Themar Jewish Community

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The Jewish community in Themar , a country town in the Hildburghausen district in the Franconian south of Thuringia , was founded in the 19th century and existed until 1943.

History of the community (1860–1933)

When Thuringian Jews were allowed to choose their place of residence in the second half of the nineteenth century, small towns such as Themar became attractions for families from nearby villages such as Berkach, Bibra, and Marisfeld. At the end of the 1850s / beginning of the 1860s, four families were already living in Themar: the Wertheimer family , the Walther family , the Schloss family and the Sachs family . On March 18, 1863, Babette Schloss , the daughter of Gabriel Levi and Bertha Schloss (née Schloss), married Otto Sachs from Berkach. This was one of the first weddings in the Themar Jewish community. Their son, Gustav Sachs , was born in Themar in October 1864 .

More and more families followed. They saw economic advantages: the city had both access to water (the Werra river) and a rail link. Themar was also bigger than the small villages in the area, but not too big.

The Jewish community in Themar grew rapidly. The people came from many different villages in Thuringia. The Grünbaum brothers, for example - Noah and Löser - were among the first to come from Walldorf with their wives and children. On the one hand there were whole families who moved to Themar (for example Löb and Jette Frankenberg , who were in their forties and moved from Marisfeld together with their seven children), on the other hand there were couples in their twenties such as Samuel and Charlotte Gassenheimer , who came from Bibra with their two children, Emma and Bernhard, and later had eight children in Themar.

So far we have found traces of over 340 Jewish people who had lived in Themar between 1860 and 1943. They were either born and / or died here or lived in Themar for several years and then moved somewhere else. In any case, it can be said that Themar played a role in her life.

Map of Themar in 1880

In 1871 a census showed that 93 Jews lived in Themar. That was 6% of the total population (1,667 people). In 1885, 6.7% of the population was Jewish. In 1932 only 3% of the people in Themar were Jewish. This means that since the population of Themar (Jews as well as non-Jews) grew from 1782 to 1933 from 1885 to 2935, the number of Jewish inhabitants only rose from 90 to 100 people. By the beginning of the twentieth century, most of the families that would later play an important role in Themar were well established. They were the Baer , Frankenberg , Grünbaum , Hofmann , Kahn , Katz , Müller , Sachs , Schwab , Walther and Wertheimer families .

On September 3, 1962, Oskar Stapf , the city archivist of Themar, compiled a list of the Jewish families who had lived in Themar since 1900. Stapf, born in 1885, knew a lot about these families because most, if not all, of the children had attended the elementary school of which he had been the principal. Stapf mentioned the name and occupation of the head of the family and the number of children in the families.

There were already six Jewish shops in Themar by the 1870s. They belonged to SM Müller, SJ Baer, ​​the Frankenberg brothers, A. Walther and Ernst Gassenheimer. The local textile and livestock trade (cattle, goats, horses) was entirely in the hands of these families. These were also well represented in the travel industry. As can be seen on the map below, the families lived all over the city. The cattle dealers, like the Frankenberg family , lived closer to the meadows; Merchants like the Baer family, later the Stern, Müller and Grünbaum families, settled in the center of the city. They lived either on the market square or on Hinterstrasse, which was later renamed Bahnhofstrasse and which led from the market square to Themar train station.

So there was a thriving Jewish community in Themar. At first there was no synagogue ; a small hall in the house of the master shoemaker Blau on the Werra bridge was rented. In 1870 a prayer room was set up in the house of Abraham Walther , a Jew, in Hindenburgstrasse (later Oberstadtstrasse and now Ernst-Thälmann-Strasse 17), which was also used for school purposes. In 1877, with the inauguration of the synagogue, a Jewish community was officially established. Most likely she had a mikveh . The deceased continued to be buried in the Jewish cemetery in Marisfeld. In 1894 the lower floor of the house at Hindenburgstrasse 17 was bought and a Jewish school with a teacher's apartment was set up there. Moritz Levinstein became a popular teacher in the early years of the 20th century.

National Socialist Persecution (1933–1941)

Map of Themar in 1938

By 1933, about 75 Jews (2.5% of the population) lived in Themar. In 1935, the then mayor of the city, Fritz Schorcht , listed 71 members of the community by name. On March 7, 1938 (eight months before November 9th and 10th, the Reichspogromnacht ), the list only contained 48 names. Under constant pressure and persecution by the National Socialists, many Jews from Themar had decided to move to other cities in Germany or to leave Germany entirely. After the Reichspogromnacht even more moved away.

