Jewish community of Bodersweier

A Jewish community in Bodersweier , a district of Kehl in the Ortenaukreis in Baden-Württemberg , had existed since the 18th century.

history

Jews are first mentioned in Bodersweier in 1755. The Jewish community grew after the transition to Baden in the course of the 19th century. In 1812/13 the growing community built a new synagogue. There was also a Jewish classroom in the community center next to it. Both buildings were built as half-timbered houses. There was also a ritual bath ( mikveh ). The dead of the community were buried in the Jewish cemetery in Kuppenheim and, since 1817, in the Jewish cemetery in Freistett . The community had belonged to the Bühl district rabbinate since 1827 .

In 1875 116 Jews lived in the village and made up around 10% of the population. In the following years, however, due to the poor rural conditions, as in other rural communities, a strong rural exodus began, so that the Jewish community only numbered 46 people in 1925. The main destination of the community members who had emigrated was the neighboring Kehl , where the Kehl Jewish community grew from around 10 to around 150 people within a few years due to the influx of Jews from the surrounding rural communities.

The Jewish residents were integrated in Bodersweier and represented in the local council, in the citizens' committee and in the music and sports club. The war memorial for the fallen in World War I , which is located in the communal cemetery, also lists the Jewish dead, Alfred Bensinger and Joseph Wertheimer.

Until after 1933, Jewish families in Bodersweier owned the following trading establishments: Isidor Bensinger flour shop (Querbacher Straße 14), Salomon Frank cattle shop (Grabenstraße 7), Leopold Kaufmann and Karl Bensinger iron shop (Querbacher Straße 18), Colonial goods Ludwig Meier (Querbacher Straße 15), Viehhandlung David Merklinger (Querbacher Strasse 27), grocer Emanuel Merklinger (Grabenstrasse 8), fur store Emanuel Merklinger (Querbacher Strasse 16), cattle store Max Merklinger (Querbacher Strasse 3), textile store Julius Wertheimer (Rastatter Strasse 13), shoe store Simon Wertheimer (Rastatter Strasse 5, canceled), Leo Wertheimer cattle dealer (Rastatter Straße 33). There was a Jewish slaughterhouse by 1912 and a kosher butcher's shop by 1915. (from: alemannia judaica)

Community development

year	Parishioners
1811	41 people
1825	60 people or 5.8% of the population
1875	116 people or 10.3% of the population
1887	94 people
1900	82 people or 7% of the population
1910	61 people or 5% of the population
1924	46 people or 3.8% of the population
1933	34 people

National Socialist Persecution

Memorial stone in front of the church

After 1933, a large part of the Jewish population moved away or emigrated because of the economic boycott and increasing disenfranchisement. By 1938 all Jewish businesses had to close or were " Aryanized ". The synagogue was devastated during the November pogroms in 1938 and eight Jewish men were deported to the Dachau concentration camp. In September 1939, all the local Jews were deported, but some people initially returned in 1940 before the last 15 local Jews were deported to Gurs in the Wagner-Bürckel campaign in October 1940 . The former synagogue came into state ownership, initially served as a bus garage, was returned to the Israelitische Landesgemeinde Südbaden after 1945, sold to private customers and demolished in 1951.

The memorial book of the Federal Archives lists 16 Jewish citizens born in Bodersweier who fell victim to the genocide of the National Socialist regime . The Bodersweier homeland book counts 17 Jews from Bodersweier among the victims of National Socialist persecution.

literature

• Hans Nussbaum, Ulrike Nussbaum, Karl Britz: Tolerated and respected, disenfranchised and destroyed - The fate of the Jews of Bodersweier , in: Bodersweier - reports, stories and pictures from the history of a village in Hanauerland , Kehl 1984, pp. 49-74.
• Joachim Hahn and Jürgen Krüger: Synagogues in Baden-Württemberg . Volume 2: Joachim Hahn: Places and Facilities . Theiss, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-8062-1843-5 ( Memorial book of the synagogues in Germany . Volume 4).

Web links

• To the Jewish community of Bodersweier near Alemannia Judaica

Individual evidence

1. ^ Commemorative Book - Victims of the Persecution of Jews under the National Socialist Tyranny in Germany 1933 - 1945 . Retrieved January 18, 2010.