Sigmund Weber

Sigmund was the youngest child of the Webers. He wanted to learn something different from his father and his siblings and, initially, also had the freedom to do that. From 1933 to 1936, he attended a preparatory school for future Rabbis in Burgpreppach. One can feel his intimate relation to God and to the customs of the Jewish faith in his memories in the newsletter of his congregation for Rosh Hashana 1991. Due to the Nazi regime and its openly antisemitic legislation, however, Sigmund could not further pursue his career aspiration. For a short time, he attended a business school, until Jewish students were excluded from schools altogether. In 1936, probably by necessity, he started a tailoring apprenticeship with his father.

In December 1938, he emigrated on board the “Pretoria” via Cape Town to Salisbury, South Rhodesia. There, he found employment with his brother-in-law Richard Mendelsohn. In September 1939, Sigmund voluntarily joined the South Rhodesian army. Due to his German passport, however, he was only appointed as guard in an internment camp for Germans and Iraqis. In 1946, he quit the service, worked in Gwelo for a year, then as sales representative for his brothers Wilhelm and Arthur, before he settled in Gatooma and opened a menswear store “Elite Outfitters” himself.

In January 1951, he married Liselotte Böttigheimer; she was from Speyer. Sigmund had met her, as she visited her brother in Rhodesia. Lieselotte had still lived with her parents as their youngest child, when one early morning in October 1940, the family was arrested, brought to a camp in Landau, and deported to Gurs, along with many other Jews from the Pfalz and Baden regions. After about one year, she came to Rivesaltes near Sete. JOINT, an American Jewish aid organization, managed in 1942 to temporarily accommodate six girls in a youth home. Later, when also from the unoccupied part of France more and more deportation trains were rolling eastward to the termination camps, the girls, with the help of false papers, were hidden in families as house-maids. Lieselotte survived in Lyon as Lucienne Berger. The other five also were saved that way. Her eldest brother went into hiding in Speyer, after having been detained in Dachau following the November pogrom. Already in 1936, one of her sisters emigrated to South Africa, one of her brothers left Germany in 1938, her second sister in the beginning of 1939. Lieselotte’s parents survived, since their deportation to Auschwitz had been postponed. In 1947, they could travel to their children.

After the liberation, Lieselotte first worked as nurse, until she received her immigration permit for South Africa. Sigmund and Wilhelm inherited the restitution the Webers had fought for: reparation for expropriated assets, for excessive taxes and for forcibly sold real estate. In 1952 and 1953, respectively, Arthur and Leni had waived their heritage in favor of Sigmund.

Sigi Weber took care of the Shul (Synagogue) in Gatooma. For Purim, he read the Megillah, there or in a prayer room in Salisbury. In January 1968, Sigmund’s family moved to Cape Town. The political situation in Rhodesia was more and more difficult. Sigmund became co-owner of the workwear company “Dafna Overalls” in Cape Town.

Lieselotte and Sigmund had one son, David, and one daughter, Sophie Miriam, named after the Weber grandparents. Sigmund kept his German passport, also for his children. Together with his wife, he traveled to Lyon to meet the family, that had hidden Lieselotte. Apparently, he also tried to re-establish a Jewish community back home. Whether and when he was in Augsburg for that purpose, we don’t know. Sigmund’s attempts were not successful. He returned to South Africa. In David (?) Weber’s report card, an address in Cape Town is noted for July 17, 1958. Arthur lived there. Sigmund Weber died in Cape Town in 1999.

Ruth Sander (translation by Michael Bernheim)