List of stumbling blocks in Bad Langensalza

The list of stumbling blocks in Bad Langensalza contains all the stumbling blocks that were laid by Gunter Demnig in Bad Langensalza as part of the project of the same name . They are intended to commemorate the victims of National Socialism who lived and worked in Bad Langensalza.

Jews in Bad Langensalza

Plague pogroms in 1349

The Jewish history of Bad Langensalza is divided into two periods. People of the Jewish faith already lived in Langensalza in the Middle Ages. Because of a dispute between the Archbishop of Mainz and the Landgrave of Thuringia, the city was besieged and destroyed in 1346. The Jews were blamed for the destruction. From 1347 the plague raged in Europe and in 1349 many Jews in Langansalza are said to have been burned, slain or expelled during the plague pogroms . Langensalza was quickly rebuilt. An agreement between the Landgrave and the Archbishop of Mainz made it possible again for Jews to settle in the city from 1356; they were now under the protection of the Landgrave and Archbishop. The "Jüdengasse" with 28 houses, which still exists today, is handed down from the 15th century. A Jewish community was founded, a synagogue was built and a cemetery was laid out on the "Jüdenhügel". Most of the Jews lived from the money trade. In 1418 there were 16 or 17 Jewish people listed on a tax list, mostly heads of families. The Jewish community is said to have numbered around 80 people. In 1436 all Jews were expelled from the city.

It was not until the 19th and 20th centuries that some Jewish families resettled in Langensalza, but the formation of an independent Jewish community no longer took place. The city's Jews belonged to the Mühlhausen synagogue community. In 1933, 39 people of the Jewish faith lived in Bad Langensalza, four years later there were only ten and in 1939 only one of the 40,073 residents of Bad Langensalza was still Jewish. They left the city due to the economic boycott, increasing disenfranchisement and reprisals. The businessman Arnold Schächter was one of the first to emigrate with his family to the USA at the end of November 1933. Others fled to Portugal or Palestine. In June 1938 there was an anti-Semitic inflammatory exhibition in Langensalza. As part of the November pogroms of 1938, Arthur Gossmann and Jakob Salomon were interned in the Buchenwald concentration camp for several weeks . Jakob Salomon had to give up his tailoring workshop at Bergstrasse 21, Arthur Gossmann had to sell his shoe shop and his house at Rathausstrasse 6 far below value. Gossmann and his family fled to Frankfurt am Main and are said to have been deported from there. The fate of this family and a number of other Jewish citizens has not yet been fully processed. For example, the Katzenstein family, the family of a cattle dealer who had lived in the Preussischer Hof on Herrenstrasse, disappeared overnight, according to a witness the family emigrated to the USA and became cattle farmers there. Hugo Weinberg emigrated to Palestine, was a soldier in the British Army and captured by German troops in Greece and involuntarily returned to Bad Langensalza as a British prisoner of war. According to Yad Vashem's lists , the following residents of the city were murdered as part of the Shoah : the Grossmanns, their daughter Irma Schlesinger and their grandson (see below), Gertrud Hartmann (1907–1942, fled to the Netherlands), the sisters Cilly Heymann (-1941), Rosa Hirschberg (-1942), Henny Seckbach and Berta Weilburg, all four born Meyer, and Jakob Jakob (1899–1943). People of partly Jewish descent were also persecuted, for example the baker Lothar Kahn, a so-called "half-breed II degree". He served in the Wehrmacht from 1938 to 1940 , but is said to have been murdered in the Auschwitz concentration camp at the end of 1944 .

The only Jew from Bad Langensalza who returned after the fall of the Nazi regime was the master tailor Jacob Salomon, a survivor of two concentration camps.

The KPD politician and resistance fighter Hermann Elflein (1892–1943) was one of the city's non-Jewish victims of National Socialism . At the New Cemetery of Langensalza there has been a grove of honor for anti-fascist resistance fighters since GDR times, the obelisk of which was removed in 1989 and replaced with another stone.

