{"id":4813,"date":"2022-03-11T13:07:35","date_gmt":"2022-03-11T13:07:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alst.org\/?p=4813"},"modified":"2024-03-12T06:29:29","modified_gmt":"2024-03-12T06:29:29","slug":"short-biography-max-liebster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alst.org\/en\/history\/biographies\/short-biography-max-liebster\/","title":{"rendered":"Short Biography Max Liebster"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignleft size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"136\" height=\"180\" src=\"https:\/\/alst.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/max-liebster-jeune.jpeg\" alt=\"Max Liebster as a young man\" class=\"wp-image-3343\"\/><figcaption>Max Liebster as a young man<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Max Liebster was born to a Jewish family on February 15, 1915, in the small town of Reichenbach (Odenwald), Germany. Max, his parents, Bernhard and Babette, and his two sisters, Ida and Hanna, struggled to live on Bernhard\u2019s work as a cobbler. Following his return from service in the German army at the Russian front, Bernhard felt troubled by the seeming contradiction between his deep reverence for God and the bloodshed he had seen committed in God\u2019s name. Young Max likewise grew up with strong faith in God, and he worked hard to prepare for his bar mitzvah. Due to the family\u2019s poverty, Max\u2019s parents decided that after he finished school, he should move to the larger city of Viernheim and work in his cousins\u2019 clothing store.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Max\u2019s industrious work ethic and friendliness earned him respect among the predominantly non-Jewish clientele. The good relationships he enjoyed made the shock of the Nazi pogrom \u201cCrystal Night\u201d even harder to bear. Max\u2019s cousins escaped to America, but he was left behind to face arrest and imprisonment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"200\" src=\"https:\/\/alst.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/max-liebster.jpeg\" alt=\"Max Liebster\" class=\"wp-image-3348\"\/><figcaption>Max Liebster<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>On September 11, 1939, just days after the start of World War II, Max found himself in solitary confinement, wondering about his fate. The next six years would bring unspeakable hardships\u2014a tortuous journey that encompassed five different Nazi camps, including Auschwitz. Max teetered on the edge of death from disease and starvation. More than once an SS guard came to his aid, as did a Communist prisoner. But it was Max\u2019s encounter with the \u201cpurple triangles,\u201d Jehovah\u2019s Witness prisoners, in the camps Sachsenhausen, Neuengamme, Auschwitz, and Buchenwald, that gave him the physical and moral will to survive. They repeatedly risked their lives to give him food and shelter, and most importantly of all, hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Max emerged from the Nazi abyss determined to spend his energies in overcoming hatred with love and combating despair with hope. He has tirelessly done so together with Simone, his wife of over fifty years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Max Liebster was born to a Jewish family on February 15, 1915, in the small town of Reichenbach (Odenwald), Germany. Max, his parents, Bernhard and Babette, and his two sisters, Ida and Hanna, struggled to live on Bernhard\u2019s work as a cobbler. Following his return from service in the German army at the Russian front, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3348,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-biographies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alst.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alst.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alst.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alst.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alst.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4813"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/alst.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7824,"href":"https:\/\/alst.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4813\/revisions\/7824"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alst.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alst.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alst.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alst.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}