Jewish community of Niedenstein

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A Jewish community of Niedenstein existed in the small town of Niedenstein in the north Hessian Schwalm-Eder-Kreis with a total of ten families since at least 1776 and then until its annihilation by the Nazi regime in 1938/1942. The first Jewish inhabitants of the city are documented as early as 1664, when two Jewish families lived there. There were three in 1676 and five in 1731.

Community development until 1933

In the 19th century the small community grew very considerably, and as early as 1861 and again in the 1880s the Jewish population made up 22 percent of the total population. After that, their presence in the place gradually decreased through emigration to North America and emigration to larger German cities. Nevertheless, around 70 Jews still lived in Niedenstein at the beginning of the Nazi regime. H. just over 10 percent of the total population.

year Residents, total Jewish residents Percentage
1812 ... 26 families ...%
1834 610 120 19.7%
1855 ... 110 ...%
1861 643 147 22.9%
1871 552 86 15.6%
1880 608 132 21.7%
1885 541 124 22.9%
1895 642 119 18.5%
1899 ... 24 families ...%
1905 597 101 16.9%
1910 587 98 16.7%
1925 ... 87 ...%
1933 673 approx. 70 approx. 10%
1942 ... 0 0.0%

The small number of Jewish residents in the neighboring village of Kirchberg took part in the religious life of the Kehillah in Niedenstein or that of the community in Gudensberg . In 1750, three “ protection and trade Jews” were declared in Kirchberg ; In 1835 and 1861 there are 12 Jews registered in the village. No Jews seem to have lived in the nearby villages of Ermetheis , Metze and Wichdorf , which, like Kirchberg, have been part of the city of Niedenstein since 1974.

As elsewhere, the Jews in Niedenstein were initially subject to the obligation to pay a special tax, the Jewish regal , to the sovereign, as well as a considerable restriction of their permitted work and income opportunities. Therefore, around 1855, 12 of the Jewish householders were still working as traveling merchants . Nevertheless, by this time there were already several younger men who had learned a trade and were involved in a trade: around 1850 two tailors, two butchers, two turners and one dyer , one cooper and one shoemaker are mentioned. Only one Jewish family owned significant property. In the second half of the 19th century, several Jewish families opened shops and stores on site that were of considerable economic importance for the small town and the surrounding villages.

A Jewish participant in the war of 1870/71 was among the founders of the Niedenstein Warrior Association , who escorted him in full at his burial in 1928 and fired the salute over the grave . During the First World War , three young men fell from the Jewish community in Niedenstein, including the teacher at the Jewish elementary school.

Facilities

The community belonged within the Fritzlar district to the rabbinical district of Niederhessen. The community facilities included a synagogue , a school, a mikveh (ritual bath) and a cemetery established in 1832 . The community members ran special charities for social purposes. In 1925 three were declared: the Chewra Kadischa , the Chevre Bachurim , and the Chevre Anoschim (or Israelite Women's Association) founded in 1878 .

synagogue

Services were first celebrated in prayer rooms and finally in a first small synagogue. In 1807 there is evidence of a private synagogue in Niedenstein.

In 1816 Calmann Heinemann Michaelis, apparently out of gratitude for his healing from an illness by Seckel Löb Wormser , had the "Baal Schem von Michelstadt" built a new synagogue in Oberstrasse (today house number 16), which he gave to the Jewish community donated. The municipality had to pay for the interior fittings, which cost around 200 guilders . This was mainly done by selling and raffling the seats (at that time still stalls) in the synagogue, a procedure not uncommon at the time. In 1828 the municipality applied for the installation of a women's gallery, which was not installed until 1845 in connection with the renovation of the building. The synagogue was a simple, single-storey, plastered solid building with a tile-covered gable roof ; in the east gable was a small hipped roof . The front door and the windows had segmental arches.

During the November pogrom in 1938 , the interior was desecrated and devastated. The building itself survived the violence that night as well as the Nazi and war years. After 1945 it was converted into a residential building. In 1988, on the 50th anniversary of the pogrom night, a plaque was put up with the inscription:

“Former synagogue of the Jewish community in Niedenstein. Built in 1816 by Calmann Heinemann Michaelis. Donated on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the disastrous event on the night of the 9th / 10th. November 1938. As a reminder and reminder. City of Niedenstein. "

school

The Jewish elementary school existed from 1826 to 1928. The teacher employed by the community was also a prayer leader and a schochet . The development of the number of students was as follows:

year student
1868 16
1888 45
1894 22nd
1907 6th
1924 13
1925 11
1926 10
1928 6th

The school was closed in 1928 due to the low number of students. The last teacher was transferred to Gudensberg and came to Niedenstein until 1932 to give religious instruction there. In 1932 six children were still attending these classes.

graveyard

The deceased of the Jewish community in Niedenstein were first buried in the Obervorschützer cemetery of the large Gudensberg community. Not until 1832 was a separate cemetery established in Niedenstein. The two stone pillars to the left and right of the entrance gate bear the inscription in Hebrew and German: “This world is like a vestibule for the future world. 1912. “The cemetery has a size of 26.34 ares and is located in the south of the city on Friedensstrasse.

The case of a person who died of an infectious disease in the nearby Merxhausen State Hospital in September 1898 shows how much importance was attached to the fact that community members were buried in a Jewish cemetery . Since the body could not be transported for sanitary reasons, it was buried in the hospital cemetery. The Jewish community in Niedenstein set in motion all possible levers and finally succeeded in having the deceased reburied in Niedenstein in January 1900, financed by donations from the community members.

End of the parish

In 1933 around 70 Jews were still living in Niedenstein. In the following years some of them either moved away or emigrated due to increasing reprisals and disenfranchisement. Those who failed were murdered a few years later. Of the Jewish people born in Niedenstein and / or who lived there for a long time, at least 61 known names perished during the Nazi era, the two oldest among them were born in 1856, the youngest not until 1937.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "Kirchberg, Schwalm-Eder District". Historical local dictionary for Hessen. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
  2. ↑ Information based on the lists from Yad Vashem , Jerusalem, and the information in the “Memorial Book - Victims of the Persecution of Jews under the National Socialist Tyranny in Germany 1933-1945”.

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