The Number on my Arm
Albrecht Weinberg and his Story
Albrecht Weinberg was born in Rhauderfehn, a little town in Northwestern Germany not far from the Dutch Border, in 1925. His father was a cattle dealer, his mother took care of the children: Albrecht, his older brother Dieter and his sister Friedel. They had a happy and care-free childhood with loving parents. "We were perfectly normal citizens", Albrecht says today about his upbringing, still seeming somewhat puzzled by what was to come.
Albrecht and his sister were deported first to Hangelsberg, a tiny village east of Berlin, and had to work in the woods. In 1942, following the infamous Wannseekonefenz, they were taken to Auschwitz. They never saw their Father and Mother again. Albrecht idi slave labour in Buna / Monowitz, then for Hitler's V2 rocket in Mittelbau Dora. He survived. In April 1942 he was liberated by British Troops in Bergen Belsen, rather dead than alive.
Albrecht and his sister Friedel found each other again and decided to leave Germany for good. In 1947 they sailed for New York, promising each other three things: Not to be separated from each other ever again, not to put Jewish children in this world, and never to set food on German ground again.
They kept the first to promises.
When Friedel fell ill from a stroke in 2011, they accepted the invitation of their home region to take care of her. Albrecht and Friedel Weinberg returned to East Frisia in 2012. Friedel died shortly after, and Albrecht was alone in this world for the second time after 1942. Except for Gerda.
Gerda Dänekas worked as a nurse in the home where Albrecht and Friedel stayed. She took care of Albrecht after Friedel's Death. And Albrecht, who had never talked about what he had went through in Auschwitz, started talking.
When the nursing home tried to prevent Gerda from seeing Albrecht during COVID19, she didn't think twice, but rented an apartment big enough for both of them, and they set out to live in what is probably the oldest shared house in Germany.
