© Gerhard Weber
For 12-year-old Rosel Hecht, the path to a Jewish children’s home starts at the railway station in 1938. To mark the 100th anniversary of her birth, her route is being documented with display boards and social media in 2026.
Rosels Weg [Rosel’s Path] tells the story of the disenfranchisement and murder of the Jewish population based on the example of the life of Rosel Hecht from Ober-Roden. At the age of eleven, she was sent to a children’s home in Frankfurt; in 1941 she was deported to Minsk and probably murdered in Maly Trostenets. The project makes history emotionally tangible and has echoes of modern stories of flight. Railroad journeys mark turning points: the “short journey” to Frankfurt in 1936, the “long journey” to Minsk in 1941; her brother Jakob escaped via the Kindertransport. New research aims to close gaps, especially concerning Rosel’s years in Frankfurt. Along the 750 meters from the family home to the railway station, boards mark locations associated with both her day-to-day life and her exclusion from society. Instagram reels and a podcast for education and for the general public were made from fictitious diary entries. There was a commemorative celebration for the 100th anniversary of her birth in 2025; this will be followed in 2026 by an open-air performance on the route that the then eleven-year-old Rosel took, hand-in-hand with her mother, from her family home to the station.
Rosel Hecht was born in her family's home at Frankfurter Strasse 17, Ober-Roden on November 8, 1925 as the first child of Berta Kahn and Salomon Hecht; there was also a small shoe shop on the premises.
In the mid-1920s, Ober-Roden had a population of just over 3,000. As was typical of the time, Rosel grew up in a multi-generational household. Rosel’s grandmother Frieda Kahn ran the shoe shop together with her son Ludwig. Behind the shop was the living room/kitchen, with several small rooms upstairs. This is where Frieda Kahn, Ludwig Kahn, Mr. and Mrs. Hecht and the children Rosel and – from 1927 – her brother Jakob lived.
Poesiealbum, Seite 63.
© Ines Ariel-Grünewald
Economic surveys from the late 1920s indicate increasing unemployment in the locality. Many families relied on additional sources of income. The Hecht family, too, farmed its own fields and a garden plot. The situation was seriously exacerbated by the Great Depression.
From 1929, Rosel and her brother attended the Catholic kindergarten in the convent with a strict, sometimes rigid, educational regime. Rosel started school in April 1932. School chronicles from the Ober-Roden elementary school document a strongly teacher-centered style of instruction that relied on disciplinary punishment. After the Nazis came to power in 1933, school curricula and everyday school routine changed dramatically as teaching was brought into line with National Socialist ideology.
Although laws systematically restricted Jewish children’s access to education, Rosel was taught in Ober-Roden until 1937. Local tales tell of increasing hostility, however. Her brother Jakob was sent to a Jewish orphanage in Frankfurt as early as 1936. The family’s decisions indicate that the pressure in the suburb had increased.
Poesiealbum, Seite 63.
© Ines Ariel-Grünewald
By 1935, public life was completely infiltrated by NS organizations. Eyewitnesses describe how the Hecht family’s shoe shop became the target of graffiti and social exclusion.
Rosel left Ober-Roden in October 1937. Registration documents from the city of Frankfurt confirm she was admitted to the children’s home run by the women's welfare association in Sachsenhausen. The home’s occupancy lists show a growing number of Jewish children. At the same time, Rosel attended the Philanthropin, a Jewish school in the Nordend district of Frankfurt.
After 1938, Jewish life was drastically restricted, and Jewish people were almost completely excluded from public institutions. It is to be assumed that Rosel’s everyday life was increasingly restricted to the Jewish community.
Rosel lived in the children’s home until the end of 1939. Address directories from 1940 list her in the Jewish old people’s home on Wöhlerstraße – which was used as a so-called Judenhaus, a building where Jewish people were forced to live before deportation. Her mother Berta was living in a different Judenhaus in Frankfurt.
On November 10, 1941, Rosel and Berta Hecht had to report to the wholesale market where an assembly point had been set up – a place of fear, violence and degradation. Schedules and transportation documents show that the train left Frankfurt on November 12, 1941 and reached Minsk around six days later. Reports from survivors document extremely cramped conditions, thirst and deaths during the journey. In Minsk, the deportees were taken to a special sealed-off ghetto. Thousands of local Jews had been murdered there shortly beforehand. New arrivals had to live in overcrowded accommodation and do extremely hard labor.
Eyewitnesses painted a picture of systemic violence. The daily bread ration was around 200 grams (7 ounces). Those unable to work were shot.
The extermination camp of Maly Trostenets was extended from 1942 onwards. Historical studies estimate victims numbered in the tens of thousands. Increasingly, transports from the German Reich ended there. The procedure is documented by witness statements: undressing, shooting by pre-dug mass graves, and later the deployment of gas vans. The systematic removal of traces started in 1943.
There is no officially documented date of death for Rosel Hecht. Taken together, however, the sources suggest that she was killed at the age of 16 or, at most 17 in the mass murders carried out in Minsk or at Maly Trostenets. Her life story is representative of many others.
The documents are strikingly matter-of-fact. Between registration cards and deportation lists lies a life that was violently cut short. Rosel Hecht was a child from Ober-Roden. Her story is part of the local memory – and part of European history.
The documents are strikingly matter-of-fact. Between registration cards and deportation lists lies a life that was violently cut short. Rosel Hecht was a child from Ober-Roden. Her story is part of the local memory – and part of European history.
Founded in 2023, Rödermarkfreunde is a registered association for the promotion of art and culture that is recognized as a nonprofit organization by the tax authorities. It combines a modern way of maintaining local customs with high culture: short film evenings in 2023 and 2024 and a video art installation on the exhibition 75 Jahre Grundgesetz [75 Years of the Basic Law] sit comfortably alongside a cocktail stall at the local fair. In this way, the association can reach a broad, especially young audience.
For Rosels Weg [Rosel’s Path], Rödermarkfreunde is cooperating with the initiative Stolpersteine Rödermark, which provides extensive historical educational work. In addition to the laying of 22 Stolpersteine (memorial stones) at five sites with support programs, the theater project Jugendliche in Ghetto und KZ [Young People in the Ghetto and Concentration Camps] was implemented with the involvement of students from four schools.
