Talheim Jewish community

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The Talheimer Judenschloss : The western part of the Upper Castle , which was inhabited by Jews from 1778.

The Jewish community in Talheim in the Heilbronn district in Baden-Württemberg was established in 1778, after only a few Jews had previously lived in Talheim , through the acceptance of a few Jewish families in the western part of the Talheim Upper Castle , which became known as the Jewish Castle . The Talheim Jews formed an independent community from 1849 , they had their own synagogue and from 1857 until the First World War they also had their own schoolhouse. The community was wiped out in the course of the persecution of the Jews during the Nazi era . The dilapidated synagogue collapsed in 1952 and was torn down a little later.

history

Early mention of Jews in Talheim

Jews in Talheim were first mentioned in the late 15th century. Presumably they were Jews who had previously been expelled from Heilbronn and now lived in Talheim as patron Jews of the Teutonic Order or the local nobility, since in 1491 a Jew from Talheim approached the Heilbronn City Council about the whereabouts of his Heilbronn property. Individual Jews are also recorded in later times, for example in 1514 and 1525/26. In the Talheim village regulation of 1599 there is a ban on borrowing from Jews. However, it is not known whether Jews were still living in Talheim at that time. In the period after the Thirty Years' War there were no Jews in Talheim. In the early 18th century there are again indications of individual Jews in Talheim: In 1729 the Vogt von Flein banned his subjects from trading cattle with Jews from Talheim and Sontheim , and in 1736 Baron von Gemmingen admitted a Jew to his part of Talheim Castle.

Jews in the Talheim "Judenschloss"

Today's exterior of Schmidberg'schen Castle ( Judenschloss )
The washing, baking and prayer house, later the synagogue, stood on the castle wall

The western part of the Talheim Upper Castle was owned as a Württemberg fief by the von Schmidberg family, who died out in 1777 and left the castle in a dilapidated state. Since it was not possible to oblige the Schmidberg heirs to carry out repairs, nor to find a new tenant for the fief, the Oberamtmann Volz in Lauffen offered the castle to four Jewish families who had previously lived in Horkheim Castle , where it was with the local patron, war council von Buhl, had repeatedly come to disputes.

The four families were soon followed by two more families and two widows, who in future lived in the Judenschloss in Talheim. The first Jewish tenants were the families of Manasse Hirsch, Samuel Isaak, Hirsch Manasse, Lazarus Mayer, Max Lazarus and a synagogue servant, as well as the widows of Nathan and the Susskind Kahn. The move of the Jews caused further disputes, as the Horkheim patron von Buhl demanded the protection money of over 3,000 guilders he had lost and other compensation payments. His widow continued the dispute after his death in 1792; in 1798 she demanded a total of 2,150 guilders and claimed that the Jews had "escaped secretly from the castle".

Most of the Talheim Jews were younger family members, while the parents' generation remained in Horkheim. The newly settled community restored the dilapidated castle. During the renovation, the roof was given its current hipped shape of a pyramid . In 1792 the ducal Württemberg government allowed the Talheim Jews to build a bakery and wash house in the courtyard of the palace, the upper floor of which was intended as a prayer room. On the eve of the inauguration of the building on January 3, 1793, there was an affront with the Teutonic Order and the knightly heirs , who had no right of participation in the Württemberg part of the castle, but shared ownership of the village of Talheim and did not approve one of them in the prayer room Saw synagogue . The Teutonic Order had cult objects and furnishings, including various curtains, prayer chairs, chandeliers and the offering box, confiscated and prohibited the use of the room. Because of this action of the Teutonic Order, which the Jews regarded as a breach of the peace, there was a ten-year legal dispute between the Order, Württemberg and the heir Christoph von Gemmingen. The intervention of the Teutonic Order is to be understood less as an act hostile to Jews than as a test of power between the Order and Württemberg. The order bailiff stated that if he had been asked beforehand, he would also have allowed three synagogues. For the time being, however, the prayer room was not allowed to be used. The confiscated cult objects were not returned until 1803, and religious services were also allowed.

