Jewish community of Crainfeld

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The Jewish community of Crainfeld in Crainfeld , a current part of the Grebenhain community in the Vogelsbergkreis , existed from the 17th century until the Nazi era .

History until 1933

The first Jewish local residents are mentioned in connection with the looting and destruction of Crainfeld on June 1, 1622 by the troops of Duke Christian of Braunschweig . The three Jews Abraham, Koppel and Wolph are listed in the war damage register of the Upper Duchy of Hesse from 1625 . A petition from the Jew David zu Crainfeld to the Riedesel bailiff in Lauterbach dates from 1665 . A testimony from 1666 names the Jew Nathan zu Crainfeld. In 1702 two Jewish families lived in Crainfeld. In the course of the 18th century others moved in, which, according to tradition, came from Nieder-Mockstadt and the area of ​​the County of Hanau . In 1820 there were three houses in Crainfeld that were owned by local Jewish residents.

Until the 19th century, the Jewish families in Crainfeld lived mainly from the cattle trade or were peddlers. Because of Crainfeld's location near the border, they were also able to do business in the neighboring Riedeselland , where Jews were not allowed to settle until the end of the imperial knighthood of the Barons Riedesel zu Eisenbach in 1806. From around the middle of the 19th century, several local Jewish citizens also opened shops and goods stores, ran butchers and shoemakers, or ran an inn. In most cases they also ran a small farm as a sideline.

In 1830 David Sommer I was the first Jewish resident to acquire local citizenship in the Crainfeld community. The Jewish men were also integrated into the local club life that developed in the late 19th century. The children attended the local elementary school in the village. Only the Jewish religious instruction took place separately, which was given in a room in the synagogue, but at times also in the local schoolhouse, by the Jewish religion teacher. In 1932, eleven children took part. The Chewroh Kadischa funeral and charity association and the Israelite women's association existed among Jewish associations . In the First World War nine men fell from the Jewish community Crainfeld.

In 1804 36 Jewish people lived in Crainfeld. In the course of the 19th century their share of the local population increased steadily. In 1880, 102 of the 508 inhabitants of Crainfeld were Jewish. Individual Jewish families that belonged to the community also settled in the neighboring towns of Grebenhain , Bermuthshain and Nieder-Moos . From the end of the 19th century the number of local Jewish citizens gradually declined. One of the reasons for this was the poor economic situation in the region. Younger Jews in particular were drawn to the larger cities, especially Frankfurt am Main . In 1933 the Jewish community of Crainfeld consisted of 60 people. 15 families lived in Crainfeld, 2 in Grebenhain and 1 in Bermuthshain. The community was strictly Orthodox and attached to the Orthodox Provincial Rabbinate of Giessen.

Community development

year Residents,
total 		Jewish
residents 		Share
in percent
1804 446 36 8.07%
1828 ... 36 ...%
1861 520 83 15.96%
1871 519 112 21.58%
1880 508 102 20.08%
1886 518 118 22.78%
1895 499 77 15.43%
1900 512 81 15.82%
1910 482 68 14.11%
1933 462 49 10.61%

Community institutions

synagogue

Jewish services in Crainfeld took place in private houses until well into the 19th century. In 1842, the community bought a two-story house that they converted into a synagogue . It was in a side street of Kreuzstrasse below the Edelhof . On the east side, the building was directly adjacent to a farmhouse. The community members raised the costs of 355 Reichstalers for the purchase and 150 Reichstalers for the renovation themselves and through a loan.

In 1885 a new synagogue was built on the same site, made possible by a donation of 300 guilders from the bequest of the Kommerzienrat Heinemann in Copenhagen , who died in 1868 and who in his will made 25,000 thalers available for the construction of new synagogues and mikvehs . The synagogue stood with the eaves facing the street and was a shingled half-timbered building with a floor area of ​​about 6 × 8 m and contained the synagogue hall with a Torah shrine , sermon desk, prayer desks, gallery and 57 seats. The synagogue hall faced the street and had two large rectangular windows with rounded arches. The entrance was on the gable side. In the synagogue building there were still two rooms, one of which was rented to a woman, while the other was used for religious instruction for the children. Two Torah scrolls were solemnly consecrated in 1866 and 1899.

The synagogue was renovated again in 1932 for 1,600 Reichsmarks . In 1936 its structural condition was still considered to be good and the sales value was estimated at 1,500 to 2,000 Reichsmarks. During the November pogroms in 1938, members of the SA broke in windows and doors and devastated the interior. Services were no longer taking place at this time, as only a few Jewish people lived in Crainfeld. The cult objects were brought to the local orthodox synagogue in Gießen in the course of the dissolution of the community and were destroyed together with it during the pogrom.

