Schach im DP-Lager Landsberg und im Ghetto Terezín / Theresienstadt [Chess in the Landsberg DP camp and in the Terezín / Theresienstadt ghetto]
Schwarzweiße Wege der Forschung zu Nathan Markowsky und Isidor Schorr [Black and white paths of research on Nathan Markowsky and Isidor Schorr]
Comments on the current book by Siegfried Schönle from Kassel
by Konrad Reiß
[Original article in German is here. Translation with DeepL.com (free version)]
I used to travel through Theresienstadt a lot. The town was on the route to Schneekoppe, where my club, the 1871 Löberitz chess club, combines chess with a holiday for a few days every year around Easter.
Every time I drove through the town or even just heard the word Theresienstadt, I had to think of the misery that Jewish people had to endure there. At the same time, scenes from the Nazi propaganda film entitled "Der Führer schenkt den Juden eine Stadt"1 [The Führer Gives a City to the Jews] darken my mind.
The Theresienstadt ghetto could not have been described in a more perfidious and perverse way. Well, the camp was not an extermination camp, but it still served as a forecourt to hell. These hells existed as main camps (24) and subcamps (1,000) between around 1933 and 1945 and were called Auschwitz, Majdanek, Belcek, Sobibor and Treblinka.
Source: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, Various materials of Landsberg, 1946-1947,
Digital Record Identifier: ROS_IE12197013
But back to Terezín and the period from 1941 to 1945 and beyond. The author of the book "Schach im DP-Lager Landsberg und im Ghetto Terezín / Theresienstadt", Siegfried Schönle from Kassel, goes there. He documents in detail that the Jewish people crammed into the camps tried to retain their dignity despite all the humiliation. And one of the ways they did this was by playing chess!
The book has the subtitle "Schwarzweiße Wege der Forschung zu Nathan Markowsky und Isidor Schorr“. These research findings run through all the chapters.
Siegfried Schönle collected numerous documents, photos of chess pieces (28 illustrations) and paintings (3 illustrations) as well as drawings with chess motifs (13 illustrations) of the prisoners. Numerous enquiries to archives and memorial sites in Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Israel and America, using several languages, turned into a time-consuming task.
-
Siegfried Schönle - Schach im DP-Lager Landsberg und im Ghetto Terezin - page I -
Siegfried Schönle - Schach im DP-Lager Landsberg und im Ghetto Terezin - page II -
Siegfried Schönle - Schach im DP-Lager Landsberg und im Ghetto Terezin - page III
Source: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, Various materials of Landsberg, 1946-1947,
Digital Record Identifier: ROS_IE12197013
In the end, he succeeded in tracking down the chess events in Theresienstadt, under the direction of Isidor Schorr and Jaroslav Dubsky, and presenting them to the reader.
Isidor Schorr is probably known to many chess players as the editor of the 1922 Teplitz-Schönau tournament book. He was Jewish and was imprisoned in Theresienstadt, where he was head of a ‘chess association’ and was murdered in Auschwitz. The author can prove his and other chess activities in Terezín with numerous documents, printed as facsimiles.
Schönle enters the post-war period with the report on the 1st Jewish Chess Olympiad in 1946 in the Landsberg am Lech DP camp, where Jews who had become homeless after the liberation reorientated themselves towards their future. Here, among other things, he is associated with the name Nathan Markowsky.
Nathan Markowsky accompanied Emanuel Lasker on his journey through the Baltic states at the end of 1932. In brief: Kovno ghetto, transport, Dachau / Kaufering subcamp, Landsberg DP camp, where he actively participated in a ‘Chess Olympiad’ of the 15 American DP camps, stepfather of the artist Samuel Bak (two colourful paintings by him surround the book), Israel, where he died.
This, too, is a hitherto completely unknown topic.
-
Siegfried Schönle - Schach im DP-Lager Landsberg und im Ghetto Terezin - page V -
Siegfried Schönle - Schach im DP-Lager Landsberg und im Ghetto Terezin - page VI -
Siegfried Schönle - Schach im DP-Lager Landsberg und im Ghetto Terezin - page VII
Terezín Memorial, PT 11862. Signed „Kylies 45“.
All this can be found on 228 pages + 14 title pages and endpapers, printed in full colour on reader-friendly Munkenprint paper. The book, printed in 16.5 x 24.0 cm format, has a handy hard cover.
It is a pity that this title was only published in a small, exclusive edition by the Löberitz Chess Museum in conjunction with the author. It can already be predicted that the book will become a collector's item for the technically orientated and interested connoisseurs of the subject.
Siegfried Schönle is not necessarily new to the subject matter he has researched, as his publications on chess in the Buchenwald concentration camp2 3 4 mean that he is familiar with the subject.
‘Schach im DP-Lager Landsberg und im Ghetto Terezín / Theresienstadt’ (Chess in the Landsberg DP camp and in the Terezín / Theresienstadt ghetto) makes a small contribution against forgetting, especially in our current politically and socially tense times.
The book, a work of craftsmanship well worth seeing, can be ordered from the author (Siegfried Schönle, 34130 Kassel, Am Hange 10, or by e-mail hsschoenle2@aol.com):
26 Euro plus postage/ package 7 Euro: 33 € (for members of CH&LS 20 € plus postage).
Konrad Reiß - Chess Museum Löberitz -
November 2024
1 Wikipedia
2 Schach im Konzentrationslager Buchenwald. In: KARL. Das kulturelle Schachmagazin. Issue 1/2017, p. 30-32.
3 Schach im KL Buchenwald (15.7.1937 - 11.4.1945), In: Caissa. Zeitschrift für Schach- und Brettspielgeschichte. Journal of Chess and Board Game History, Part 1 (2nd vol., issue 2/2017, pp. 69-81), Part 2 (3rd vol., issue 1/2018, pp. 68-103) and Part 3 (3rd vol., issue 2/2018, pp. 12-49).
4 Schach und Tarnschriften ... Streng Geheim!! Konspirativ!! Lebensgefährlich!! In: Caissa. Zeitschrift für Schach- und Brettspielgeschichte. Journal of Chess and Board Game History, vol. 1, issue 2/2016, pp. 67-77.