Adelsheim

First Jewish presence: Middle Ages; peak Jewish population: 70 in 1885; Jewish population in 1933: 35

Although Jews had lived in Adelsheim during the Middle Ages and founded a congregation there in the 17th century, their numbers were limited until the beginning of the 1800s. Records suggest that the seventeenth-century community conducted services in a shul (built on the second floor of a house on Torgasse). From the middle of the 19th century until 1889, the congregation prayed in a synagogue at 27 Turmgasse.This synagogue was sold in 1889/90, when a new house of worship was inaugurated at 1 Tanzbergstrasse/Untere Austrasse; the grand Duke of Baden facilitated the process by providing the community with a grant. Local Jews also maintained a mikveh, a school and a cemetery, the last of which was consecrated in 1889 and shared with the communities of Sennfeld and Korb. In 1933, Adelsheim was home to 35 Jewish citizens, 20 of whom emigrated from Germany as a result of the anti-Jewish boycott. Later, on Pogrom Night, the synagogue’s interior was destroyed and the Torah scrolls were burned in public. The last eight Jews of Adelsheim were deported to Gurs, France, in October, 1940; all died either in Gurs, in other French camps or, later, in Auschwitz. In 1939, the municipality appropriated the synagogue. The building was used as a youth club after World War II and later for agricultural purposes. A memorial plaque was unveiled there in 2005.

Yehoshua Ahrens

Copyright: Pogrom Night 1938 - A Memorial to the Destroyed Synagogues of Germany/ Germansynagogues.com

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