Zeughausstrasse 1-3, “Jews’ House”, Community House

Victor Klemperer lived at this address from 1943, October 30 to 1945, February 13. The house was destroyed on the night of February 13th. In the chaos he was able to go into hiding and flee to Bavaria.
1-3 Zeughausstrasse (now Akademiestrasse) stood to the left, the Old Synagoge stood to the right. In its place the New Synagoge was built and opened in 2001.

  • 1942 June 26, Friday towards evening – The old people’s home in the Community House, where I recently called on Herr Hammer, who talked about his contacts with Walzel, is going to be evacuated. A number of other elderly people, named by the Gestapo, must also go. Among them Perl, the frail old man with whom I shoveled snow in the winter, and who enjoyed a kind of temporary protection while doing this work—he did not need to go to the Gestapo, who otherwise summoned him every day for beatings and marches through the town. The transport will consist of 50 old people. **p87
  • 1942 July 14, Tuesday toward evening – […] By contrast everyone speaks of Hirschel, the (unpaid) Community leader with the greatest affection and admiration. The man is wearing himself out. This morning he had said good-bye to the Poland transport at three, had then come over to see the old ladies, had gone back to his office immediately after their departure. All the work and all the suffering are loaded onto him. **p101
  • 1942 August 11, Tuesday toward evening – […] The transport, which had just left, was still fresh in Katz’s mind; shuddering, he talked of the Gestapo inspector’s “cynical sadism,” of the old and the sick crowded together on deck chairs in the Community House, of the fact that medicines were “scarce commodities,” and that they were allowed to take only very small amounts with them, that Marckwalds had little prospect of bringing his wheelchair, still less his nightstool, that he would certainly be allowed only one principal medicine … **p120 
  • 1942 August 19, Wednesday morning – […] Hirschel and Kahlenberg (Pionkowski’s youthful and not very agreeable successor) had been summoned to the Gestapo to receive the list of the new transport. “What are you rogues doing here? What have you been up to—you’re always up to something.” (Hirschel added: He had also been beaten there; in the presence of the two main beasts, the otherwise more moderate people felt they had to be brutal, too.) This time the Spitter and the Boxer were also present as the announcement was read in front of the old people in the Community House.  **p126
  • 1942 August 21, Friday morning – German morality: During the brutal roll-call scene at the Community House, I mean the reading of the list of names for the transport to Theresienstadt, a couple of Hitler Youths were present, evidently young blood getting their training as Spitter and Boxer successors. **p129
  • 1942 August 23, Sunday morning – Annemarie was a friend of Feder’s doctor brother, who is now in England, and is still friendly with the wife, who has remained here. By this route we learned that the eighty-year-old mother of the brothers is included in tomorrow’s transport. “Our” Feders have meanwhile been forced to move out of their apartment and into the Community House.**pP131
  • 1942 August 24, Monday afternoon  – The fifty people have to be at the Community House at two. They spend the night on deck chairs, evacuation early in the morning—next group two weeks after. — Late yesterday evening Superintendent Hirschel also came up to see us for a while, after he had been with Ida Kreidl, and invited us for tea on Saturday… p131
  • 1942 September 21, Monday toward evening – Today is Yom Kippur, and this very day the last 26 “old people” are sitting in the Community House, from where they will be transported early to- morrow. So on Saturday afternoon we made our farewell visit to the Pinkowitzes, who lived in two rooms in Hirschel’s villa. They were very composed and optimistic. Small comfort: It turned out that Pinkowitz, who looks like a scrawny seventy-year-old, is nine months younger than I. **p146
  • 1942 October 4, Sunday morning – A family called Bein, living in the Community house, the woman Aryan, the man, Jew in his fifties, their son eighteen years of age, mixed race but raised as Jewish. Father and son arrested a couple of weeks ago, supposedly because they had handed over too little for the fabric collection; a couple of days ago transported to Mauthausen concentration camp on the Austrian border… **p150