In October 1939, after the start of World War II , at least 40 people in the small town of Themar were affected by Nazi race laws. Most of them were members of families who had lived in Themar for 70 years. They were the grandchildren of Salomon and Karoline Müller: Max Müller I and his wife, Frieda Freudenberger, Max Müller II and his wife Clara (née Nussbaum); also her eldest son Herbert and his wife Flora Müller (née Wolf); Hugo Grünbaum, his wife Klara (née Schloss) and their daughter Else Neuhaus with her husband Arthur and their two-year-old daughter Inge; the sisters Sara Frankenberg and the widowed Meta Krakauer (née Frankenberg) and her sister-in-law Klara Frankenberg (née Bauer); the daughter of Hulda and Josef Kahn, Elsa Rosenberg, her husband Markus and their son Julius. The last Jewish family to move here was the Bachmann , Alma and Max family, who came to Themar in the 1920s.

The racist Nuremberg Laws of 1935 also affected 12 other people who had also belonged to long-established Jewish families, but were married to non-Jews and had children with them: The Walther and Kahn families, for example, belonged to such families. Several of the young Walther men served in the German army in the early years of World War II. Erna Kahn married Hermann Haaß in the mid-twenties and converted to Protestantism. Their children, the twins Günter and Johanna, were born in 1928. Two of Erna's brothers also had children with non-Jewish women: Erna's brother Julius Rosenberg married Elsa Pabst in August 1933. Their daughter Lotte was born in 1934, i. H. was born before the Nuremberg Laws were passed.

Outside of Themar, but also in Germany, or in the occupied territories in Europe, at least 100 members of Jewish families from Themar lived. We also know of 24 other individuals whose dates of birth suggest that they lived in 1941. Unfortunately we don't know anything about their fates.

Between December 1938 and May 8, 1942, Clara and Max Müller II wrote regularly to their two sons who had already emigrated, Meinhold in Sweden and Willi in Palestine. Only the eldest of the three sons, Herbert, was initially with his parents in Themar before he was able to escape with his wife Flora in July 1941. Forty-four of these letters and postcards have survived and today they can give us a little information about what the life of the couple in Themar was like. From the letters we also learn about the lives of other Jews from Themar and the life of their relatives in other European countries that had already been occupied by the Germans. If you take a closer look, the letters are mainly a desperate search for a way out of the tightening loop of Nazi politics. We recognize the worries, even the desperation, that reigned in the community as a result of the Nazi measures. We can also see how the Jewish people looked for a way out.

Between October 1939 and October 15, 1941, only nine of the Themar Jews were able to obtain the valuable visas to escape Hell. Herbert and Flora Müller, Frieda Wolf (née Mayer) and their sister Nanett Levinstein (née Mayer), Elly Plaut (née Baer) and their daughter Hanna Karola were transported in sealed railway wagons through France to Barcelona and Lisbon from where they came to the United States on board the SS “Mouzinho” and the “Villa Madrid”. Elly Plaut and her daughter were among the last Jews who could leave Europe before the National Socialists vented all their hatred on the German Jews.

Deportations from 1942

In mid-September 1941 Hitler gave the order to deport the German Jews to the East. On October 15, 1941, a series of transports from the “Altreich” to the Litzmannstadt ghetto (Lodz) began. A year later, most of the Themar Jews were deported. They were sent to the ghettos and extermination camps in the east as well as to Theresienstadt, the ghetto that was called the “old age ghetto” for older Jews over 65, where people were crammed together for a short time until they were transported to Auschwitz. The preparations for the deportation of Thuringian Jews were already completed on November 4, 1941, when the Reich Minister of Finance informed the regional authorities: “Subject: Deportation of Jews in general. Jews who are not employed in economically important companies will be deported to a city in the eastern regions over the next few months. The assets of the Jews to be deported are confiscated in favor of the German Reich. The Jews are left with 100 RM and 50 kilos of luggage per person. "

In the spring of 1942 the Thuringian Jews were informed of the evacuation. On May 8, 1942, Max Müller II and Clara Müller wrote to their son Meinhold, who lived in Sweden: “Dear Meinhold! As we already wrote, we are going to travel with the Neuhaus family tomorrow morning. We cannot give you an address, as soon as we can, we will give you our new address. In the meantime I write to Uncle Max. Since it’s very urgent, I’m writing briefly today. Many greetings to your papa. Heartfelt kisses mom. "

On May 10th, Max u. Clara Müller and also Arthur u. Else (née Grünbaum) Neuhaus with daughter Ingeborg (born 1937) was transported to Leipzig, where more Jews from Leipzig and from other cities and villages in Saxony were crammed into the wagons. Among the people on this transport were 26 Jews who had a connection with Themar. The transport with a total of 1,002 people drove 1,100 kilometers to Bełżyce and arrived there on May 12, 1942. In October 1942 the Bełżyce Ghetto was converted into a labor camp. Those who were unable to work were either murdered in the ghetto itself or taken to one of the extermination camps (Sobibor, Belzec or Majdanek). In May 1943, those who were still in the Bełżyce ghetto at the time were sent to either the Krasnik or Budzyn labor camps.

