Jewish community Höringhausen
The Jewish community of Höringhausen in the North Hessian village of Höringhausen , a former Hessen-Darmstadt enclave within the Principality of Waldeck and a current part of the city of Waldeck , existed from the 18th century until the time of National Socialism .
Community development
There was a Jewish community in Höringhausen from the middle of the 18th century until 1938/1942. In 1704 two Jewish house owners are mentioned for the first time. In 1730 three Jews in the village had the right, as evidenced by the landgrave, to accept pledges and to pay out money in return; Pledged items had to be held ready for redemption for eight days, then they could be sold. Around the middle of the 18th century, more families began to move in, so that there was now a community ( kehillah ) in the cultic sense, and in 1783 there were already 24 Jewish families or households in the village. The so-called protection money was collected from all of them . After the middle of the 19th century, the number of Jewish residents peaked at 152 in 1856. After that, their number fell steadily due to emigration, especially after the Jewish Emancipation Act was passed in the North German Confederation in 1869 and in the German Empire in 1871 , and thus both commercial and freedom of living were given. The development of the community size was as follows:
| year | Residents, total |
Jewish residents |
Share in percent |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1830 | ... | 85 | ...% |
| 1856 | ... | 152 | ...% |
| 1871 | 772 | 110 | 14.2% |
| 1885 | 757 | 85 | 10.7% |
| 1895 | 752 | 66 | 8.7% |
| 1905 | 756 | 59 | 7.8% |
| 1924 | 832 | 28 | 3.4% |
| 1933 | 893 | 22nd | 2.5% |
| 1939 | ... | 4th | 0.4% |
| 1942 | ... | 0 | 0.0% |
Church life
Up until the middle of the 19th century, the Jewish families of the agricultural village lived mainly from small and medium-sized trades and a little agriculture (mainly gardens and meadows) in very poor conditions. After that it took some of them to some wealth through the operation slightly larger businesses and actions (sheet metal and Altwarenhandlung, fur, leather and shoe action, grocery store , cloth goods business, cloth and handicraft shop, liquor stores). One ran a lucrative inn. Jews were only allowed to stay in the Principality of Waldeck from sunrise to sunset, and since Jewish traders could not cross the Principality in one day, they gladly came to the Hesse-Darmstadt enclave of Höringhausen in the middle of the Principality. Among the Jews working there were a shoemaker, a cooper and seven butchers. The latter also carried out their activities in the surrounding areas so that their fellow believers could eat kosher meat there . They had to pay a special tax for their work, the so-called battle excise .
The community initially belonged to the Giessen Rabbinate , and since 1885 to the Marburg Provincial Rabbinate . It was Orthodox and the Sabbath was strictly observed. During the Sabbath and on Jewish feast days , Christian neighbors often took care of keeping the fire going and doing other things that Jews were prohibited from doing on such days. There were close relationships with the certainly wealthier Jewish community in the nearby Waldeck town of Sachsenhausen .
A Jewish resident of the village, Markus Lazarus, took part as a soldier in the Franco-German War of 1870/71 and later founded the Höringhausen Warrior Association, whose flag he also donated. Before his death in 1907, he donated 9,000 marks each to the Jewish, Protestant and political communities, with the condition that it should only be used for the poor, the sick and other charitable purposes.
During the First World War , two sons of the Adler family died from the Jewish community; their names are immortalized on the community's war memorial.
National Socialist Persecution
The previously good coexistence of the residents of the place only changed from the end of the 1920s. Of the 22 Jewish people in five families who were still living in Höringhausen in 1933, almost all of them either moved away in the following years because of increasing disenfranchisement and reprisals or emigrated entirely from Germany. Isaak Kohlhagen, traveling cloth merchant from Höringhausen, was arrested during the National Socialist era and only released home after severe abuse; he died as a result of his injuries in 1938.
In 1939 there were only four Jewish residents left. They were deported to extermination camps in 1942 and murdered there. Of the Jewish people who were born in Höringhausen and / or who had lived there for a long time, at least 17 were killed; of them the oldest was born in 1854, the youngest in 1906.
Community institutions
Of facilities passed a synagogue (from 1792), a Jewish school (from 1869 to 1917 as a Jewish elementary school, otherwise religious school), a mikveh (ritual bath) on the Alrafter road (renewed in 1870 and "Plunkhäuschen") and a Jewish cemetery . The cemetery was laid out in the middle of the 19th century. It has a size of 27 ares and is located about 500 m from the town center on the Komberg, in the midst of agricultural areas. 25 tombstones are preserved. However, many are no longer at their original grave sites, others have overturned, some also broken. Some have been set up again in the wrong direction. The last occupancy was in February 1936, when the leather and fur dealer Hermann Katzenstein, who had been attacked and severely mistreated a few days earlier, died as a result of his injuries and was buried there.