  • 1942 November 13, Friday toward evening  – Since strictest isolation of Jews is the aim, we shall not be allowed to live in freedom. It is said that all the mixed marriages are to be herded together in the Community House and the Henriettenstift home. I am very anxious. — Yesterday afternoon Eva went to see Katchen Sara, who also has to move into the barracks. **p164
  • 1942 November 17, Tuesday toward evening – The barracks business is terrible. Frau Ziegler is talking about wanting to commit suicide. […] The herding together of all the mixed marriages in the Community House is said to be imminent. **p166
  • 1942 November 24, Tuesday morning – One will have to wait and see. Sunday and Monday [… ] completely taken up with Hellerberg. On Sunday afternoon, my heart playing up, I carted a heavy load along Hindenburgufer to the Community for Frau Ziegler, who has left us a great deal. There we first took our leave of the Seliksohns—chaos and despairing depression, above all on his part; then the Reichenbachs. Frau Reichenbach was suffering greatly because of her feet and complained about Katz, who had declared her fit to travel out of fear of the Gestapo… **p169
  • 1942 December 1, Tuesday morning – Reichenbach speaks in this way, as does the secretary, Judenkirsch, who, it is true, lives in the Community house and goes to the camp only on official errands; also, Rubin, the other secretary, who does live in the camp, but at least comes to work at the Community during the day. But the bulk of the camp inmates are strictly imprisoned… **p171
  • 1943 March 4, Thursday evening – At the Community today, fetched food-ration cards and talked to Hirschel. He is almost isolated there now. He and Kahlenberg (with mother) are left here as almost the only Jews not protected by mixed marriages. Exact figures: 290 Jews were evacuated; there are now altogether 300 Jews still in Dresden, of whom 130 wear the star. **p206
  • 1943 May 9, Sunday midday – At the cemetery more terrible news: a) three arrests at the Enterlein factory, among them two Jews with privileged status. The Community was instructed to call the people to Zeughausstrasse at half past seven this morning for “Sunday duty.” Gestapo officers were waiting for them. Thus people disappear in utter secrecy **p236
  • 1943 May 11, early Tuesday morning – Fear is also crippling in other respects. The Hirschels have recently been sending their boys here, to play with the Eisenmann children, and to get some fresh air. (The children were used to the garden of their villa and are now shut up in the cramped Community house.) The unaffectedly good-natured children of the caretaker innocently joined in the loud games. Sometimes passing children looked through the gate. Now one is afraid: children with the star and Aryan children together! **p228
  • 1943 August 23, Monday Afternoon toward six o’clock – It is asserted, moreover—I don’t believe it, at least I didn’t notice anything of it at the Gestapo recently—that the authorities—even the Gestapo!—were lately treating the Jews more gently: The junior ranks were beginning to fear approaching vengeance. A change of mood in this respect can already be noticed in the population. The behavior of a certain Leuschner is characteristic; he is a very anti-Semitic businessman who lives in the Community house, and who until now has displayed the greatest brutality and literally “has several Jews on his conscience”; lately he has presented himself as a friend to the Jews; “he has declared, that for him, the Jews too are human beings,” etc. **p255
  • 1943 October 1, Friday – This morning the long-expected and yet surprisingly bad news of our “resettlement.” We, together with the Eisenmanns, are to be put in the Hirschels’ former apartment, 3 Zeughausstrasse. For seven persons an inadequate fish barrel of three and a half rooms, with other serious disadvantages as well. Tomorrow Eva is going to confer with Neumark, the “representative” of Dresden’s Jewish remnant. More about this depressing matter then. **p266
