[Landgericht Kassel 2000]

THE ERICH-LEWINSKI-COLUMN
 

Erich Lewinsky was a lawyer in Kassel. He was a socialist and he was a Jew. In many trials he was the opponent of Roland Freisler, lawyer in Kassel too and later the president of the Reichsgerichtshof.

When the Nazis came to power, Freisler wanted to eliminate his former opponent. Lewinsky could flee the last moment to Switzerland and went than with his family to France. There he opened a restaurant. It became a meeting point of the German emigrants.
Erich Lewinski worked further in Marseille with the Emergency Rescue Committee and helped many artists to emigrate to the USA.
Then he emigrated himself with his wife to the USA.

1947 he went back to Kassel and became the second president of the new supreme court.

In the column hall of the court building Horst Hoheisel dedicated one column to Erich Lewinski. This Column has a golden ring
with an inscription, a quotation from Erich Lewinski, which tells us, that the idea of justice has priority, if the laws are criminal.

In 1947 there existed still laws from the Nazi time. Lewinski was the first judge , who refused to continue with this criminal laws.

Horst Hoheisel