The Stelzers and the Novins |

Mark, Steven and Trevor Novins

‟It’s so emotional”

by Till Lieberz-Groß

The two brothers, Mark and Steve Novins, visit the hometown of their grandparents, Emil and Else Stelzer for the first time in 2016 as participants of the visiting programme of the City of Frankfurt. They never had a chance to get to know their grandparents: both of them had been murdered by the Nazis. Their mother, Marian Novins and their aunt, Ilse Appel, had left Germany after World War II; as orphans they emigrated together with their grandfather, Ernst Stelzer, to the USA. There they were adopted by members of the Stelzer family who had left Germany in the early 1930s; after the adoption their names were changed to Ilse and Marian Wells.

During their stay in Frankfurt as guests of the City of Frankfurt in 2011, Ilse and Marian get to know about the ‟Stolpersteine” for their parents, organized by Eintracht Frankfurt as a commemoration for its former club member, the Eintracht athlete Emil Stelzer and his wife Else. And they are overwhelmed by this memorial as Marian’s sons Mark and Steven will be some years later: Their parents and grandparents are not forgotten in their hometown Frankfurt.

Else and Emil Stelzer

Else/Elsa Setta Stelzer dies on the first birthday of her daughter Marianne, on January 7th, 1944 in Auschwitz – allegedly from typhoid. Else Stelzer is only forty years old then; she dies that early – only because she is Jewish. She is imprisoned on August 12th, 1943 and deported on November 22nd, 1943 by ‟Sondertransport” (special transport) from the police custody in Frankfurt to Auschwitz. Her youngest daughter Marianne is only six months old, her older daughter Ilse is six years old when Else is arrested.

Getting married to a Jewish lady Emil accepts the Jewish faith of his wife. And he stands by her even when the Nazis try to force him to divorce his wife. According to the Nazis the marriage between Emil and Else is a so called ‟Mischehe” (mixed marriage) and Emil comes more and more under severe pressure.

Emil’s bank, the Stadtsparkasse, plays an ignominious role in denouncing him. This denunciation is foiled by the responsible tax office in Kassel in their response of February 24th, 1942. They confirm that the restriction concerning Emil’s account has been lifted ‟because he is no longer [in the original underlined in red] listed as Jewish’. But the restriction still applies to his wife Elsa Sara Stelzer”.

According to Emil he receives an “Aryan” card (“Kennkarte”) in 1942 but he is nevertheless imprisoned being accused of having organized non-Jewish ration coupons (“Lebensmittelkarten”) for his wife and his daughter Ilse. He is taken into custody and is deported to Buchenwald for the second time.

Emil is targeted by the Nazis from the very beginning and relentlessly persecuted. The first time in 1938 he is deported to Buchenwald as an ‟Aktionsjude” for being married to a Jew (November 11th – December 12th, 1938) and the second time on June 14th, 1943 being accused of the ‟political crime” of having organized ration coupons. Emil dies in Buchenwald on March 3rd, 1944 (March 5th?).

In 1961 the regional council in Wiesbaden confirm in a decision concerning his legacy: ‟The testator was Aryan. He was married to the racially persecuted Else Stelzer, née Wolf.” ‟True, he was a Christian but he had committed the unpardonable sin of marrying a Jew”, says Robert St. John, an American journalist in 1946.

Orphaned – Ilse and Marianne Stelzer

The children live together with their grandfather in a partially destroyed house; because of the bombing they are forced to live in the basement of the house in Finkenhofstr. 23. According to the family only two neighbours, Ms Euler and Ms Ball, help Ernst Stelzer. Other neighbours obviously give them away to the Nazis.

Trying to save the children

Emil and Else desperately try to save their daughters by baptizing both after Marianne was born – in vain. Even young Ilse is forced to wear the ‟star of David” and – presumably because of the denunciation by neighbours – she is even deported to Theresienstadt (February 18th until May 5th, 1945) which traumatizes the eight-year-old girl for the rest of her life. Only much later in life Ilse is able to cope with this trauma. In an interview she says that she did not want to be gassed by any means and therefore thought of ways of killing herself before that could happen.

Even after her liberation in Theresienstadt she cannot see herself as a ‟survivor” because the nightmare continues. For a long time she has been hoping that her parents have not perished. And after she finally has to face the fact that they won’t come back she withdraws for a long time into a cocoon of silence feeling guilty for being alive (‟Überlebensschuld”) whereas her parents are dead.

Harold and Alice Wells adopt the children

Emigration to the USA – Ernst Stelzer and his two granddaughters, Ilse and Marianne.

Grandfather Stelzer, called Opi Ernest, passes away only two years after the emigration. Ernst Stelzer, born in August 3rd, 1868 in Dresden, was brought up in an orphanage after both his parents had died. After a long time, travelling around and improving his skills, he settles in Frankfurt and becomes a well- known sculptor. At the age of about 75 he becomes both father and mother for his grandchildren, also orphans – because of the Nazi-terror. Ernst Stelzer passes away in 1948 in New York.

The second and third generation

Mark and Steven Novins, Marian’s sons, were surprised when they realized that their beloved grandparents, Alice and Harold, were actually their grand-aunt and grand-uncle: They were about twenty years old then.

The Stelzer-offspring was deeply moved by the ‟Stolpersteine” (‟stumbling stones”) for their grandparents Else and Emil in front of Finkenhofstr. 23 , initiated by Emil’s former club, the Eintracht Frankfurt. And equally emotional for them was a visit to the Eintracht-Gym where Emil had trained very often: ‟Each day in Frankfurt we feel closer to our grandparents Emil and Else”, admit both Mark and Steven.

After a visit at the Lichtigfeld-Schule/Philantropin, where their grandfather Emil had worked as a gym-teacher during the Nazi era Mark characterizes the week in Frankfurt as an ‟emotional ride on a roller-coaster” – a week that made them ‟feel their German roots very intensely”. The students of Lichtigfeld-Schule could understand their feelings very well because ‟some of our grandparents perished in the holocaust as well”.

‟Stolperstein” for Ernst Stelzer