Around 1800 there were around 50 Jews in Talheim. They tried to acquire the castle as early as 1797, but this wish initially failed due to the current prohibition on the acquisition of goods, which only fell in 1807. Since Talheim came entirely to the Kingdom of Württemberg in 1806 , Jews have also been able to settle outside the palace. In 1816, the Jew Aaron Salomon acquired half of today's Ratskeller inn near the town hall from what was formerly Gemmingen's property. In 1821 the Jewish community finally acquired the Württemberg part of the castle, consisting of Schmidbergschem Schlösschen with a tower (snail) and fountain, prayer, washing and baking house as well as a residential house with gardens below, for 1910 guilders. After 1822 Jews from Talheim acquired further houses and goods from bourgeois hands. Even if Jews in Talheim already settled outside the castle at that time, they were not counted to the bourgeois community before 1828; rather, the Jewish community leader had a position similar to the mayor in Württemberg village communities.

Until the Württemberg law on the public relations of Israelite co-religionists of April 25, 1828, Jews in Württemberg were prohibited from exercising academic and manual professions. After this first Wuerttemberg Equal Opportunities Act , a career selection program was launched, as a result of which Jews from Talheim mostly learned trades that also opened up trading opportunities, such as butchers and cattle dealers, tailors and fabric dealers or shoemakers and shoe dealers. Further laws on freedom of movement and freedom of trade after 1850, in particular the Equal Opportunities Act of 1864, gradually brought full civil rights to the Württemberg Jews , but also led to the gradual decline of the rural communities, as Jews were able to settle again in cities where it was due to the onset of industrialization there were more diverse earning opportunities.

Rabbinate membership

Until 1843 the Jewish cemetery in Affaltrach was also the burial place of Talheim Jews

In the first few years the Talheim Jews were looked after by a rabbi from Freudental , and a makeshift synagogue was probably set up in one of the living rooms of the castle building. From 1832 to 1849 the Israelite religious community Talheim was a branch of the Israelite religious community Sontheim and received a rabbi from the rabbinate seat of Lehrensteinsfeld . At that time, in 1836, the prayer, wash and baking house was expanded, which was then formally referred to as the synagogue. In 1843 the Sontheim Jewish Cemetery was established near Sontheim for the Sontheim community and its branches in Talheim and Horkheim . Before that, the dead from this community were buried in the Affaltrach Jewish cemetery . On August 23, 1849, the Jewish community in Talheim was raised to the status of an independent Israelite religious community. In 1867 the construction of the synagogue was expanded again, but the size of the community, which had been 122 people in 1860 (with a total population of around 1,400 in Talheim), was already decreasing at that time due to the emigration of Jews to the cities and emigration, mainly to America .

Israelite elementary school

Former Jewish school house in Talheim

The Jewish children did not go to school in the early days of the community. According to the Equal Opportunities Act of 1828, 13 Jewish children attended Protestant schools for a time , but by 1833 most Jewish children were taught by a private teacher. In 1836 the community finally set up an Israelite elementary school with a state-certified teacher. In 1857, the community acquired the house on Langen Gasse 5, which was used as a schoolhouse with a teacher's apartment. In 1861 the school had 31 students, but due to the decreasing size of the community and the frequently changing teachers, no good educational work could develop. A visitation report dated April 23, 1885 certifies the school in "very poor condition". Although subsequent teachers, including Theodor Rothschild , again achieved mediocre to good assessments, the school was closed during the First World War, whereupon the Jewish pupils attended the Protestant elementary school again.

Decline of the community

In addition to emigration and emigration in the second half of the 19th century, there was a gradual obsolescence, impoverishment and indebtedness of the community. From 1854 to 1900 a total of 50 Talheim Jews, mostly young people and younger families, emigrated to America, while the older ones mostly stayed in Talheim. One reason for the closure of the Israelite elementary school in 1914 was that at times only one child was enrolled each year. In 1913 the community still had 77 people.

During the First World War , Jews and Christians from Talheim took part in battles together. Moritz Hirschfeld, a Jew, was among the dead from Talheim. Another Jew from Talheim, Louis Menasse, received various war awards. The Jewish teacher Straus spoke regularly at commemoration ceremonies for the fallen at the Talheim war memorial .

In the period after the First World War, the community again experienced a modest upswing, probably also because it was financially supported by the Jewish factory owner Siegfried Levi at Stettenfels Castle , who u. a. partially financed the renovation of the synagogue around 1930. Nevertheless, the aging of the community persisted. In 1928 the last child was born in the community for the time being, then none for over ten years. In 1932 the community numbered 87 people.