The elementary school (initially a private school, from 1886 at the request of the Jewish community “public Israelite elementary school”) was attended by 26 students in 1871 and by 23 students in 1873. The number of pupils kept falling, and so soon all children attended the village school and from around 1917 the Jewish children only went to the synagogue for religious lessons. The congregation had a teacher who also acted as chasan (prayer leader) and shochet (butcher) . It is noteworthy that in 1878, when the congregation advertised the position of religion teacher and prayer leader in the magazine “ Der Israelit ” on November 27, 1878, the sentence “Poles and Russians are not taken into account” was added to their advertisement.
synagogue
Until the construction of the first synagogue in 1792, the community used a prayer room in one of the Jewish houses. The first synagogue was on the corner of Hauptstrasse and Korbacher Strasse. It was declared dilapidated and irreparable by the grand ducal district council in Vöhl in August 1841 and closed in 1851 on the instructions of the authorities. As early as August 1841, the district council had requested information from the municipality as to whether the costs for a new building could be covered by allocations or borrowing. It was not until 1847 that the male parishioners undertook to sign a sum, depending on their income, that they wanted to donate for the construction of a synagogue over the next few years. Bachelors were explicitly included, and everyone between the ages of 15 and 60 had to draw as high as possible. So 258 guilders and 20 Albus came together per year. At the same time, the community applied for permission to collect collections from members of the faith in the provinces of Upper Hesse and Starkenburg in order to raise the total estimated construction costs of 5,000 guilders; this was approved.
After the closure of the old synagogue, they first made do with a prayer room in the house of a parishioner. This house was demolished in 1852 and a new Jewish community center with synagogue, school and teacher's apartment was built on the property (Hauptstrasse 15) in 1854. It was a rectangular, elongated solid building made of red, hewn sandstone on a low base, with a gable roof. The gable walls were raised above the roof area. A small bay window on the east gable indicated the location of the Torah shrine from the outside . The windows and doors had characteristic round arches. The wooden windows were divided with bars and had perforated arched surfaces. In the middle of the street, at base level, was the two-winged main entrance door with wide step access. To the right and left of it were two windows each. The synagogue was inaugurated by the Grand Ducal Rabbi Benedict Samuel Levi from Gießen.
Since regular church services could no longer be held due to the sharp decline in the number of parishioners after 1933, the building was sold to the Höringhausen savings and loan fund in 1937 and used as a warehouse. This sale prevented it from being destroyed in the November pogrom in 1938 . The ritual objects were brought to Kassel; there they were destroyed in the November pogrom in 1938.
Post-war use
After 1945, by order of the military government, the building was used to house several refugee families. After that, structurally essentially unchanged, it was bought again by the savings and loan fund and used again as a warehouse. It was not until the end of the 1950s that the structure of the former synagogue was significantly altered and its exterior was made unrecognizable as a former place of worship: the windows and door openings were changed and the building was shortened by a third to create a courtyard entrance to the newly built storage rooms behind the house .
From August 1989, the part of the former synagogue that had been preserved until then was demolished and a new building for Raiffeisenbank Freienhagen-Höringhausen (formerly the savings and loan bank) was built on the property. After long negotiations, a memorial plaque was finally attached to the right side wall with the following inscription: "Memorial plaque of the" Synagogue "Höringhausen. Until it was sold to the Raiffeisenkasse Höringhausen in 1937, the building built in 1854 served the Jewish community as a synagogue and school ”. Today the headquarters of NetCom Access are located in the building.
Cemetery photo gallery
Individual evidence
- ↑ Messrs. Wolff von Gudenberg , who held Höringhausen zu Mannlehen , created a feudal letter in 1749 in which the taxes were precisely listed. The Jewish protection money was 3 Schillings , 22 Albus and 4 Heller annually . In addition, natural produce in the form of 1 1/2 pounds of sugar, a roast veal between 7 1/4 and 8 pounds and all the tongues of the slaughtered cattle, oxen and calves had to be delivered. The funeral fee for adults was set at 1 shilling, 15 Albus, and for children at 22 Albus. Half of the income was transferred to the landgrave's office in Vöhl , the other half remained with the liege lord. - Anneliese Laartz: Jews in Höringhausen. ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 1999.
- ↑ Anneliese Laartz: Jews in Höringhausen. ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 1999.
- ↑ Anneliese Laartz: Jews in Höringhausen. ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 1999.
- ↑ In 1907 he was buried with military honors, including the firing of a salvo of honor and the participation of a chapel of the 167th Infantry Regiment from Kassel. - Anneliese Laartz: Jews in Höringhausen. ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 1999.
- ↑ Anneliese Laartz: Jews in Höringhausen. ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 1999.
- ↑ Anneliese Laartz: Jews in Höringhausen. ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 1999.
- ↑ alemannia-judaica.de
- ↑ alemannia-judaica.de
Web links
- To the Jewish community of Höringhausen near Alemannia Judaica
- Anneliese Laartz: Jews in Höringhausen. Lecture manuscript. 1999.
Coordinates: 51 ° 16 '25.68 " N , 8 ° 59' 12.48" O