Laying stumbling blocks

Person, inscription	address	Laying date	image	Further information
Jacob Salomon, born in 1900 , lived here . Arrested 1939 Buchenwald deported 1943 Survived Auschwitz	Bergstrasse 20	June 14, 2010		Jacob Salomon was born in 1900. He came to Bad Langensalza from Russia with German troops at the end of the First World War. He was entrusted with personal services for the troops. In 1919 he became a Reichswehr soldier, but since he was not a German and also a Jew, he was released again. While he stayed in Bad Langensalza, he worked in a men's clothing factory in Gotha . He met a saleswoman, née Iffland, and married the Christian. The couple had at least one daughter. Salomon eventually became a master tailor and opened his own shop in Langensalza at Bergstrasse 21. As part of the November 1938 pogroms, Jacob Salomon was deported to the Buchenwald concentration camp and held there for several weeks. After his return he was no longer allowed to work. In 1943 he was arrested again and this time deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp . He survived and was the only Jew to return to Bad Langensalza, where he lived from 1946 and interpreted during the Soviet occupation. He died in 1977. A grandson of Jacob Salomon works as an entrepreneur in Bad Langensalza. He supported the Stolperstein project.
Arthur Gossmann, born in 1878 , lived here . Arrested 1938 Buchenwald deported in 1943 ???	Rathausstrasse 6	June 14, 2010		Arthur Gossmann was born in Gollnow, today Goleniów , in 1878 . His parents were Ephraim and Berta Gossmann, he came from a Jewish family. He moved to Langensalza before World War II . He was married to Nettchen. The couple had a daughter named Irma (born 1905). The Gossmanns ran a shoe shop at Rathausstrasse 6. During the Nazi regime, Arthur Gossmann was humiliated and the shop windows of his shop on Rathausstrasse were smeared with anti-Semitic slogans. As part of the November pogroms in 1938, he was deported to the Buchenwald concentration camp and held there for several weeks. After his return he had to sell his house and business well below value. Instead of the reasonable sum of RM 60,000, he received only 5,000. The whole family, including son-in-law Fritz Schlesinger and grandson Günther, went to Frankfurt am Main. The family is said to have been deported from there. Arthur Gossmann was deported to Mauthausen in 1942, where he lost his life on September 17, 1942. His other family members were also murdered, only the fate of the son-in-law is unknown.
Nettchen Gossmann Jg. Lived here deported unknown ???				Nettchen Gossmann was probably born in 1876. She was married to the shoe dealer Arthur Gossmann (see above) and ran the shoe shop with him at Rathausstrasse 6. The couple had a daughter named Irma, born in 1905 (see below), and a grandson named Günther, born in 1926 (see below) . During the National Socialist persecution of the Jews, the family had to sell the house far below value and left the city. They went to Frankfurt am Main, from where they were probably deported. Where the family was deported to, when and where they were murdered is largely unknown.
Fritz Schlesinger Jg lived here deported unknown ???				Fritz Schlesinger was married to Irma, née Gossmann (see below). The couple had a son named Günther. Nothing is known about his family of origin, his profession and his life. The central database of the names of the Holocaust victims in Yad Vashem indicates that the wife, son and in-laws were deported and murdered during the Shoah . It is not known whether he was able to survive the Nazi regime.
Günther Schlesinger Jg. Lived here deported unknown ???				Günther Schlesinger was born on October 21, 1926 in Langensalza. His parents were Fritz Schlesinger (see above) and Irma, née Gossmann (see below). The family moved to Frankfurt am Main after 1938, together with their maternal grandparents. On October 20, 1941, one day before his 15th birthday, he and his mother were deported from Frankfurt to the Litzmannstadt concentration camp on Transport Da 6 . His address in the ghetto was Bleicher Weg 23, apartment 12. Günther Schlesinger was murdered on May 29 or June 29, 1943 in Litzmannstadt. His mother and his maternal grandparents did not survive the Shoah either, and his mother was also murdered in Litzmannstadt in 1942. The fate of his father is not known.
Irma Schlesinger nee lived here . Gossmann born in 1905 deported ???				Irma Irene Schlesinger , nee Gossmann, was born on October 5, 1905 in Langensalza. She was the daughter of the shoe retailer Alfons Gossmann and his wife Nettchen. She was married to Fritz Schlesinger (see above). The couple had a son named Günther, born in 1926 (see above). After her father was deported to a concentration camp for the first time in 1938 and had to forcibly sell the family's house on his return, the family moved to Frankfurt am Main. On October 20, 1941, she and her son were deported from Frankfurt to the Litzmannstadt ghetto on Transport Da6. Irma Irene Schlesinger was murdered here on July 13, 1942. Irma Schlesinger's son was also murdered in Litzmannstadt. Her parents were also deported and did not survive the Shoah. Her husband's fate is unknown.

Relocations and events

The stumbling blocks of Bad Langensalza were financed through donations.

The relocations took place on June 14, 2010. Vad Langensalza was the 556th municipality to lay stumbling blocks. They were initiated by the Stadtmauerturm cultural association, the Alternative Youth Unstrut-Hainich and the city guides. There was a memorial hour and then the laying of the stumbling blocks, the program of which was designed by three classes from the Wiebeck School. Mayor Bernhard Schönau emphasized in his address: "You have to keep in mind what injustice has happened". One of the supporters of the Stolperstein campaign was Matthias Conrad, grandson of a Nazi victim, who donated both for the Stolperstein and for the new edition of the brochure "Jewish History of the City of Bad Langensalza".

