Update München Displaced // Ernest Landau

Ellen Presser, Head of the Cultural Center at the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde München handed the Jewish Museum Munich several memorabilia for its collection. Among these objects is Ernest Landau’s business card.
Ernest Landau’s business card © Jewish Museum Munich

Ernest Landau, born in 1916 in Vienna, was one of the first journalists to report on the situation of Jewish survivors.

Until 1938, Landau worked for a number of different Austrian newspapers including the “Neue Freie Presse” and the “Telegraf.” He then fled to Belgium where he became involved in the resistance movement following the German Occupation. At the end of 1940, he was interned in Breendonk concentration camp. From there he was sent to Auschwitz and was deported to Warsaw concentration camp in October 1943. His odyssey through several concentration camps in Poland and Germany ended in a Dachau subcamp. Liberated by the American Army on May 1, 1945 between Tutzing and Seeshaupt on Lake Starnberg, Landau lived for some time in Feldafing Displaced Person’s (DP’s) camp and in 1947 founded the first and initially only weekly newspaper in German for liberated Jews, the “Neue Welt. Eine Wochenschrift der befreiten Juden.”

Thanks to Ellen Presser for her support of the Museum collection. The exhibition “Munich Displaced. The Surviving Remnant” is a stocktaking on Munich’s post-war history. Much detailed information as well as photos and memorabilia are still missing. In the meantime, visitors, descendants of Displaced Persons from Munich and other interested parties have shared their memories with us.