Bruno Weinberg (1888 - 1938)

Bruno Weinberg was born in Lonnerstadt on May 25 1888.

His father Robert Weinberg (1851 - 1941) came from Groß-Schmückwalde (East-Prussia). His mother Rosa née Wormser (1853 - 1910) was the daughter of the teacher in Hagenbach (NorthernBavaria) ◊. The couple had married in Lonnerstadt on August 3, 1880 . They had 6 children: Meta (*1881), Irma (*1886), Bruno, Manfred (*1890), Oskar (*1891) and Else (*1893).

Robert had a business in textiles in Lonnerstadt. In 1890 he moved the business to the nearby Höchstadt. Later he dealt with hops, had an agency for emigration and mediated sales of agricultural land. After a fire on his premises he moved to Mannheim in 1910 ◊.

Bruno had left his parents' home before 1910. Without doubt he did an apprenticeship as a merchant. In Mannheim he became the staff manager in the firm Hirschland & Co, a large department store. About 1930 he left and started his own venture as a sales representative, but this became soon problematic due to the actions of the Nazi regime.

He married in Hähnlein on February 2, 1922. His bride Else Spieß was born in Hähnlein on Oktober 1, 1891 as the daughter of Gabriel Spieß (*1854) and Babette née Weil (*1857 in Steinsfurt, ✡1940 in Basel). The couple lived in Mannheim in S2,8 and in 1933 they moved to S1,12.

Bruno and Else had two children, Günther (*1923) and Rosi (*1926). Günther was murdered by the Nazis and is remembered on the plaque in the synagogue. Rosi emigrated to Palestine in 1939.

On November 11, 1938 Bruno Weinberg was one of the about 30,000 men who were brought to the KZ Dachau. He was released on December 5, 1938, but he died only four days later, on December 9, 1938 in Mannheim due to the maltreatment he had endured in the KZ. He is remembered on the plaque in the synagogue.

Else, Bruno's wife, was deported in 1940 to Gurs and later to the extermination camp Auschwitz, where she was gassed. She, too, is remembered on the plaque in the synagogue. His father Robert Weinberg was deported to Gurs, too, and died in the internment camp Recebedou (near Toulouse) on May 22, 1941. Bruno's brother Manfred was deported to Theresienstadt in February 1945 (when the KZ Auschwitz had already been liberated by the Red army). He died there from typhus.

Memorials

There is an entry for Bruno Weinberg in the Memorialbook: Nr. 987877

In the data base of Yad Vashem there is entry 9342202 for Bruno Weinberg,