"What Remains are the Memories"

Horst Selbiger was born in Berlin in 1928 as the son of a Jewish dentist and a Christian mother. Already in elementary school, Selbiger, who grew up with his brother, was ostracized by the other children. His Jewish secondary school, where he felt safe for the first time and fell in love with his friend Ester, was closed in 1942 – from then on, Selbiger and the other children were forced into compulsory labor. At the end of February 1943, when Berlin Jews were deported from their forced labor sites, he and Ester found themselves in detention. The teenagers vowed that the survivor would tell their story. Just a few days later, Ester was taken to the Auschwitz extermination camp and murdered.

15-year-old Horst Selbiger himself, as a so-called half-Jew, narrowly escaped deportation at the last moment. “My mother was our lifesaver,” Selbiger reported in the reading. His Christian mother had stood by her Jewish husband and their two sons, even under political and social pressure. Over 60 of his family members - the oldest 86 years old, the youngest six months old – were murdered during the Nazi era. In his narration, Selbiger repeatedly links his own experiences and Ester’s fate with the full extent of the crimes of the Third Reich – from the state to the corporations to society. “What remains are the thoughts, the melancholy, and the ineradicable memories,” Selbiger said. “It took me 70 years after my promise to Ester to find the words to report on our experiences.”

Great sympathy

For the fourth time since 2017, Horst Selbiger has been a guest at TU Dortmund University for a reading organized by Prof. Egbert Ballhorn from the Institute of Catholic Theology. Together with Ina Brandes, NRW Minister for Culture and Science, Prof. Manfred Bayer, President of TU Dortmund University, was pleased to personally welcome Horst Selbiger to Dortmund this year. Prof. Bayer expressed his gratitude for the opportunity to share in Selbiger’s story, reinforcing, “We must all stand united and with emphasis against any form of anti-Semitism.”

Minister Ina Brandes stated, “The experience and impressions of a personal encounter with survivors of the Shoah are indispensable. I am deeply grateful that Horst Selbiger shares his personal story and the immense suffering he has endured with the students and lecturers of TU Dortmund University. We should seize every opportunity to bring especially younger people into dialog with eyewitnesses. The horror of the Shoah must never be forgotten.”

Wish for subsequent generations

Likewise, Prof. Egbert Ballhorn and Prof. Christoph Schuck, Dean of the Department of Humanities and Theology, appealed to the numerous attendees to pass on the accounts of contemporary witnesses when they are no longer able to tell their stories firsthand.

In conclusion of his reading, Horst Selbiger engaged in a dialog with the audience. When asked what his advice for the younger generations would be, Selbiger addressed all listeners: “Open your minds and think for yourselves. That is my expectation and my wish for the younger generation. Don’t just parrot an opinion. Experience life and what is happening in the world – then think about it. Your head is given to you for thinking, so make use of it!”

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