“Mementos of my Mother”

Object Day Dresden: André Lang

“Show us your story!” – Beginning in 2017, the Jewish participants in the Object Days project have answered this invitation by recounting their migration stories.

A gray-haired man holds a menorah in one hand and a medal in the other. — André Lang, born in 1946 in Manchester, England.
Living in Germany since 1946.
Licensed engineer.
Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Stephan Pramme

I have various mementos of my mother Ruth Nelly Lang, whose maiden name was Weisz, and her Jewish family that came from Hungary and Germany.

In 1938, my mother and her family emigrated to England, where she met my father, Max Lang. He was a German Communist. After spending two years in prison under the Nazis, he reached England in 1938 by way of Czechoslovakia and Switzerland. My parents spent their years abroad together in Manchester and returned to Germany in 1946 with my sister and me to my father’s hometown of Dresden. My mother was one of the few surviving Jews who, out of idealism and conviction, returned to their homeland to rebuild a Germany that had been liberated from the fascists.

My mother’s two objects, the menorah and the medal for members of the anti-fascist struggle, represent Judaism as well as the communist resistance against the Nazis.

Object Days: Dresden (7)

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