Germany, he joined the millions of so-called Displaced Persons, who were forced labourers, refugees and former concentration camp inmates who, from the summer of 1945 onwards, fought for their survival in Germany, often sick and malnourished.