The second wave of deportations from Themar took place on September 20, 1942. Seven Jews were directly affected: Meta Krakauer, b. Frankenberg and her sister-in-law Klara Frankenberg, b. Bauer, Hugo and Klara Grünbaum, b. Schloss, Max Müller I and his wife Frieda as well as Markus and Else Rosenberg, b. Boat. They were first transported to Weimar, where they were crammed into a train with other 357 Jews from Thuringia. 520 Jews were added in Leipzig. The final destination of this trip was the town of Bauschowitz, as the Theresienstadt ghetto did not have its own rail connection until the summer of 1943. The prisoners had to cover the three kilometers to the Theresienstadt ghetto on foot and under guard.

As with the deportation to Bełżyce, in this case too many Jews with a connection to Themar were affected. At least 62 family members were deported to Theresienstadt from various locations within occupied Europe between June 26, 1942 and February 1945. The first of these Themar Jews were Georg and Rudolf Gassenheimer. Both were born in Themar and were married to the sisters Selma and Thekla Schwab from Berkach. In February 1945 the last Jewish woman from Themar was deported to Theresienstadt - Doris Lorenzen (née Frankenberg). She had lived in Dinslaken, where her “privileged mixed marriage” had protected her to some extent.

Nanny Steindler (née Rindsberg) was the first Jewish woman from Themar to die ten days after her arrival at the age of 88. In the course of 1942 ten more people succumbed to hunger and typhus. In 1943, 12 more Jews from Themar died. Among them Max Müller I and his wife Frieda. Both died in November 1943.

In September 1943 the first two Jews from Themar were deported to Auschwitz. In 1944 another 19 people followed, including five women like Else Rosenberg (née Kahn). After the death of her husband Markus, she was brought to Auschwitz to be murdered. When the ghetto was liberated on May 8, 1945, five women from Themar remained - Minna Frankenberg (née Gassenheimer), Helene Gassenheimer (née Hirsch), Hulda Grossmann (née Bär), Meta Krakauer (née Frankenberg) and her niece Doris Lorenzen - alive. Hulda Grünbaum (née Schlesinger) also survived in Switzerland. None of those who had been deported to Auschwitz came back.

Web links

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ H. Nothnagel (ed.). Jews protected and hunted in southern Thuringia: a collection of local Jewish chronicles in six volumes . Volume 5. Suhl: Verl. Buchhaus Suhl, 1998.
  2. ^ Jewish community Themar (Kr. Hildburghausen), register, 1876–1937, State Archives Thuringia, Meiningen.
  3. ↑ Sharon Meen: Names of the Themar Jews. judeninthemar.org. Retrieved May 2, 2016.
  4. ↑ City Archives Archive, folder 109.
  5. ^ Oskar Stapf: Jews in Themar. Chronic records (unpublished). Themar City Archives 1962.
  6. ^ The Jews still living in Themar on October 6, 1939. Themar city archives, Jewish files. Retrieved May 2, 2016.
  7. ^ Ancestry.com. New York, Passenger Lists, 1820-1957 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.
  8. ↑ Marlis Gräfe, Bernhard Post and Andreas Schneider: The Secret State Police in the NS Gau Thuringia 1933–1945 ( Memento of the original from April 13, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.lzt-thueringen.de 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. , P. 26.
  9. ↑ Sharon Meen: "Deep Kisses: Last Words Before Deportation." 2014.
  10. ↑ a b Memorial Book of the Federal Archives . Retrieved May 2, 2016.
  11. ↑ Carsten Liesenberg and Harry Stein (eds.): Deportation and Destruction of Thuringian Jews 1942. Sources for the history of Thuringia , vol. 39, 2012.
  12. ↑ Anne Prior, Stolperstein for Doris Lorenzen, b. Frankenberg
  13. ^ Database of Holocaust Victims. holocaust.cz. Retrieved May 2, 2016.