Talk:Erich von Manstein/Archive 5
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Stepfather's brother: Ernst von Manstein - Convert to Judaism
Following a blog post by Ze'ev Gallili (in Hebrew), (here's the first version of that blog in English) several people, whose parents had been students of the violist and artist Ernst von Manstein wrote in, and this man's astonishing story unrolled.
(My friend) Dr. Rammi Reiner had done research on this person who "passed away" (or as we find out later was murdered) in 1944 and had been reburied in the 1950's in the Jewish cemetery. We see his pictures. We hear his students testifying. We hear about his wife, a convert to Judaism as well. We discover that the man was not considered Jewish by the Nazi laws, but that when the Jews of Wurzburg were rounded up, he came out of his house wearing a Talith and phylacteries saying that he put his fate with that of the Jews, and was taken to the Theresienstadt camp where he perished from hunger and illness. We then hear that none other than Erich von Manstein himself lead a national military burial ceremony .for him, with the casket draped in the Swastika flag, in a Nazi war cemetery!
When Reiner came to Wurzburg he was shown the Jewish graveyard and the tombstone of Ernst von Manstein (called Abraham son of Abraham) and tried to follow the strange story. He only succeeded in understanding bits and pieces, including his long path to Judaism (The Jewish faith tries to deter people from becoming officially Jewish) and could not find the connection to Erich. But following the publication a few years ago, people wrote in:
My father's friend studied music by him... Lewinski was named after a village in Pomerania Poland and was not Jewish, but it got people talking that perhaps he was. The general was removed from his duties due to fights with Hitler, and so had time to lead the full military ceremony, with SS officers to his side.
My father was his closest student. My father studied by him. Here is Hebrew calligraphic art that he sent our family. We own two magnificent drawings by him.
His wife Franziska's tombstone of 1941 in the Jewish graveyard was discovered as well.
The rabbi of Wurzburg sent an image of him playing in a Jewish string quartet.
84-year-old Simon Greenbaum told of his visit in 1953 to his mother's tomb in the graveyard where he met the president of the Jewish community who was a survivor of Theresienstadt, was close to Ernst, and attested to Ernst's end, and to his connection to Erich. The von Manstein family were vehemently against the moving of the grave to the Jewish cemetery but lost the case in court.
According to Gallili, Erich von Manstein despite all said, was of Jewish ancestry, new about it and openly told about it, but nonetheless, held antisemitic views and spoke them. פשוט pashute ♫ (talk) 22:53, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
I have now found a few discrepancies with these testimonies about the exact connection to Erich, and the date when Ernst was exhumed (According to Yad Vashem it was in the 1960's. Yad Vashem also skips the story of the Talit and Tefilin, and according to several editors on Geni.com his stepfather's name was Ernst, so this Ernst was not the stepfather's brother. Our Ernst definitely was not Erich's stepfather, since Erich's stepmother was Hedwiga and not Franziska. hmmm... פשוט pashute ♫ (talk) 23:21, 11 June 2018 (UTC)