No anti-Semitic incidents are documented for Talheim before 1933 ; instead, local historical sources report that there was a good relationship between Jews and Christians, which arose particularly as a result of going to school together and the hardship they suffered during the First World War. The Talheim Jews took part in public life and were also members of local associations such as the Schützen- und Gesangverein.

time of the nationalsocialism

The National Socialist agitation from 1933 initially did not have the intended effect on the behavior of the citizens; rather, cases of passive resistance by Talheim citizens against the persecution of the Jews are known. They continued to do business with each other and took little offense at the familiar relationship between an evangelical teacher and a younger Jewish woman, which was only reported later by an informer at an office. Measures hostile to Jews were mostly fueled from outside. After the Nuremberg Laws were promulgated in 1936, anti-Jewish actions by Hitler Youth from Lauffen am Neckar took place . In 1937 the so-called “ Judenpranger ” was set up in Talheim. It was a notice board in front of the Ratskeller , on which Talheimers who were with Jews were denounced. Contact between Jews and the rest of the population should be prevented. The denunciations even hit local party comrades who had previously behaved little anti-Semitic. A Talheim SA man, for example, is said to have bought his service boots from a Jewish shoe dealer; the same allegation was made against the deputy mayor at the end of 1937. In the same year, the Swabian daily agitated against the Talheimer Judengemeinde, of which 23 people had emigrated, mostly to the USA, by November 1938. In addition, the Israelite community was abolished as a religious community in 1938, and in future it only had the status of an association.

During the Reichspogromnacht from November 9th to 10th, 1938 there were initially no riots in Talheim, but on November 10th most of the male Talheimer Jews were temporarily arrested by the Gestapo and on the following night from November 10th to 11th. November 1938, SA men from Sontheim and Lauffen raided the castle with the synagogue and the houses of Jews in the village, demolished the buildings and mistreated the residents. The foreign thugs had a good knowledge of the personal circumstances of the Talheim Jews; in the literature, the participation of local National Socialists in the riots is considered possible. The vandalized synagogue probably escaped arson only because of the valuable historical building stock of the upper castle surrounding it. Doors and windows were smashed and light pipes torn from the walls. The interior was taken to the wine press area and burned there. In the days after the pogrom, there were a few further riots, especially among young people from Talheim. By the autumn of 1939, another 15 community members emigrated. As during the 19th century emigration, the emigrants were mostly young people while the old stayed. As early as 1938, there were no more children in the community because the girl, born in 1928, had emigrated with her parents. Another child was born in 1940.

Due to the ordinance to restore the streetscape of Jewish businesses after the Reichspogromnacht, the Talheim Jews were forced to pay for the damage caused by the riots against them themselves. In January 1939, the Jewish community was urged to sell the synagogue, the school house and a piece of tree near the castle to the Talheim community, for which they were credited with 600 RM against the demand of 1000 RM for the restoration of the damaged buildings. To secure the remaining claim, the bank balance of the Jewish community was also withdrawn. The purchase contract was only approved by a district administrator in 1941, but the latter demanded that the purchase price be improved to 2500 RM, while he put the cost of repairing the pogrom damage at 1100 RM. The representative of the Jews in Stuttgart then sued in vain for the refund of the bank account withdrawn along with interest. The Reich Association of Jews in Germany , into which the Talheim community had been incorporated since May 27, 1941, sued for additional payment of 1400 RM from the increased purchase price. In 1942, the Württemberg Minister of the Interior, Jonathan Schmid , issued an order for the Talheim community to pay the Reichsvereinigung 100 RM annually, but no more payments were made because of the deportation of German Jews that had begun in the meantime .

Obliteration of the community

Since the synagogue was destroyed, an adjoining room in the Löwen inn has served as a prayer room . In May 1939, the remaining Jewish families began to be merged into a few apartments. From 1940 prisoners of war and foreign workers were quartered in the synagogue. In 1940/41 the Jewish community was forced to build the street from Flein auf den Haigern , which was popularly called Judenstraße . In May 1941, the Talheim Jews had to forcibly sell their property, and they were again concentrated in fewer apartments, with the prayer room in the lion also having to be cleared. From December 1941 to December 1942, the last Jews remaining in Talheim were taken to various concentration camps in three deportation transports. The deportations were carried out by small train or truck to Heilbronn, from there by freight wagons to Stuttgart main station and further by vehicles to a collection camp on Killesberg, where collective transports to the extermination camps in the east were arranged. The journey of the victims of the first deportation in December 1941 mostly led to the Jungfernhof concentration camp near Riga, the deportees of the second transport from May 1942 came to the concentration camps Theresienstadt , Izbica and Auschwitz , the destination of the last deportees from December 1942 is unknown. Before the deportations began, one person had already been deported to the Buchenau concentration camp and died there; in the course of the deportations, at least 31 other Talheim Jews were murdered.

