Israelite community of Cham
The Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Cham was the Jewish community in Cham . It existed from 1886 to 1939 and from 1945 to 1948.
history
13th to 18th centuries
For the first time, 1298 Jews are mentioned in writing in Cham. In the 14th century, several Jews in Cham were named who lived from lending money and pawns. You had probably moved here from Regensburg. 1336/37 "Töfel" and 1368/71 "Aron the Jew of Cham" are mentioned.
In 1337 a pogrom took place in Deggendorf , in which the Jewish population of the city was completely destroyed. The grave church built afterwards was dedicated to this pogrom . In order to glorify this mass murder, pilgrimages to the grave church continued until 1968. The subsequent persecution of the Jews also affected the Jews in Cham.
From 1468 to 1491 five Jewish families lived in the Judengasse in Cham, which still exists today. Several attempts have been made to expel her from Cham. After 1556 there were no more Jews in Cham. Until the 19th century, Jews were generally prohibited from settling in Cham.
A Jewish gravestone from 1230 from the Israelite cemetery in Regensburg is walled in on the western facade of the Chamber of Commerce. The gravestone says in Hebrew that it is the grave of Miriam, the daughter of Ephraim, who died on May 28, 1230. An inscription with Latin letters is carved underneath: "In 1519 the Jews were expelled from Regensburg". After the Jews were expelled from Regensburg in 1519, these tombstones were sent to the surrounding area to testify to this expulsion. There are gravestones of this kind from the Regensburg Jewish cemetery in Kelheim and Straubing.
19th century to 1942
The Bavarian Jewish Edict of 1813 granted the Jews in Bavaria civil rights and freedom of belief for the first time. However, the so-called register paragraph, which existed until 1861, limited the number of Jews residing in the Bavarian towns. Weddings had to be approved by the authorities.
Section 13 of the Jewish edict made the following conditions for the resettlement of Jews:
- § 13 The establishment of the number in the same places where there are already Jews, or the establishment in places where there are no Jews, can only be approved by the highest authority, and will only be approved by the same under the following conditions: 1 for the establishment of factories or large commercial enterprises; 2. when engaging in a proper trade if they have been granted a master craftsman's license; 3. when they buy so much land for their own cultivation, whereupon a family can feed themselves well from farming without doing business. [...]
In 1861 the settlement restrictions for Jews were lifted.
In 1863 Isaak Lazarus Boscowitz from Floß settled in Cham and opened the "Tuch- & Buksin-Lager" cloth shop there. By 1867, the number of Jewish residents of Cham rose to 13.
With the Bismarck constitution of 1871 the Jews in the German Reich were put on an equal footing with non-Jewish citizens and all restrictions were removed.
In the following years, the number of Jews in Cham increased in connection with the establishment of businesses and companies. Examples of such Jewish shops and companies in Cham are: Benjamin Eisfeld shoe store, Samuel Neuburger department store, Gustav Bloch fashion store, Moritz Stern textile store. In addition, Jews from the Bohemian regions immigrated to Cham.
Development of the number of Jewish residents of Cham:
| year | Residents | % Of Cham residents |
|---|---|---|
| 1871 | 26th | 0.9% |
| 1880 | 43 | 1.2% |
| 1890 | 55 | 1.5% |
| 1900 | 68 | 1.7% |
| 1910 | 80 | 1.8% |
| 1924 | 81 | 1.8% |
| 1933 | 66 | 1.3% |
| 1939 | 20th | |
| 1940 | 6th | |
| 1942 | 2 |
In 1886 the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Cham was founded. It also included the Jews from Furth im Wald, Kötzting, Roding, Waldmünchen, Neunburg vorm Wald, Neukirchen-Balbini, Tiefenbach, Viechtach and Walderbach. In 1889 the Jewish community of Cham near Windischbergerdorf set up the Jewish cemetery that still exists today . The ballroom on the first floor of the house on Probsteistraße 4 has served as the Beetsaal since 1895. Religious instruction was also given there.
The Jewish community of Cham did not have its own rabbi , but was looked after by the respective district rabbi. The Jewish community paid a teacher who gave religious instruction. This teacher led the services as chasan and acted as shochet .
From 1915 to 1937 the office of teacher, cantor and schochet of the Jewish community of Cham was exercised by: Meir Godlewski (born: January 23, 1867 in Schradeck in Courland, today: Srednik, Kaunas district, Lithuania, died: September 27, 1939 in Constance, buried there in the Jewish cemetery, his grave has been preserved). The Godlewsky family lived in the Amberg / Würzburg area in the 19th century. The cantors and teachers Moses, Leopold and Elias Godlewsky also came from here. Elias and Leopold Godlewsky were cantors and teachers in the Jewish community of Amberg .
With the seizure of power by the National Socialists , the living conditions of the Jews became unbearable in Cham. They fled to other cities or abroad. When the deportation began in 1942 , only two Jews were still living in Cham. One of the two was married to a Christian and was spared deportation. The other was a 62 year old man. He was brought to Regensburg in April 1942. A total of at least 33 Cham Jews were found in their places of refuge and murdered by the fascists.
From 1945
In April 1945, columns of prisoners from the Flossenbürg concentration camp near Cham were liberated by the US Army. The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) set up two camps for displaced persons in Cham . The same building in which the prayer room of the Jewish community had previously been now housed one of these camps. The prayer room was renovated and in September 1945 services took place there again. A new Jewish community with 311 members emerged in 1945 from a Jewish committee that had been formed after the liberation. Many Jews emigrated to the State of Israel, founded in 1948, and elsewhere. The number of Jews in Cham fell to 260 in 1946 and to 16 in 1973. From 1975 the required number of 10 men had fallen below and the prayer room was no longer used. There was now a secondary school in the building that used the former prayer room as an auditorium. In 1991, a memorial plaque for the victims of National Socialist rule was placed in the entrance area of the building.
literature
- Timo Bullemer: The local Jews are long -established in Cham ... Cham city archive, 2003, ISBN 3831149208
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g http://www.rijo.homepage.t-online.de/pdf/DE_BY_JU_cham1.pdf
- ↑ a b c d e f g h http://www.alemannia-judaica.de/cham_synagoge.htm
- ↑ Manfred Eder : The "Deggendorfer Gnad" , Deggendorf 1992, pp. 198-199.
- ↑ http://gedenkbuch.informedia.de/index.php/PID/16/name/3739/street/254/suche/*.html
- ^ Dieter Dörner: The modern Jewish communities in Amberg. In: Michael Brenner , Renate Höpfinger (Hrsg.): The Jews in the Upper Palatinate. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 2008, ISBN 978-3-486-58678-7 , pp. 124-132.