Jewish community of Berwangen

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Memorial stone for the victims of the persecution of the Jews in the Jewish cemetery in Berwangen
Berwang Jewish cemetery on Fürfelder Weg
Former Jewish school on Badersgasse

The Jewish community in Berwangen in the district of Heilbronn in northern Baden-Württemberg probably came into being in the 17th century through the settlement of protective Jews by the local authorities , had a synagogue from 1771 and later also its own Jewish cemetery in Berwangen , but experienced it by leaving and Emigration gradually declined in the second half of the 19th century. The community died out in the course of the deportation of the Jews in Baden during the National Socialist era .

history

Jews were accepted into Berwangen by the local lords, the lords of Helmstatt , probably as early as the 17th century. Jews were first mentioned in 1719. After they only had a prayer room and had been a rabbi since 1742 at the latest , Carl Christoph von Helmstatt approved the construction of a synagogue in 1770 , which was completed the following year. The Jews were allowed to purchase buildings on site. There was no ghetto separated from the rest of the village, but the living space of the Berwang Jews was concentrated in a Jewish quarter in the area of ​​today's Badersgasse. In 1825 the 120 Jews of the place made up around 15% of the total population.

The synagogue was soon too small, so that in 1845 a new building, combined with the establishment of a Jewish elementary school , was built according to plans by the Rappenau salt works master Fritschi and the Karlsruhe court architect Kuenzle . The interior design of the synagogue followed the example of the synagogue in Neckarbischofsheim . Together with the school building, it was a building complex with a length of 21.60 meters and a width of 8.60 meters. In the southern half of the building, the men's synagogue was on the ground floor, with the women loft above . In the northern half of the building there was a room for the Jewish school as well as a toilet and storage room on the ground floor, and the apartment for the Jewish teacher with living room, bedroom, kitchen and chamber on the upper floor. The Jewish children attended the local elementary school, in the Jewish school only religious instruction was held.

The Jewish community of Berwangen belonged to the rabbinical district of Sinsheim from 1826/27 , and from 1877 to the rabbinical district of Bretten . The community reached its largest number of members around 1860, but then declined due to the rural exodus and the wave of emigration. In 1925 there were still 58 Jews who lived mainly from the cattle trade. In 1933 the community still had 33 members.

National Socialist Persecution

In particular, the withdrawal of the trade permit in 1936 forced many Berwang Jews to emigrate, a total of 21 emigrants are reported. In November 1938, the synagogue in Berwangen was destroyed during the night of the Reichspogrom , the cemetery was desecrated, Jewish furniture was burned on the sports field and individual Jewish residents were mistreated. The last nine Berwang Jews were deported to Gurs on October 22, 1940 as part of the Wagner-Bürckel campaign . Six of the deportees died. A Jewish couple returned after 1945 and were buried in the local Jewish cemetery in 1948 and 1974. Nothing more reminds of the Jewish house of God; today there is a garage in its place. The neighboring Jewish school has been converted into a residential building and has since been variously rebuilt.

The memorial book of the Federal Archives lists 53 Jewish citizens born in Berwangen who fell victim to the genocide of the National Socialist regime .

Common names

When all Jews in the Grand Duchy of Baden had to adopt hereditary family names in 1809, the 26 heads of the Berwang Jews took on the following names: Kirchheimer (5), Reichert (3), Fischer (2), Gutfreund (2), Hahn (2), Hochherr ( 2) and once each Bodenheimer, Kahn, Kaiser, Kaufmann, Maier, Oppenheimer, Reiss, Schechter, Stein, Vollweiler.

funeral

The traditional burial of the Berwangen Jews was at the Jewish cemetery in Heinsheim and the Jewish cemetery in Waibstadt . Because the burial had been there for generations, the Jewish community did not want to join the establishment of a Jewish cemetery in Eppingen initiated by the Eppingen district office in 1814 . At about the same time as the new synagogue was built, the Berwangen Jewish cemetery was set up on the outskirts.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Commemorative Book - Victims of the Persecution of Jews under the National Socialist Tyranny in Germany 1933 - 1945 . Retrieved October 29, 2009.

literature

  • Peter Wanner: Memories of the Jewish community in Berwangen . In: Berwangen, Bockschaft, Kirchardt - A second home book . Kirchardt municipality, Kirchardt 1993
  • Wolfram Angerbauer , Hans Georg Frank: Jewish communities in the district and city of Heilbronn. History, fates, documents . District of Heilbronn, Heilbronn 1986 ( series of publications of the district of Heilbronn . Volume 1)

Web links

Commons : Jüdische Gemeinde Berwangen  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files