Recording of the NDR report - Status: 06.02.2023 06:11 a.m.

Arthur Samuel, a Jewish individual, survived the National Socialist era in Cadenberge (Cuxhaven district). He was the Schützenkönig there twice. Now there is a website about his life.

by Christina von Saß

"If my great-uncle hadn't been the Schützenkönig, we wouldn't be sitting here today." Henry Irwig puts it in a nutshell. We drink a cup of coffee on his porch in a suburb of Boston on the American East Coast. Henry tells me about his uncle Arthur Samuel, the only Jewish Schützenkönig that Lower Saxony had after the Second World War. It is a meeting that would certainly never have taken place without the Internet. Above all, we wouldn't be sitting together on this sunny July afternoon if two brothers from Cadenberge hadn't started researching the incredible story of Arthur Samuel a few years ago.

Brothers were neighbors of Arthur Samuel in Cadenberge

Hallo Niedersachsen initially reported on this intensive research by Dietmar and Rudi Zimmeck two and a half years ago. The brothers, who are now 73 and 69 years old had, as children in the 60s, been neighbors of Arthur Samuel in their Lower Elbe hometown of Cadenberge. His life and suffering during the Nazi era were not a topic in the village at the time – especially the question of how, as a Jew, he had been able to survive at all – but decades later, the brothers delved deep into his fate. They collected documents from archives, spoke to local historians and contemporary witnesses and also discovered that Arthur Samuel had been the Schützenkönig in Cadenberge. Even twice: in the 1920s and in 1961, in the still young Federal Republic.

Arthur Samuel was proud of his office as Schützenkönig

Henry Irwig remembers that his great-uncle was proud to have been Schützenkönig in Cadenberge. At first, the office caused skepticism among his parents and grandmother. He says: "Guns and our family history - they didn't seem to fit together. On the other hand, the family's feeling was that Arthur survived! That alone is incredible. And if he could be part of the community again, that is all the better. Good for him." Many decades later, in the summer of 2021, Henry Irwig googles his great-uncle, who died a long time ago. Infinite hits. Then he types: "Arthur Samuel Schützenkönig" and remarkably comes across the research of Dietmar and Rudi Zimmeck. And he finds the report of Hallo Niedersachsen. Henry Irwig makes contact and the reconstruction of the history of the Jewish Schützenkönig enters a new phase.

"A compilation about the life of the Samuels"

The three men begin an extremely productive collaboration: over a distance of more than 6,000 kilometers, they exchange documents, knowledge and photos in countless video conferences. They decide to set up a website with twelve chapters about Arthur Samuel and his wife Eugenie and their life in Cadenberge: "We're all a bit older," says Dietmar Zimmeck. "But Henry is very energetic and so everything worked out very well." And Rudi Zimmeck adds: "We do not present a strictly scientific work, but a collection of facts, snapshots, memories and personal evaluations about the lives of the Samuels."

Nazi era: Six of the seven siblings died

Photo of Else (left) and her daughter Ellen (right). Both were murdered. © Henry Irwig
Else (left) and Ellen were murdered by the Nazis.
Henry Irwig adds new knowledge. During the visit on his porch, the 79-year-old shows me a large family album with dozens of photos and many names: Ota, Else, Ellen, Emilie, Käte and Herbert. And I learn what can also be read on the completed website: Six of Arthur Samuel's seven siblings died or were killed during the Nazi era. Apart from Arthur Samuel, only his sister Emilie, Henry's grandmother, survived. One of Emilie's daughters was also murdered: Else. There is a touching photo of Else and her daughter Ellen from the early 30s.

A meeting in Cadenberge

Decades after the Nazi era, the three men have now picked up a piece of thread that was cut by the Holocaust. And a friendship has developed between them over months of cooperation. This spring, they finally plan to meet for the first time: in Cadenberge in Lower Saxony, the hometown of Arthur Samuel.