  • 1943 October 3, Sunday midday – Suffering from the damp autumn cold. That makes it easier to leave. It appears that the resettlement will not turn out quite as badly as seemed likely at first. Eva at any rate is facing it calmly. She saw Neumark and then went to Zeughausstrasse. It appears we shall not be crowded together with the Eisenmanns; tolerable space has been found for us. Everything is still in flux. **p267
  • 1943 October 9, Saturday morning – On every birthday since October 9,1934,1 have said: “Next year we shall be free!” I was always wrong. This time it looks as if the end must be near. But they have so often prevailed against every natural likelihood, from the Rohm affair onward; why should they not go on conducting war and murdering for another two years? I am without optimism now. Meanwhile we shall move into the third Jews’ House and this time stick our necks in the tightest noose. If it suits the Gestapo, the Jewish remnant bottled up in Zeughausstrasse can be finished off in a couple of minutes. **pp268
  • 1943 October 14, Thursday morning and later – We shall move to 1 Zeughausstrasse on October 30. […]  Our rooms in Zeughausstrasse are supposed to be south facing and sunny and to be heated by a stove; here we are in north-facing holes with the central heating shut off. But I fear the gossip of the crowded-together Jews; I have had a foretaste of that at Schlüter. Each one mistrusts his neighbor, slanders him behind his back.**p269
  • 1943 October 20, Wednesday afternoon – I am awaiting news by way of Frau Rasch. Today is visiting day. After that I shall negotiate with Neumark to postpone the move; as “representative” he has a consultation hour at a quarter to six in the Community House. **p270
  • 1943 December 12, Sunday afternoon – … I am moving to Zeughausstrasse in a mood of despair. The house, in which we once attended a Schlachtfest party at the Fleischmanns, is now part of the Community house (1 and 3 Zeughausstrasse). Now we are completely in the hands of the Gestapo, completely surrounded by Jews. And when the expected air raid comes, we are now also right in the center and in the city… **p277
  • 1943 December 13, Monday morning, eight o’clock – … The “distinguished” scholar of Romance literatures is now a factory worker; no, my pay slip says “unskilled worker.” In my copy of Vossler’s Lafontaine are the words: “on December 13,1919, the day of my call to Dresden.” On December 13, 1943,1 am being “resettled” in the Jewish Community house.**p276
  • 19 December 14, Tuesday midday – Third Jews’ House: 1 Zeughausstrasse (third floor) – Nevertheless: the promiscuity. It is already half like living in barracks; we trip over one another, higgledy-piggledy. And all of Jewry crowded together; and of course nos. 1 and 3 Zeughausstrasse are in constant communication. **p278
  • 1943 December 22, Wednesday toward evening – An appeal from Neumark is circulating, calling on the Jews’ Houses in Zeughausstrasse to lay in an emergency stock of provisions, since in the event of air attack, Jews are excluded from emergency rations. But where should we get the reserves he requests? **p281
  • 1943 December 31, Friday 7:00 p.m. – Resume 43: Factory work since April, own work ever more at a standstill; since November 1—change from Schlüter to Mobius—all study and reading ceases. In October Eva falls ill, on December 13 move to Zeughausstrasse. A few days ago my death sentence: Katz confirms “proper angina.” **p282
  • 1944 March 4, Saturday Toward evening – On LTI. At 3 Zeughausstrasse this doorplate is worth noting. Baruch Strelzyn—Horst Israel Strelzyn. The father, a goldsmith, has a first name which is so Jewish, that he is exempted the addition of Israel; the son, bom about 1920, to an Aryan mother, is given that most Germanic name, which was rampant then: Horst. — For the postwar period Horst is what Siegfried was for the previous generation. **p301
  • 1944 May 12, Friday afternoon – The barracks below. Immediately in front, or rather behind our house, there’s a harmonious and cheerful atmosphere. A group of Russian cobblers, who do outwork and evidently have a degree of freedom although they are prisoners of war. [… ] On the other hand the barracks in the yard of 1 Zeughausstrasse: gloomy, closed, screened window slits high up, a sentry with a rifle constantly in the empty courtyard—one sees the people only as a single column coming from work or fetching food or pushing vehicles. These are civilian prisoners, this is a Slav annex of the police presidium prison. **p315
