Günther Nachum
* 1925

Memories of my childhood friend, Günther Nachum

It all lies behind so far already and much has happened since those days. Entire families were eradicated, often without leaving behind any relatives wishing for information about the fate of their loved ones. In the case of the Nachum couple and their children Ruth and Günther, I see that distant relatives in Canada made inquiries about them at Yad Vashem.

So there are people that remember this family and as long as that is the case, the Nachums have not completely disappeared from this earth, and the Stolpersteine now laid also serve to commemorate them.

Günther was my classmate and also a good friend. He was a tall, handsome, and good-natured boy. Occasionally, I still see his freckled face before my mind’s eye. I even believe that we sat at the same school desk in the Talmud Tora Realschule.

During recess, we played rounders [a game similar to baseball] with crumpled-up sandwich wrappers. Often, obviously without intention, we would hit the teachers supervising the schoolyard during the breaks.

Günther and a classmate by the last name of Wolf (unfortunately I forgot his first name) as well as Heinz Israel and I had founded a club with standing rules and regulations. We played Monopoly and foosball on a wooden board by means of miniature soccer players actuated by hand.

In Sept. 1938, all of the Polish students were picked up from our school, and they were expelled along with their families to Poland.

And then one misfortune after the other happened. “Kristallnacht” and what followed upon it.

I went to a camp in Blankenese preparing for emigration to Palestine and thus lost contact to Günther.

The Nachums were on the same transport as my mother, to Minsk.

I am still fond of thinking about Günther and his kind-hearted smile.

Note:
Schlomo Schwarzschild was born in Hamburg in 1925. As a 14-year-old boy, he emigrated to Palestine. His parents and siblings remained behind in Hamburg; they were deported and murdered in 1941. For more on the Schwarzschild family, see Stolpersteine at Schlankreye 17 and Bornstrasse 22.
Schlomo Schwarzschild passed away in Haifa on 16 Aug. 2009.

Translator: Erwin Fink

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.