The real estate of the deportees fell to the state, which rented some of the buildings to the Talheim community and later sold a few. The deportations were followed every few days by auctioning off the movable Jewish property they had left behind on behalf of the Heilbronn tax office. Mostly furniture and household items were called out, but also agricultural production machines. After the population of Talheim was rather skeptical about the first auctions in December 1941, the announcement of the next auction in June 1942 was provided with the comment “that these objects, which are owned by the Reich, can be safely acquired by every party member and national can."

After the Second World War

The Sontheim Jewish cemetery, which was also used by the Talheim Jews.

After the Second World War, none of the surviving or emigrated Jews returned to Talheim. Control Council Act 59 of November 10, 1947 regulated the restitution of Jewish property. Since only objects with a value of more than RM 1,000 had to be reported, but no valuable objects had emerged from the auctions in 1941 and 1942 in Talheim, the claims for reimbursement in Talheim only extended to the Jewish properties and houses, most of which are still state property were under the administration of the Württemberg-Baden Ministry of Finance and were returned in all cases to the owners or their heirs with additional payment of compensation for use. After the restitution of the Jewish houses and land, the owners quickly resold them to Talheim citizens, except for one building. On the part of Jewish citizens who had sold their real estate themselves before emigrating, only minor demands for compensation were made on the new owners.

The Jewish schoolhouse and the now dilapidated synagogue came from the Talheim community to the JRSO , which acted as the successor organization to all dissolved Jewish organizations. The community of Talheim had to pay DM 350 in compensation for the use of the school and synagogue. The JRSO immediately sold the school building to a Talheim farmer and handed the synagogue over to the Israelite Cultural Association of Württemberg and Hohenzollern in Stuttgart.

The processing of the history of the Jewish community of Talheim was a pilot project in Baden-Württemberg. The Talheim main teacher Theobald Nebel, with the help of the Israelitische Kultusvereinigung Württemberg and Hohenzollern, the relief agency for racially persecuted people at the Protestant Society in Stuttgart, the archive director Paul Sauer , the chairman of the commission for historical regional studies in Baden-Württemberg Max Miller and several surviving community members, was able to do so as early as 1962 produce a comprehensive writing on the history of the church. The fundamental work of the archives department in Stuttgart on the history of the Jewish communities in Württemberg and Hohenzollern, written by Paul Sauer with the repeated assistance of Nebel, did not appear until four years later.

synagogue

Place of the former synagogue with memorial plaques on the now restored castle wall of the Talheim upper castle

The synagogue goes back to the prayer, washing and baking house built in 1792 in the inner courtyard of the upper castle. Originally, the building facing the courtyard was six meters wide and seven meters deep. The historical castle wall was used as the rear gable wall, through which a chimney leading to an old machicolation was broken. In 1836 the building was widened about 2.50 meters to the west and received a gallery in the west and north of the upper floor . This conversion also made it necessary to raise the roof structure. Upstairs was the future synagogue , in the basement of a mikveh and a Talmudic school with teacher's apartment. The mikveh was fed from the historic castle well. In 1863 the building was enlarged again by removing the stairs that were once inside and adding a staircase to the western outside, between the synagogue and the castle tower known as the Schneck . Around 1930 the building was newly plastered and probably also renovated inside. In the night after the November pogrom in 1938, the synagogue was demolished and the interior furnishings on the Kelterplatz were burned.

In January 1939 the building came into the possession of the Talheim community. From April 1940, prisoners of war were housed in the building who were doing forced labor in the Talheim quarries. The municipality of Talheim offered the building to one of the quarry owners for 1500 RM, but no agreement was reached. Soviet prisoners of war were later quartered in the building. After the war the building was covered because the tiles were needed to repair other roofs damaged by the war. This caused the building to deteriorate. In 1949 the synagogue was returned to the Israelitische Kultusvereinigung Württemberg and Hohenzollern in Stuttgart. After a storm on March 28, 1952, the upper floor and the roof structure of the synagogue collapsed, only the foundation walls of the basement and the stairwell withstood the collapse. On May 21, 1952, the ruins, like all synagogues that were no longer in use, came into the possession of the State of Württemberg, which arranged for the remains to be removed.

Until 1980, the remains of plastering and the synagogue's chimney leading through the wall could still be seen on the castle wall. The castle wall was then restored to its original condition before the synagogue was built and a memorial plaque for the synagogue and the former Jewish citizens was unveiled on the site of the synagogue . In 2006, two more memorial plaques were unveiled at the site of the synagogue by the Protestant and Catholic parishes of Talheims.

