Gossmannsdorf

Summary: In 1765, the Jews of Gossmannsdorf replaced their prayer room with a synagogue on Hauptstrasse (later renamed Zehnthofstrasse). This small community not only maintained a community center, a mikveh and a schoolroom, but also employed a schoolteacher who served as shochet and chazzan. Burials were conducted in Allersheim. Beginning in 1905, as a result of the decline in the Jewish population, Jews from the surrounding areas attended services in Gossmannsdorf. The community was disbanded in 1938, after which most of the synagogue’s ritual objects were transferred to the Bavarian Jewish community association in Munich. Nevertheless, on Pogrom Night, SA and SS men destroyed Jewish homes and the synagogue. A Torah scroll—it had been stored in a Jewish home—was ripped to pieces, and two Jewish men were detained in the Ochsenfurt prison. Five Jews emigrated from Gossmannsdorf. In 1940, two local Jews were forced to sell their houses and move into a senior citizens’ home in Wuerzburg, from which they were deported in September 1942. Gossmannsdorf’s last two Jews were deported to Izbica, via Kitzingen, in March 1942. At least 22 Gossmannsdorf Jews died in the Shoah. The synagogue, which had been sold to the municipality in 1939, was converted into a residential building after the war. Parts of the surrounding walls and several original windows have been preserved.

Author / Sources: Heike Zaun Goshen
Sources: AJ, EJL, PK BAV