Jewish community of Grombach

A Jewish community in Grombach , a district of Bad Rappenau in the Heilbronn district in northern Baden-Württemberg , had existed since the middle of the 17th century at the latest. The community built its own synagogue in 1840 and had its highest membership in 1855 with around 70 people. As a result of emigration and relocation to industrialized cities, the size of the community then fell to 20 people by 1933. At the time of the Reichspogromnacht 1938, during which the synagogue and a Jewish shop were demolished, seven Jews were still living in Grombach, who were deported to Gurs in 1940 and later mostly murdered in extermination camps.

history

The place Grombach belonged since 1498 to the lords of Venningen , who belonged as imperial knights to the knightly canton Kraichgau and reformed the place in the 16th century. During the Thirty Years War , Grombach was almost completely depopulated and was owned by changing Catholic rulers, who primarily settled their co-religionists, so that the place was Catholic from the middle of the 17th century. Around 1700 Grombach came back to the Venningen. In 1806 the village fell to Baden .

It is not known since when Jews lived in Grombach. Presumably, however, they did not settle there until after the Thirty Years' War as protective Jews of the respective rule. In 1627 business relations between the citizens of Grombach and Jews from Sinsheim are reported. In 1657 there are four Jewish families in Grombach, in 1716 there were three, in 1723 four again. In 1741 the Jew Mayer Moses from Grombach was executed as the murderer of the Heidelberg mayor, Gabel. By the end of the 18th century, the Jewish community had grown to around 40 people. According to a list from 1816, the local Jews were merchants, butchers, Schumacher and a landlord ( Rosenwirt ) who had been serving wine since 1812.

The Jewish children in Grombach did not go to school until the early 19th century, but were taught privately by Jewish teachers. After the introduction of compulsory schooling for Jews in Baden in 1809, the children attended one of the two denominational schools , whereby the parents usually opted for the Protestant school. From 1840/41, the Jewish children received religious instruction in the classroom of the then newly built synagogue. In 1876 there was no separation into denominational schools, although the two old school houses were still used until the Grombach school house was built in 1889. After that, all of the Grombach children attended elementary school in the schoolhouse.

Ecclesiastically, the Grombach Jewish community has been part of the Sinsheim district rabbinate since 1827 . For the time being, however, the congregation was unable to build its own synagogue due to a lack of funds. After the community had received approval for a collection for the construction of the synagogue in 1831, several years passed before construction could take place in the center of the village in 1840.

Burials traditionally took place in the Jewish cemetery in Waibstadt , occasionally also in the one in Heinsheim .

Riots against Jews in the course of the German Revolution of 1848, as reported from various surrounding places, are not known from Grombach or the neighboring town of Obergimpern . For this, the Grombach Synagogue Council thanked Mayor Hemmer in 1848.

When there was a wave of emigration in Grombach and the surrounding areas due to the poor economic conditions in the 19th century, 24 Grombach Jews also emigrated to North America between 1855 and 1901. Towards the end of the 19th century, emigration subsided, instead the community continued to lose members after moving to the industrialized cities in the area.

National Socialist Persecution

The repression to which Jews were exposed from the time of National Socialism was initially barely noticeable in Grombach. The population was not anti-Jewish and continued to use the Jewish shops despite the calls for boycotts. The population was united by the economic hardship, so that from the end of the 1920s not only Jews but also other Germans emigrated from Grombach to America. Probably some of the moves after 1933 were due to economic reasons and only with increasing reprisals to the persecution. In 1933 there were still 20 Jews in Grombach, six of whom had emigrated to America by 1938 and five had moved to large cities; another four community members had died. Since there were fewer than ten Jews in Grombach, the community was dissolved on October 12, 1937. In the meantime, however, the pressure of persecution was already high, and well-meaning friends tried to persuade the grocer Julius Strauss, who had remained in Grombach, to emigrate, which, however, he refused with his loyalty to the authorities.

The town hall of Grombach on the square of the former synagogue

During the Reichspogromnacht from November 9th to 10th, SA men ravaged the Grombach synagogue and Julius Strauss's grocery store. The synagogue was originally supposed to be set on fire, but the landlord of the Badischer Hof , Jakob Appenzeller, vigorously defended himself because his barn was directly adjacent to the synagogue.

After the riots, the seven remaining Jews in Grombach lived in great poverty. It was about Julius Strauss and his wife Dora, who had lost their business, Lina Kirchheimer and their physically disabled son Siegfried, the widow Ida Strauss and the cantor Isak Federgrün and his wife Regina, who lived in the synagogue and their apartment due to the pogrom had lost. Despite the ban, they were provided with food by their fellow citizens. All seven people were deported to Gurs on October 22, 1940 and the majority of them were later murdered in extermination camps. Only Regina Federgrün, who survived the Auschwitz concentration camp , returned to Grombach after 1945 . She emigrated to Palestine in 1947.

The memorial book of the Federal Archives lists 16 Jewish citizens born in Grombach who fell victim to the genocide of the National Socialist regime .

Eugen Appenzeller bought the synagogue property with the ruins soon after the pogrom night. He should have torn down the ruins, but he was drafted into the military in 1940 and went missing in World War II. The ruins of the synagogue were initially preserved and were owned by the Appenzeller heirs until 1962, who sold the property to the community, who had the ruins torn down and a new town hall built in its place. When the synagogue ruins were demolished, Hertha von Gemmingen saved the door stone and brought it to Neuhaus Castle near Ehrstädt . It has been installed in the entrance area of ​​the Grombach town hall since 2005.

Community development

year	Parishioners
1723	8 people
1776	29 people
1825	48 people
1841	50 people
1900	44 people
1933	20 people

Common names

When all Jews in the Grand Duchy of Baden had to adopt hereditary family names in 1809, the 8 heads of the Grombach Jews took on the following names: Faller (1), Gärtner or Götter (1), Jacobmark or Mark (1), Morizstein or Stein (1 ), Reinhard (1), Strauss (3).

Personalities

• Alexander Stein (1843–1914), Knight's Cross holder and honorary rabbi of Worms, born in Grombach

literature

• Hans Appenzeller and Arnold Scheuerbrandt: Three hundred and fifty years of Jewish life in Grombach . In: Stadt Bad Rappenau (ed.): Grunbach uff dem Creichgöw , Bad Rappenau 2010, pp. 365–385.
• Wolfram Angerbauer , Hans Georg Frank: Jewish communities in the district and city of Heilbronn. History, fates, documents . Heilbronn district, Heilbronn 1986 ( series of publications by the Heilbronn district . Volume 1), pp. 80–83.
• 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), pp. 32–33.

Individual evidence

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