Testimonial von Ernst Löschner für Baum 3
For more than 60 years we know each other, Marko Feingold and me. When I moved with my family from Zell am See to Salzburg in 1956 as a 13-year-old, Marko ran a fashion business, in which our mother often bought trousers for me and my brothers. In his shop, "Mr. Alge" sold stamps, which I often looked at as a budding passionate philatelist and also exchanged a few words with Marko. He often had a funny observation on his lips. I would never have guessed that it was a survivor of 4 concentration camps who were interested in me.
Much later - my mother was able to support the renovation of the Jewish cemetery in Salzburg at the end of the 1980s - did I become aware of his role as president of the (unfortunately dwindling) Salzburg congregation, and then in 2003 I made my research on the Jewish exodus The Krimml Tauern began, this was also the beginning of our friendship, which deepened year by year, especially with his wife Hanna.
"If you have died once, nothing else hurts": That Marko survived again and again like a "miracle" is one thing ... and yet: if there is anyone to trust this miracle, then it is probably this agile, crafty and funny little man, who weighed barely more than 30kg after his liberation from Buchenwald. That he and the other liberated Austrians were not only not welcomed by our state, but even sent back to their placec of origin, is part of the "Never Forget!", which we have to remember as a historical mirror. Marko settled in Salzburg and immediately found himself again as a helper for desperate people, even with the survival tricks, which he had appropriated himself and now used for others, often with "chutzpah" and psychological tricks convincing public servants to provide him with lorries to smuggle so-called Eastern Jews over the Brenner as real "Italians".
I have often emphasized that he was the one who had scouted the escape route over the Krimml Tauern in 1947, and thus opened up more than 5,000 people to hope for a new home. Today, I want to thank him above all for how naturally he contributes to the APC events in Krimml year after year, as well as for all APC events in Salzburg, Vienna, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv (2017 as a 94-year-old!).
He has not lost his repartee to this day: he said, spoken to me, "because you have to be 100 to celebrate my 130s with me!". To know a 105-year-old in our midst: The APC hikers were also happy about it at the 12th APC.
Several times I was allowed to be a guest in the Salzburg religious community. At the same time I was able to experience Marko (or Max, as I may call him) in a special uniqueness: with which persuasiveness and also with what empathy he meets young people. About 30 pupils came from Bavaria to a memorable experience in the Salzburg Synagogue. Hans Nerbl and John Himmelbauer then recorded the conversation that I subsequently conducted with Marko*)
It is my honor and desire to be one of the donors of Tree # 3 in the Grove of Flight. May Marko Feingold stay with us for a long time in good health. Again and again I call to him: "Hold on, Marko!"
*) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPsqc0lm1h4&ab_channel=HansDieterNerbl