The initiative for stumbling blocks also became a supporter in Mühlhausen and there, too, stumbling blocks were laid for the first time on the same day. However, the local city council refused to support it. The artist commented on this decision with the sentence that resistance did not discourage him: "80 to 90 percent of the owners of houses in which Jewish victims have lived do not want a plaque on their facade to commemorate them".

Every year on the night of the pogrom there is a memorial march along the Stolpersteine, with readings on persecution, lamentations and other musical accompaniment. City tours on the trail of Jewish life in Bad Langensalza also include lingering in front of the stumbling blocks. These are also organized for schoolchildren, for example by the tour guide Mary Fischer and a contemporary witness. At the end of such a tour in 2011, the pupils were asked to perform the ballad Children's Shoes from Lublin by Johannes R. Becher , which is no longer part of the curriculum today.

literature

Peter Ernst, Harald Rockstuhl: Die Juden von Langensalza, Verlag Rockstuhl, 2015, ISBN 978-3-86777-857-2

Web links

Commons : Stolpersteine ​​in Bad Langensalza  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• stolpersteine.eu
• Query example of stumbling blocks entered in OSM

Individual evidence

1. ↑ From the history of the Jewish communities in the German-speaking area: Mühlhausen (Thuringia) , accessed on September 19, 2019
2. ^ Alemannia Judaica: Bad Langensalza (Unstrut-Hainich-Kreis) Jewish history accessed on September 19, 2019
3. ↑ ^{a b c d} Thüringer Allgemeine : Students on the trail of Jewish life in Bad Langensalza , written by Matthias Schenke, September 1, 2011
4. ↑ Peter Ernst, Harald Rockstuhl: Die Juden von Langensalza, Verlag Rockstuhl, 2015, ISBN 978-3-86777-857-2 , p. 41
5. ↑ Peter Ernst, Harald Rockstuhl: Die Juden von Langensalza, Verlag Rockstuhl, 2015, ISBN 978-3-86777-857-2 , p. 46
6. ^ Yad Vashem : Inhabitants of Langensalza , accessed September 21, 2019
7. ↑ Federal Agency for Civic Education : Memorials for the Victims of National Socialism , A Documentation, II: BerLin, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Saxony-Anhalt, Saxony, Thuringia, p. 13.
8. ^ Peter Ernst, Harald Rockstuhl: Die Juden von Langensalza, Verlag Rockstuhl, 2015m ISBN 978-3-86777-857-2 , pp. 46 and 50
9. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Alemannia Judaica : Bad Langensalza (Unstrut-Hainich-Kreis): Jüdische Geschichte , accessed on September 22, 2019
10. ^ ^{A b} Thüringer Allgemeine : Guided tour and concert remind us of Jewish life , written by Mara Mertin, November 8, 2016
11. ^ Room of Names: Arthur Gossmann , accessed on September 23, 2019
12. ↑ Yad Vashem (Central Database of the Names of the Holocaust Victims): ARTHUR GOSSMANN GUSMAN , accessed on September 22, 2019, submitted by his nephew Fred M. Baden in 1971 from California (Gusman is a false transcription of the witness report shown in the facsimile)
13. ↑ Yad Vashem (Central Database of the Names of the Holocaust Victims): NETTCHEN GOSSMANN GUSMAN , accessed on September 22, 2019, submitted by her nephew Fred M. Baden (Gusman is a false transcription of the witness report shown in the facsimile)
14. ↑ Yad Vashem (Central Database of the Names of Holocaust Victims) has two entries, both accessed on September 22, 2019:
    * GÜNTHER SCHLESINGER , based on the memorial book of the Federal Archives
    * GINTER I SCHLESINGER , based on the list of names LODZ 1940–1944, published in 1994 in Jerusalem
15. ↑ Yad Vashem (Central Database of the Names of Holocaust Victims) has two entries, both accessed on September 22, 2019:
    * IRMA IRENE SCHLESINGER , based on the memorial book of the Federal Archives
    * IRMA GOSSMANN GUSMAN , submitted by her cousin Fred M. Baden in 1971 from Pasadena (Gusman is a false transcription of the witness report shown in the facsimile)
16. ↑ ^{a b} Thüringer Allgemeine : Stolpersteine ​​commemorate victims of the persecution of Jews , June 15, 2010
17. ↑ Church district Mühlhausen: Pogrom commemoration in 99947 Bad Langensalza , accessed on September 25, 2019

 Map with all coordinates: OSM | WikiMap