Muehlhausen

General information: First Jewish presence: 13th century; peak Jewish population: 196 in 1881; Jewish population in 1933: 204
Summary: Records indicate that Jews lived in Muehlhausen in the 13th century. The medieval community, which maintained both a synagogue and cemetery, was expelled in 1561. Jews resettled in Muehlhausen during the 17th and 18th centuries. In 1841, the modern community, founded in 1806, inaugurated a new synagogue—it housed a mikveh, a school, a library and a rabbi’s apartment—at 24 Juedenstrasse (“Jews’ street”). A new cemetery was consecrated on Eisenacher Strasse in 1872. In 1933, 204 Jews lived in Muehlhausen. A teacher, who also served as shochet, instructed 31 schoolchildren in religion. Three Jewish charity associations were active in the town: a humanitarian society (founded in 1875), an Israelite women’s association (founded in 1839) and a Chebrah Gemillus Chessed (founded in or around 1900). In response to anti-Semitic incitement, which included a show trial in the town against racial defilement, many Jews left Muehlhausen. On Pogrom Night, a Nazi official and his drinking companions desecrated the cemetery, destroyed the synagogue’s interior and looted Jewish homes and establishments; the community teacher was shot, and two elderly women were physically assaulted (they died soon afterwards). Thirty-one Jewish men were arrested and brought to a local gym, from which they were sent, on November 11, to Buchenwald, where two died. In 1940/41, the town’s remaining Jews were confined to a designated “Jews’ house” in the synagogue’s front building. By 1943, following deportations the year before, Muehlhausen was declared Judenfrei (free of Jews). At least 66 Muehlhausen Jews perished in the Shoah. Renovated in the 1990s, the synagogue is now a monument and cultural center. In 1985, a plaque was affixed to a former Jewish home at 17 Lindenbuehl.
Photo: The synagogue of Muehlhausen. Courtesy of: Town Archive of Muehlhausen.
Author / Sources: Heidemarie Wawrzyn
Sources: AJ, DJKT, EJL, FJG
www.muehlhausen.de
Located in: thuringia