Fürth History – Meeting with the Granddaughter of Dr. Hallemann
On 13 December 2024, the granddaughter of Fürth doctor and educator Dr Isaak Hallemann, Mrs Gal Batia Gabriel, visited the synagogue in Fürth. Accompanied by her husband and other acquaintances, she traveled to Fürth as part of a trip to Europe and talked about her father’s memories of the Hallemann family and the Jewish orphanage in Fürth.
Dr Isaak Hallemann took over the management of the “Israelite Orphanage” in Fürth in 1929. At that time, there was no sign of the disasters that were to come. Hallemann, who distinguished himself as a sensitive and innovative director, immediately carried out numerous improvements at the orphanage: He provided central heating, linoleum floors, new furniture, and fresh colors. But the most important thing for him was to treat each child as an individual. Like the Polish pediatrician Janusz Korczak, who cared for orphans in Warsaw, Hallemann also focused on the individual development of his charges. Uniforms were abolished, each child was given a cupboard, and the term ‘orphan’ was removed from the orphanage vocabulary. For Dr. Hallemann and his wife Klara, the children were not just protégés but became their children. This was also emphasized by Hallemann’s eldest son, Ralf, who described his parents’ commitment as follows: “Our parents were now the parents of forty children.”
As early as 1936, Dr. Hallemann tried to take his protégés to Palestine with the help of the foundation’s assets to protect them from the impending danger of National Socialism. However, this plan failed due to the foundation’s regulations, which stipulated that the orphanage had to remain in Fürth. The tragic consequences of these decisions became particularly clear on 22 March 1942, when Dr. Hallemann, his wife Klara, and 33 orphans were deported from the institution to the Izbica extermination camp near Lublin. The orphanage in Fürth, which dated back to a foundation established in 1763, had thus come to a tragic end, as Dr. Hallemann, his wife, and the children were murdered in Izbica.
However, two of the children, Raphael Halmon and Judith Hallemann, were able to flee to Israel and survived. The memory of Dr. Isaak Hallemann and the Jewish orphanage in Fürth remains alive to this day. In Fürth, both a street and a school are named after him to honor his extraordinary commitment to the orphans and his tragic fate.
Gal Gabriel, daughter of Raphael Halmon, visited the synagogue and community and talked about her previous visits to the city of Fürth, but also about conversations she had with her father and her aunt Judith about everyday life in the orphanage. After a tour and a prayer in memory of the dead, the tour led to the all-purpose rooms of today’s community. Here they chatted over Jewish lemon cake and kosher pastries. Ms. Gabriel was delighted to be presented with several mementos. She received a print of her painting depicting the Fürth synagogue and the Hallemann family from the artist Corinna Smok. She received an interfaith calendar for the year 2025 from BaFID.