about the Archive
Information about the municipal archives of Dessau-Roßlau, which holdings you can view with us and what services we offer.
Archive Regulations
Here you can find the archive regulations and the fee catalog. Please inform yourself about the modalities during a visit to the Stadtarchiv Dessau-Roßlau.
Unfortunately, this is only available in German.
News
If you want to know what’s new in the archive or you want to find out about events in the archive network, take a look here.
Commemoration
“… arrested, taken to Auschwitz camp…” – Commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the deportation of Sinti and Roma from Magdeburg to Auschwitz-Birkenau
2 March 2023
3 pm
Dom-Remter
in Dom St. Katharina and St. Mauritius
Am Dom 1
39104 Magdeburg
Organizer
Saxony-Anhalt State Agency for Civic Education
Municipal Archives Dessau-Roßlau
Menda Yek e.V.
Invitation to a commemorative event on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the deportation of Sinti and Roma from Magdeburg to Auschwitz-Birkenau
Commemoration on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the deportation of Sinti and Roma from Magdeburg to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
More than 300 people belonging to the Sinti and Roma minorities were deported from Magdeburg to Auschwitz by the Secret State Police and the Criminal Police on 2 March 1943. These men, women and children were among the first Sinti and Roma to be forced into the so-called “Gypsy family camp” in Auschwitz-Birkenau on the basis of Heinrich Himmler’s decree of 16 December 1942.
As early as spring 1935, the city of Magdeburg had set up the so-called “Gypsy camp on Holzweg”, an internment camp where Sinti and Roma were subjected to inhumane living conditions. Magdeburg companies and the city administration exploited the forced labourers as cheap labour. The situation of the internees there worsened at the beginning of 1938 when over 70 Sinti from Dessau-Roßlau/Anhalt were deported there. From June 1938 onwards, the Magdeburg criminal police delivered first a group of men, then also some women, to concentration camps.
Only a few of the Central German Sinti and Roma survived the National Socialist genocide of these minorities. Together with relatives of persecuted and murdered Sinti, we want to remember the victims and invite you to participate in the commemoration.
Program
Musical prelude
Romani Weiss (Guitar)
Manolito Steinbach (Guitar)
Martin Weiss (Violin)
Greeting
Maik Reichel, Director of the Saxony-Anhalt State Agency for Civic Education
Commemorative Speech
Ronni Krug, Alderman of the State Capital Magdeburg
Music
Speeches by relatives of deported Sinti
Mario Franz, Niedersächsischer Verband deutscher Sinti e.V.
Verena Sekanina and Margitta Steinbach, Menda Yek e.V.
Music
Prayer
Friedrich Kramer, Regional Bishop of the Evangelical Church in Central Germany
Silent walk to the memorial for the persecuted and murdered Magdeburg Sinti and Roma
Laying of the wreath and reading of the names
Against 4.45 pm end
Moderation
Jana Müller, Dessau-Roßlau Municipal Archive
Admission to the commemoration ceremony is free
New web page
Our homepage is currently being revised. Unfortunately, not all the content of the old website is yet available on the new website.
However, the contents of the old site can still be accessed. You can get there via the following link: https://www.alb-dessau.de/old/
Songs against oblivion 9 November 2022
On the occasion of the commemoration of the November pogroms in 1938, the Dessau-Roßlau Municipal Archives, the “Kurt Weill” Music School, the AJZ Dessau and DIE LINKE.Stadtverband Dessau-Roßlau cordially invite you to the traditional event “Songs against Forgetting” on 9 November, at 5 pm in the Marienkirche. This year’s programme is entitled “From Dessau-Roßlau to the waiting room of death – a programme in memory of those deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto”. 80 years ago, on 18 November 1942, the Nazi persecution authorities deported seventeen mostly elderly men and women from Dessau-Roßlau to the Theresienstadt ghetto. In January 1944, another woman and a man were forced there. Of the nineteen deported to Theresienstadt, only two women survived the Shoa. All the others either succumbed to the inhumane conditions in Theresienstadt or were deported from there to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp.
Using known and newly discovered sources, the programme tells of the lives and work of those affected and the persecution to which they were subjected. In the interplay of texts, songs, pieces of music and poems, the audience can expect a performance that is intended to remember and commemorate the victims of the Shoa from our city in a special way.
The current hygiene regulations apply to the event.
Alexa Hennig von Lange reads from her new novel "Die karierten Mädchen" (The Chequered Girls)
Date: 8 November 2022Time: 19.00 p.m.Location: Marienkirche Dessau
Ticket price: 6,50 € Tickets are available at the tourist information offices in Dessau and Roßlau and at the box office.Organiser: Thalia Dessau in cooperation with Municipal Archives Dessau-Roßlau and JKS Villa Krötenhof
The reading of the book ( Original title „Die karierten Mädchen“) is in German.