In 1941 the synagogue became the property of a non-Jewish private citizen and was empty until 1947. After several years of litigation between the JRSO and the first buyer over a reparation payment , the building was demolished in 1951 and a garage was built in its place.

Mikveh

In Crainfeld, there was a mikveh in a cellar until the end of the 1870s , probably that of a Jewish private house. In 1879 a new mikveh was built on the outskirts of the village in today's Märzwiesenweg , not far from the synagogue. Like the synagogue later, it was financed by the Heinemann Chamber of Commerce foundation. The building referred to as the bathhouse in the fire register was a small half-timbered building with a floor area of ​​only 1 × 2 m. It contained the actual plunge pool, an oven and a water drain to the neighboring mill ditch, from which the water was also taken.

By order of the Orthodox provincial rabbi Leo Jehuda Hirschfeld , the mikveh was restored in 1910 at a cost of 745 marks . During the land consolidation in the Crainfeld district, it was demolished in 1935.

graveyard

→ Main article: Jewish cemetery (Crainfeld)

The Jewish cemetery northeast of Crainfeld was probably laid out at the beginning of the 19th century. The last burial took place in 1937. During the Nazi era, several gravestones were overturned by the local Hitler Youth in 1937/38 . 75 tombstones are still preserved today .

National Socialist Persecution

Since the beginning of the 1890s the area of ​​the Vogelsberg has been politically shaped by the anti-Semitic movement (→ Hessischer Bauernbund ). There were attacks against a Jewish cattle dealer who was regarded as a usurer and "butcher of goods". At times there was also said to have been a boycott of individual Jewish shops in Crainfeld. From 1929 the National Socialists became the dominant political force in the region. In the 1930 Reichstag election in Crainfeld , the NSDAP received the majority of the votes for the first time. On May 29, 1932, Adolf Hitler was made an honorary citizen of the Crainfeld community. At the same time a local NSDAP group was founded . In October 1932, Alfred Mitzenheim (brother of Moritz Mitzenheim ) became a supporter of the German Christians as evangelical pastor of Crainfeld. His predecessor Georg Heinrich Saal, who had been in office since 1928, showed clear sympathy for the National Socialists.

After the so-called seizure of power by the NSDAP on January 30, 1933, the Jewish residents of Crainfeld, Grebenhain and Bermuthshain were excluded from the village community, starting with the nationwide boycott on April 1, 1933 and the coordination of all local associations. The Jewish families were ostracized and shunned in public by most of the local Christian residents. In the Jewish shops, shopping was only done in secret and through the back door. In 1935 all communities in the Lauterbach district banned trading with Jews and shopping in Jewish shops. So-called "Striker boxes" were set up in the villages to display the anti-Semitic propaganda paper Der Stürmer . Violent attacks, mostly carried out by SA men, have also been handed down.

Due to increasing reprisals, the first Jewish families left Crainfeld in 1933. Some of them sought refuge in the supposedly safe city of Frankfurt am Main or emigrated, in particular to the United States , South Africa or Palestine . They had to sell their houses at prices that were far below their real value. In November 1936 only 20 Jewish residents lived in Crainfeld, including 8 men of religious age, so that no minyan could be reached. At the time of the November pogroms in 1938, only one Jewish family and a single Jewish woman lived in Crainfeld. Their houses were demolished and looted. After that, the last Jewish residents fled the village. In January 1939, Crainfeld was publicly declared " Jew-free " in the local press .

A total of 34 Jewish people born or resident in Crainfeld, Grebenhain, Bermuthshain and Nieder-Moos were murdered in the Holocaust or succumbed to the inhumane conditions in the concentration camps . Their names are recorded in the memorial book of the Federal Archives .

literature

  • Paul Arnsberg : The Jewish communities in Hesse. Beginning - Falling - New Beginning, Frankfurt am Main 1971
  • Friedrich Müller: Crainfeld. A contribution to its history. A home book 885-1985 , Giessen 1987
  • Norbert Mitter / Alfred Schneider: A terrible act in Crainfeld! - On the history of the Crainfeld Jews , in: Kulturverein Lauterbach (ed.): Fragments ... Jewish life in Vogelsberg , Lauterbach 1994, p. 43ff
  • Thea Altaras : Synagogues and Jewish ritual immersion baths in Hesse - What happened since 1945? , Königstein im Taunus 2007

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ All information related to the place Crainfeld. Since the 1880s there were also isolated Jewish local residents in Bermuthshain, Grebenhain, and Nieder-Moos.
  2. ↑ Federal Archives: Memorial Book - Victims of Persecution of the Jews under the National Socialist Tyranny in Germany: 1933–1945. Retrieved November 25, 2015 .