Neu Isenburg

General information: First Jewish presence: 1830 or 1836; peak Jewish population: 174 in 1921; Jewish population in 1933: 64 (see below)
Summary: In Neu Isenburg, a town founded by Huguenots in 1700, a Jewish presence was first recorded either in 1830 or in 1836. The community never established its own communal institutions, using instead the synagogue and cemetery in nearby Sprendlingen. The community did, however, hold its own prayer services in a room in its training school and orphanage for unwed mothers and homeless girls. Established by the German League of Jewish women, whose founder, Bertha Pappenheim, lived in Neu Isenburg, the school housed hundreds of women during the 1920s, boosting the Jewish population figure for Neu Isenburg. In all, 1,133 Jewish women and children found refuge there during the years 1907 to 1932. The population figure of 64 for 1933, therefore, does not include the students and orphans at the training school. Most Jews had left Neu Isenburg by 1933. Thirty Jewish families lived in neighboring Sprendlingen that year. Later, on Pogrom Night (November, 1938), the synagogue in Sprendlingen was burned down, as was the training school in Neu Isenburg, with the prayer room inside. Eighty-three Jews still lived in Neu Isenburg in May 1939. The orphans from the training school were eventually sent to England, but most of the other Jews—62, according to Yad Vashem—perished in the Shoah. Neu Isenburg is no longer home to a Jewish community. The Bertha Pappenheim House, a memorial site, commemorates the school and its founder. Bertha Pappenheim (1859-1936), a pioneer in social work, was also Sigmund Freud’s first patient (he referred to her as Anna O); she died on May 28, 1936, after being interrogated by the Gestapo.
Author / Sources: Benjamin Rosendahl
Sources: AJ, EJL, SG-H, YV
Located in: hesse