Alexander Lebenstein

Alexander Lebenstein (November 3, 1927 in Haltern (called Haltern am See now), Germany – 28 January 2010 in Richmond, Virginia) was a German-American Holocaust survivor. He was the sole surviving Jew in the Shoah from Haltern am See. The Alexander-Lebenstein junior high school in his hometown is named after him.

He was born on November 3, 1927, at the family home Disselhof 36 in Haltern and experienced in his own words, a sheltered childhood until age 11. His mother, Lottie Joseph from Jever, Oldenburg, and his father, Nathan Lebenstein, operated cattle trade and kosher and non-kosher butcher shop. His father had served in World War I for the German army. Alexander had three older sisters; one of them died in 1932, the other two emigrated in 1939 in the United States.

During Kristallnacht in 1938 his family was hiding; shortly after Lebenstein and his family were brought to a Jewish house in Haltern. In January 1942 they came to the warehouse (former exhibition hall on the "Wildenbruchplatz") to Gelsenkirchen. From there they were deported to Riga, where his father fell seriously ill and was soon killed by SS troops.

In spring of 1942 he became separated from his mother and shipped to Lithuania. When he returned in the fall, his mother was gone. After the war, he found out that she had been shot in a forest near Riga, and was buried. After that Lebenstein was in several labor camps and was finally brought with a ferry to the Stutthof concentration camp in Gdańsk.

When in 1945 the Russians liberated the camp, he was sent in a hospital in Gdańsk because of his bad health condition. He fled with two men over Frankfurt (or) to Berlin, because they refused to join the Red Army. They were not welcome even by the Americans because the Russians had been looking after them. This is why Lebenstein went back to his birthplace Haltern, where he was compelled to leave the city again. He was denied German citizenship and came to Deggendorf (Bavaria) in a DP camp.

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