Renate Schneck

Renate Schneck was born in Munich on May 13, 1940. Her mother, Paula Schneck, was born in Düsseldorf in 1917. Renate lived with her grandparents, Josef and Sofie Schneck, at Friedenspromenade 42 (today 40) with her mother and her mother’s siblings. Very little is known about the lives of the family. Renate’s grandmother Sofie Schneck was born in 1894 and came from Moos in the district of Radolfzell. Her grandfather Josef Schneck was born in Rippberg in Baden in 1882 and dealt in antiques and string instruments. Renate’s mother Paula Schneck had four younger siblings: Donatus, born in 1925, Elisabeth, born in 1926, Gisela, born in 1927, and Josef Maria, born in 1930. Like all Sinti and Roma in Munich, the Schneck family were arrested by the police. On March 8, 1943 they were all, even two-year-old Renate, sent to the Munich police prison; on March 13, 1943 the police deported them to Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. Renate Schneck died of starvation in the so-called “gypsy camp” in Auschwitz-Birkenau on April 13, 1943, as did her grandparents, Josef and Sofie Schneck, her mother Paula Schneck and Gisela and Josef Maria Schneck. The SS sent her uncle Donatus Schneck to Buchenwald concentration camp, where he was killed in an air raid at the end of August, 1944. The only member of the family to survive the genocide of the Sinti and Roma was Elisabeth Schneck.(text Sarah Grandke, editor C. Fritsche, translation C. Hales)