  • May 29, Whitmonday morning and later – Today I tutored Bernhard Stühler from eleven until twelve. We had hardly finished when there was the pre-alert and the warning itself. Eva was just eating a meal [in town] and sat in the cellar of Altdresden on Neumarkt. I spent a good hour in [the cellar of] 3 Zeughausstrasse. Everything remained quite calm. **p320
  • 1944 September 27, Wednesday morning – Yesterday evening at a quarter to seven an air-raid drill in the cellar and the courtyard of no. 3 Zeughausstrasse. Chalk circles on ground and wall represent burning phosphorus—”anyone who puts his foot inside, falls out!”—a stone, the phosphorus incendiary bomb. The fire-fighting group scratches away at the walls, throws sand on stone and circles, plays water… **p363
  • February 13, Tuesday afternoon, perfect spring weather – For the first quarter of an hour my heart almost let me down completely, then later I was completely blunted, i.e., I made observations for my diary. The circular to be delivered stated that one had to present oneself at 3 Zeughausstrasse early on Friday morning, wearing working clothes and with hand luggage, which would have to be carried for a considerable distance, and with provisions for two to three days travel. On this occasion there is to be no confiscation of property, furniture, etc.; the whole thing is explicitly no more than outside work duty—but is without exception regarded as a death march. **p404
  • The Destruction of Dresden on February 13 and 14 (Tuesday, Wednesday), 1945 – Piskowitz, February 22-24 – … Suddenly the cellar window on the back wall opposite the entrance burst open, and outside it was bright as day. Someone shouted: “Incendiary bomb, we have to put it out!” Two people even hauled over the stirrup pump and audibly operated it. There were further explosions, but nothing in the courtyard. And then it grew quieter, and then came the all clear. I had lost all sense of time. Outside it was bright as day. Fires were blazing at Pirnaischer […] At the critical moment, someone had literally pulled Eva out of the entry hall of no. 3 Zeughausstrasse and into the Aryan cellar, she had got out to the street through the cellar window, had seen both numbers 1 and 3 completely alight, had been in the cellar of the Albertinum for a while, then reached the Elbe through the smoke, had spent the rest of the night partly looking for me […], had in addition observed the destruction of the Thamm building (thus of all our furniture), and partly sitting in a cellar under the Belvedere.
    […] So now it was Wednesday morning, February 14, and our lives were saved and we were together.
    […] Marschallstrasse, and somewhere on or over the Elbe. The ground was covered with broken glass. A terrible strong wind was blowing. Natural or a firestorm? Probably both. In the stairwell of 1 Zeughausstrasse the window frames had been blown in and lay on the steps, partly obstructing them. Broken glass in our rooms upstairs. In the hallway and on the side facing the Elbe, windows blown in, in the bedroom only one; windows also broken in the kitchen, blackout tom in half. Light did not work, no water. We could see big fires on the other side of the Elbe and on Marschallstrasse. […] Every time I thought and think of the pile of rubble of nos. 1 and 3 Zeughausstrasse, I nevertheless also had and have the atavistic feeling: Yahweh! That was where the Dresden synagogue was burned to the ground. **pp406
  • 1945 March 14, Wednesday afternoon, three o’clock – Today Schemer told me that the Dresden ADCA is being transferred here, to Falkenstein, and will begin conducting business here as early as tomorrow or the day after. I paid the Zeughausstrasse rent to the Dresden ADCA. The people will not neccessarily know me because of that, they will know nothing of my presence here—but some other Dresden establishment can just as easily come here, and I can at any moment encounter someone from Dresden who knows me. I told Schemer about the danger I am in… **p432

Photos of 2 Zeughausstrasse, the Old Synagoge, credit to www.AltesDresden.de

Source: 

  • ** I Will Bear Witness, Volume 2: A Diary of the Nazi Years: 1942-1945, Victor Klemperer, Publisher ‏: ‎ Modern Library; Illustrated edition

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