Source: Rheinisch-Westfaelishce Zeitung , 1 December 1938
FIRST NAME 'ESTHER' ΓÇô NOT FOR ARYAN CHILDREN
A Decision of the Berlin Court /An Uncommon Father
Gelsenkirchen
A father reported the birth of his child to the registrar's office and wished to call her Esther. The official at the registrar's office refused to register this name for a German Aryan girl, referring to the intent of the unequivocal regulation of the Ministry of Interior. The father took up the affair through all judiciary levels. The court in Berlin, giving the final verdict, denied the registry of the name Esther for German girls in the future, on grounds of the character of this full Jew described by the book of Esther in the Old Testament. In the future, exceptions regarding this distinctly Jewish name of Esther will be granted only in the accepted, justified cases outlined by the Minister. Such an exception did not exist in the Gelsenkirchen claim.
It is amazing that a German father is still capable of choosing a name for his daughter that is appropriate only for the 'chosen people'. There are certainly enough beautiful names for girls to chose from, and there is no need to give our girls Jewish first names, and particularly not to label them with the character of an 'Esther'. The day will come when this little girl will be grateful that the registrar's office prevented her from carrying a name that she would have had to bear with abhorrence.
[The father, Friedrich Luncke, a clergyman, having lost the appeal, registered the girl, born on 11 August 1938, under the name Elisabeth. The little girl died at the age of two and a half years in March 1941. In spite of that, the father insisted on changing the name back to Esther after the war was over.]
