Paula (Pauline) Schneck

Paula Schneck was born in Düsseldorf on June 29, 1917. Her mother, Sofie, was born in 1894 and came from Moos in the district of Radolfzell. Her father Josef Schneck was born in Rippberg in Baden in 1882 and dealt in antiques and string instruments. Paula had four younger siblings: Donatus, born in 1925, Elisabeth, born in 1926, Gisela, born in 1927, and Josef Maria, born in 1930. Very little is known about the lives of the family. In Munich they lived at Friedenspromenade 42 (today 40). In 1940 Paula Schneck gave birth to her daughter Renate. 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. Paula Schneck died of starvation in the so-called “gypsy camp” in Auschwitz-Birkenau in October or November 1943, as did her parents, Josef and Sofie Schneck, her siblings Josef Maria and Gisela and her daughter Renate. The SS sent her brother 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)