Reservix online booking:https://www.reservix.de/tickets-lesung-die-karierten-maedchen-in-dessau-rosslau-marienkirche-am-8-11-2022/e1998778
It is very rare that our region forms the central location of a novel’s plot. This is the case in the recently published new novel “Die karierten Mädchen” by Alexa Hennig von Lange. For her new book, the author was inspired by her grandmother’s memoirs, which she recorded at an advanced age on more than 130 tape cassettes. The novel is the beginning of a trilogy that starts in 1929
Klara, the protagonist of the novel, gets one of the rare jobs as a home economics teacher in a children’s home in Oranienbaum in the middle of the world economic crisis. Soon the home’s economic situation comes to a head. Klara, who now runs the home, seeks the proximity of the new powers-that-be in the hope of salvation. Too late she realises with whom she has become involved.
Alexa Hennig von Lange at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2017
Date 13. October 2017, 14:23:46
Source: wikipedia, retrieved 21.10.2022
Author: Heike Huslage-Koch
This file is licensed under the Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) License.
The National Socialists turn the house into a women’s educational home. Klara is supposed to instil a love of the people and the child in her pupils instead of educating them to become independent-minded women. At the same time, under the swastika flag and the constant visits of Nazi officials, she is suddenly in danger herself, as she protects a Jewish orphan girl.
Alexa Hennig von Lange, born in 1973, became one of the most successful authors of her generation with her debut novel “Relax” (1997). Numerous other novels, short stories, plays and books for young people followed. In 2002, Alexa Hennig von Lange was awarded the German Youth Literature Prize. With her novel “Die karierten Mädchen” (The Checkered Girls), Alexa Hennig von Lange presents a novel set in a time when the National Socialists gradually subjugated all areas of society, brutality increased and freedom dwindled. She spreads this dark chapter of German history in an exciting, authentic way, with a plausible view of the social developments of the 1930s and against a concrete regional frame of reference. In which the Anhalt towns of Oranienbaum and Dessau play a major role.
Opening Klughardt Exhibition
15 October 2022 at 4 p.m., Foyer of the Anhaltisches Theater.
"A noble artist's heart has ceased to beat!" read an obituary on the front page of the Anhaltischer Staats-Anzeiger on 5 August 1902. And further: "He who gripped and thrilled our hearts with heaven-sprung tones, the lyre has now sunk from him." [...] At his bier, the whole musical world mourns, but it is loyal Anhalt that mourns most deeply for one of its best sons, whose memory will never be extinguished among us." The obituary was dedicated to the Dessau court conductor, composer and pianist Dr. August Klughardt, who had died two days earlier, on 3 August 1902.
August Klughardt was born in Köthen on 30 November 1847. His musical talent emerged early and was encouraged. After completing his musical education, he began his professional career in the summer of 1867 as Kapellmeister at the Stadttheater Posen. This was followed by engagements in Neustrelitz, Dessau, Lübeck and Weimar. From 1873 to 1882 he was a very successful court conductor in Neustrelitz, then he returned to his native Anhalt as court conductor. He led the Dessau court orchestra to new musical heights, celebrated triumphs as an opera conductor and pianist, tirelessly ensured the success of the Anhalt Music Festivals, made Dessau a Wagner stronghold and made a great name for himself as the composer of numerous, frequently performed chamber music and orchestral works. With his works, Klughardt is still present in the musical world today. A grave monument created by Emanuel Semper in Cemetery III and Klughardtstraße in Dessau-Roßlau commemorate this important composer.
On the occasion of his 175th birthday, August Klughardt is being honoured in various ways this year. These include an exhibition by the Dessau-Roßlau City Archive and the Anhalt Theatre Dessau entitled "August Klughardt (1847-1902). Composer, Conductor, Court Kapellmeister". In addition to texts and pictures on the life and work of August Klughardt, the exhibition will feature an oil painting of Klughardt created by August Seelmann, original documents from the Klughardt estate in the city archives and a historic trombone purchased by the conductor for the court orchestra. The exhibition will open in the foyer of the Anhaltisches Theater on 15 October 2022 at 4 p.m. and will be on view there until 27 November during the opening of the theatre on performance days. Marco Zabel from Neustrelitz will speak about August Klughardt at the exhibition opening. David Werner (oboe), Svetla Kambourova (viola) and Sebastian Kennerknecht (piano) will perform Klughardt's "Schilflieder".
All interested parties are cordially invited! Admission is free.
