The Jewish Humberg family lived in this house, Hohe Str. 13 in Dingden, until 1941. When you entered the house, you came to Abraham Humberg's butcher shop on the right (which he had taken over in 1882) and to the left to the shop of Rosalia (wife) Humberg, née Landau. Here she ran a fabrics, manufacturing and tailoring shop since the mid-1880s. They had 9 children and were valued members of the village community.
On the ground floor you can see what life was like for the Jewish family until 1933.
But the Humberg family, like millions of other Jews, fell victim to systematic discrimination and persecution. Ernst (Abraham's 7th child) and his wife Hilde Humberg with their daughter Ruth were the first to leave their homeland in March 1939 and found a new home in Canada. Leopold, the eldest son, stayed until the end. Until 1941, the house was confiscated by the National Socialists and Leopold was expelled. On the upper floor of this historic house, you can learn all about the changes after 1933, the escape, deportation and death using the example of the Humberg family. You can see the wooden box that was given up in Duisburg for emigration and the original bicycle with which he began his escape. As the family members disappeared, their traces and memories also faded.
The Dingden Local History Association has made the history of the house and its former residents visible again and has made it a place of remembrance, reflection and learning since June 2012.
During the renovation (from 2001), an old paving stone (17th century), a drying facility for grain (early 19th century), an oven niche, a mikveh (an immersion bath sunk into the floor for ritual cleansing) and utensils from the butcher's shop and household goods that were sunk there when the mikveh was filled in were discovered under the floor.
The members of the local history association intensified their research into the history of the house and its residents and in 2003 made contact for the first time with the Humbergs' descendants in Canada. A lively exchange took place in the following years.