Jewish community of Eberbach

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A Jewish community in Eberbach in the Rhein-Neckar district in northern Baden-Württemberg was formed in the 19th century, reached its highest membership level in 1900 with 138 members, but dwindled after the First World War due to emigration to major cities and finally died out in the course of the Persecution of the Jews at the time of National Socialism . In the late 19th century, a converted residential building served as a synagogue, and in 1913 the community built a new synagogue, which was destroyed in the night of the pogrom in 1938. The Eberbach Jews originally had their burial in Hirschhorn, before the Jewish cemetery in Eberbach in 1891 was created.

history

Early documentary mention of Jews

Jews probably already lived in the lower Neckar valley at the time of the Romans. The rint meat pogrom in 1298 and the plague pogroms of the 14th century also saw victims in that area. The oldest documentary evidence for Jews in Eberbach comes from the year 1380, when a Jew named Lazron or Laznon is found in Eberbach. After the expulsion of the Jews from the Electoral Palatinate in 1391, there was no news about Jews in the village for centuries. It was not until 1683 that a protective Jew lived in Eberbach again. In 1716 two Jews are named in Eberbach. It is possible that the Jews living in Eberbach in the 17th and 18th centuries were exclusively members of the Löb family (also Löw) with the lead name Moses. In 1743 Moses Löw owned a house in Eberbach, in 1806 there were three Jewish families on site, all with the name Löb. In the 19th century, branches of this family took on other names, including Mannheimer, Oppenheimer, and Pfeiffer.

Formation of a church in the early 19th century

A larger Jewish community formed in Eberbach with the gradual freedom of movement and legal equality of Jews from the early 19th century, which made the immigration of Jews from other places possible in the first place. The community grew only slowly at first because Eberbach was neither industrialized early nor was it located on an important traffic axis. In 1814 there were five Jewish families in the village. In 1827 the Eberbach Jews were assigned to the Mosbach district rabbinate . From 1833 there was a synagogue council in Eberbach . Shortly afterwards, a synagogue building fund began to be put in place in order to be able to build a synagogue , for which the city has not yet granted approval due to the small number of Jewish community members. At first there was also no Jewish school or mikveh , instead a bathing establishment on the Itter or facilities of neighboring Jewish communities in Zwingenberg and Strümpfelbrunn were used for ritual baths . The Eberbach Jews initially had their burial in the Jewish cemetery in Hirschhorn , which served as an association cemetery for various communities. In 1860 the Jewish community, numbering around 35, bought a house at Zwingerstraße 7 and, with the support of the political community, converted it into a synagogue with a mikvah.

The community grew from 1862

Memorial stone on the square of the synagogue used from 1860–97 (building was demolished in 1986)
Eberbach Jewish cemetery
Memorial stone on the Jewish cemetery for the Jewish citizens of Eberbach who fell victim to National Socialism

After the complete legal equality of the Jews in Baden in 1862, the community in Eberbach grew due to the influx of Jews, especially from Zwingenberg and Strümpfelbrunn . In 1871 there were 64 Jews in Eberbach, in 1890 there were 98 and in 1900 the community reached its highest level with 138 people. As the community grew, it expanded its community life. The Jewish religious instruction, which was initially held in private rooms, was held in the primary school from 1882 and in the upper middle school from 1893. In 1891 a Jewish cemetery was set up in Eberbach on a steep hillside plot above the Eberbach cemetery . In 1893 a Jewish women's association was formed.

The building in Zwingerstraße acquired in 1860 was soon no longer sufficient for the growing community. In 1897 its use for larger gatherings was even forbidden by the building authorities, after which the services were held in the municipal gym. In 1905 the Jewish community acquired a plot of land on Itterstrasse to build a new synagogue. However, since the property was quite small and the railway administration had also acquired several surrounding properties and was also interested in that property, the construction plans in Itterstrasse were discarded again. It was not until 1913 that the not exactly affluent community on Brückenstrasse was able to build a new synagogue, which was inaugurated on September 19, 1913. The synagogue had a footprint of 12 × 8.50 meters. In the basement there was the mikveh, a changing room, toilets and a storage room, the ground floor served as a church service room, above which a women's gallery was drawn on three sides.

Around 1900, at the time of its greatest membership, the Jewish community was fully integrated into public life in Eberbach. Among the Jewish traders there were several butchers and cattle dealers, as well as general goods dealers, shoe dealers, iron and textile dealers and the manufacturer of lubricating oils and fats, Albert David, known as "lubricating Jews". This and seven Jewish merchants belonged to the citizens' committee. 24 Jewish men from Eberbach took part in the First World War as soldiers .

Decline of the community after the First World War

Above all, the economic crisis after the First World War and the accompanying bankruptcy of many medium-sized companies (including the companies of A. David, D. Östreicher, J. Mayer and M. Ottenheimer in Eberbach) led to an emigration of Jews from Eberbach to the large cities in the area . The Jewish community of Mannheim , which is where most of the Jews who emigrated from Eberbach turned to, grew to become the largest Jewish community in Baden by 1925. To make matters worse in Eberbach was the fact that the Odin works founded in Eberbach in the early 1920s, which quickly became the largest employer in the area, were run by National Socialists and did not employ any Jews. It was mainly young job-seeking Jews who emigrated, while the older community members stayed on site. In 1925 the Jewish community had 72 members, in 1933 there were 39.

Persecution and extermination of the Jews

On the Reichspogromnacht in 1938, the Eberbach synagogue was set on fire by Eberbach SS men on instructions from Heidelberg after the local police had collected various writings, prayer books and Torah scrolls. At the same time the windows of Jewish shops were smashed. There was no mistreatment of Jews that night. The burned out synagogue was torn down and its stones were used to fill the Eberbach harbor basin. The Jewish community was forced to sell the property and received a "selling price" of RM 500 off the amount required for the clean-up work. The remaining amount of over 1,000 RM had to be paid in cash. In December 1938 the last four Jewish businessmen in Eberbach were forced to go to Heidelberg to sell their goods in stock.

Between 1933 and 1939, 15 Jews from Eberbach emigrated abroad. In 1939 there were still 17 Jews living there, who were deported to the Gurs concentration camp in 1940 as part of the Wagner-Bürckel campaign . The property they left behind was auctioned off in the Eberbacher Turnhalle on the instructions of the Heidelberg District Office, and in 1942/43 their properties were mostly transferred to the Reich Finance Administration. Only a Eberbacher Jewish woman who in a so-called mixed marriage lived, has the era of National Socialism survives in Eberbach. Three of the Eberbach Jews deported to Gurs, namely the parents and grandmother of Alfred Wolf , managed to emigrate to the USA from there, the rest either died in Gurs or later in extermination camps in the east.

Commemoration

The former synagogue property was transferred to the IRSO in 1949 , which sold it back to the city of Eberbach on February 10, 1950. The Jewish cemetery is also owned by the city of Eberbach, which has been maintaining it since 1945. In 1978, during excavation work in the Neckar, the plaque of the former synagogue was found again. On the site of the former synagogue, a memorial stone today commemorates the former Jewish community and its place of worship.

See also

literature

  • Helmut Joho: "Never forget - Eberbach has always been my home for me too." - The history of the Jewish community in Eberbach , in: Eberbacher Geschichtsblatt 88 , Eberbach 1989, pp. 7–82.

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