  • Historical view: Castle with the roof of the synagogue on the left of the tower

  • Historical view: The roof of the synagogue can be seen to the left of the castle on the round tower.

literature

  • Theobald Nebel: The History of the Jewish Community in Talheim. An example of the fate of Judaism in Württemberg . Talheim community and Heilbronn district, Talheim 1962
  • Theobald Nebel and Siegfried Däschler-Seiler: The History of the Jewish Community in Talheim. An example of the fate of Judaism in Württemberg . 2nd, revised edition. Talheim community, Talheim 1990
  • Wolfram Angerbauer , Hans Georg Frank: Jewish communities in the district and city of Heilbronn. History, fates, documents . District of Heilbronn, Heilbronn 1986 ( series of publications of the district of Heilbronn . Volume 1)
  • Paul Sauer: The Jewish communities in Württemberg and Hohenzollern. Monuments, history, fates . Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1966 ( Publications of the Baden-Württemberg State Archives Administration . Volume 18)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Lehnskammerbericht dated October 11, 1798, State Archives Ludwigsburg B 109a, Bü 22, quoted from Nebel / Däschler-Seiler: The history of the Jewish community in Talheim , 2nd edition, Talheim 1990, p. 27.
  2. ↑ after Angerbauer / Frank (1986), p. 232, also in Nebel / Däschler-Seiler (1990), p. 30
  3. ^ Angerbauer / Frank, page 232
  4. ↑ Sauer (1966), p. 174
  5. ↑ Nebel / Däschler-Seiler (1990), p. 41 ff.
  6. ↑ Bauern, Bürger - Götterdämmerung ( Memento from December 18, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) on "Warning against Right", accessed on December 25, 2010
  7. ↑ Consistent statements on this in both Sauer (1966), p. 175, and Angerbauer / Frank (1986), p. 234, and Nebel / Däschler-Seiler (1990), p. 64
  8. ↑ mist / Däschler-Seiler: The history of the Jewish community in Talheim , 2nd edition, Talheim 1990, p 70ff.
  9. ↑ Nebel / Däschler-Seiler (1990), pp. 70ff.
  10. ↑ Swabian daily newspaper from 6./7. December 1937, Volume 25, No. 285
  11. ↑ Sauer (1966), p. 175
  12. ↑ Nebel / Däschler-Seiler (1990), pp. 73 ff.
  13. ↑ Nebel / Däschler-Seiler (1990), p. 80 f.
  14. ↑ Nebel / Däschler-Seiler (1990), p. 101 ff., Compiled there according to the family register of the Israelites, Vol. I of the Talheim mayor's office, the notices of the Talheim community about the auctions of Jewish property in 1941 and 1942, and statements from the population, supplemented by information in publications by Paul Sauer
  15. ↑ Attack on June 2, 1942, quoted from Nebel / Däschler-Seiler (1990)
  16. ↑ Nebel / Däschler-Seiler (1990), pp. 91 and 95ff.
  17. ↑ In the American zone of occupation, Law No. 59 of November 10, 1947 regulated the restitution and compensation of victims of National Socialist repression. According to this, Jewish citizens who had sold their real estate under duress could reclaim it from the new owners in return for reimbursement of the sales price at the time. However, emigrated Jewish citizens were often unable to make use of this if they had lost their property and did not have the necessary financial resources. There was also the difficulty of conducting and financing long-term proceedings through several court instances against new owners from abroad who were unwilling to return. For many, there was no alternative to agreeing to settlements that enshrined the transfer of property in return for compensation payments under the rule of law. (More comprehensive information on the general legal situation: Jürgen Lillteicher : The restitution of Jewish property in West Germany after the Second World War. A study of the experience of persecution, the rule of law and politics of the past 1945–1971 , dissertation 2003). It is unknown whether the lack of a legal basis for the return of real estate until November 1947 and the then valid provisions and procedural times in the case of emigrated Jewish citizens from Talheim influenced their decision not to return.
  18. ↑ mist / Däschler-Seiler (1990), pp 92ff.
  19. ↑ Nebel / Däschler-Seiler (1990), p. 11
  20. ↑ mist / Däschler-Seiler (1990), pp 41ff.
  21. ↑ mist / Däschler-Seiler (1990), pp 92ff.
  22. ↑ Sabine Friedrich: Fates of the murdered Jews . In: Heilbronner Voice from November 8, 2006
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on December 1, 2008 .