The significance of Dinslaken

The children and young people at the Israelitisches Waisenhaus (Jewish Orphanage) in Dinslaken and their uncertain fate played an important part in how the Kindertransports to Belgium were brought about and organised.

View of the Jewish Orphanage Dinslaken

The list compiled by the Cologne-based Provinzialverband für jüdische Wohlfahrtspflege in der Rheinprovinz (Provincial Association for Jewish Welfare of the Rhine Province) containing the names of the residents of the Israelitische Waisenhaus (Jewish Orphanage) in Dinslaken. Due to the urgency of their departure, the list was labelled List No. I in red, presumably by the Belgian Ministry of the Interior.

To begin with, the Moses family in Dinslaken and their close connection with the Jewish Orphanage needs to be mentioned. In the spring of 1884, Benjamin (Benno) Moses was a member of the constituent General Assembly for the Construction of an Orphanage in Dinslaken. In the same year, his brother Markus Moses and other Dinslaken community members were allowed by the Chief President of the Prussian Rhine Province to collect donations for the orphanage to be founded. Moses Seligmann Moses, who came from another branch of the family in Dinslaken, served as the chairman of the board of trustees of the Dinslaken Jewish Orphanage from 1912 to 1917.

Wilhelmine Moses, a sister of Benno and Markus, married Samson Gottschalk from Geilenkirchen a few years after the foundation of the orphanage. Their son Max Gottschalk was born in Liège in 1889.

Max Gottschalk, a leading figure in numerous Jewish organisations, founded an aid committee for Jewish refugees from Germany in 1933. This aid committee became the Comité d‘Assistance aux Enfants Juifs Réfugiés (Assistance Committee to Jewish Refugee Children, CAEJR) in November 1938.

Not only was Max Gottschalk familiar with the general conditions of life in Germany because of his activities as the president of the refugee committee; he was also very well informed about what was happening in Dinslaken through reports he received from his relatives. His cousin Max Moses was sent to the Dachau concentration camp after the pogrom. Rosalie Moses, Benno Moses’ widow, died only a few days after the pogrom in a hospital in Dinslaken.

Sara Orfinger, Max Gottschalk’s sister, was a member of the board of trustees of the orphanage, which Dr. Siegfried Rothschild, son of Dr. Leopold Rothschild, directed in Antwerp since the beginning of 1938: the Antwerp Joods Weeshuis (Jewish Orphanage of Antwerp). Siegfried Rothschild was informed by his sister Miriam about the events in Dinslaken on November 10, 1938.

The presence of Dr. Siegfried Rothschild in Antwerp and the drive and determination of Max Gottschalk had an effect on further events and their dynamics. An aid committee for Jewish children from Germany (Comité Voor Het Joodsche Kind van Duitschland) was set up in Antwerp in November. Rosi Kugelmann-Rothschild, the wife of Siegfried Rothschild, was a member of this committee.

It is therefore no coincidence that the first list of children eligible for a Kindertransport to Belgium presented to the Belgian state contained the names of forty-seven children and young people who had been driven out of the Jewish Orphanage in Dinslaken. AP