Das Landjugendheim
A place of remembrance!
The country youth home in Falkensee-Finkenkrug from 1922
- 1950
Here lived and worked Anna von Gierke, Alice Bendix and
Isa Gruner. During National Socialism, they offered Jewish citizens protection
against persecution and discrimination
Anna von Gierke (1874-1943) and the rural youth home in
Finkenkrug
A wild property on the Havellander way, on it a struck by
lightning garden house, so began 1922 the rural youth home GmbH of the Anna von
Gierke. The social worker and founder of several social education
and children's institutions in Berlin could look back on thirty years of
professional experience in the field of social work with children.
Together with Isa Gruner and Alice Bendix, she had set up
the Landjugendheim on a 15-hectare site in Falkenhagen. It was also a home for
children seeking recreation and education. The founding of a GmbH offered opportunities for
financial independence. The Landjugendheim tried free of state tutelage, i.a.
with poultry farming and gardening, both politically and economically
independent.
In 1933, the National Socialists relieved Anna von Gierke
because of her Jewish ancestry. All Jewish employees were dismissed. Anna von
Gierke retired from the management of the GmbH, but continued to work with. Isa Gruner now ran the business of Landjugendheim GmbH in
the spirit of Anna von Gierkes. So it remained an oasis for children. In the years since 1933, 15 well-known, parentless Jewish
children were hidden here and their departure was mainly organized in England. Between 1945 and 1950 Isa Gruner designed the
reconstruction of the socio-educational work in the rural youth center
Finkenkrug. The children were taken prisoners whose parents died in the war and
in the concentration camps. In 1950, under the pressure of political changes,
they moved to West Berlin with their last permanent home children. A short time later, a children's home of the community
Falkensee was established in the rooms of the rural youth home, which existed
there until 1981. The last of the now very dilapidated original buildings of
Landjugendheim GmbH were demolished in the 1990s.
In 1942 she told a group of students in Finkenkrug: »Help us to regain the right to justice. Help everyone to
see their dignity in the other person and to believe in the good in people. « Foto: Privatbesitz Her purpose was to care for the children and adolescents
entrusted to her: "As long as there are still Jewish children in
Germany whom I can help with, I stay with them." Foto: Leo Baeck Institut Her purpose was to care for the children and adolescents
entrusted to her: "As long as there are still Jewish children in
Germany whom I can help with, I stay with them." Foto: Privatbesitz, B. Finney v.l.n.r. Anna von Gierke b. March 14, 1874 in Wroclaw, died April
3, 1943 in Berlin Alice Bendix b. November 13, 1894 in Landsberg / Warthe,
deported on March 13, 1943 to Auschwitz and murdered there Isa Gruner born. November 14, 1897 in Wilhelmshaven, died
August 20, 1989 in Berlin
On the initiative of the working group
"Landjugendheim Finkenkrug", friends and sponsors of Museum and
Gallery Falkensee eV, and with the kind support of the Anna von Gierke
Foundation Hamburg, the companies Rausch Roads and Civil Engineering GmbH,
Advertising Reichelt and Steinmetz Vogel became on 24 June 2011 in the presence
of several former residents of the Landjugendheim a memorial stone in honor of
Anna von Gierke, Alice Bendix and Isa Gruner revealed.
