Neumarkt

Summary: Neumarkt’s medieval Jewish community suffered a series of expulsions and persecutions, which included the massacres of 1298 and the Black Death pogroms of 1348/49. It was not until 1867, seven years after a new Jewish presence was established in Neumarkt, that another Jewish community was founded there. In 1868, the Jews of Neumarkt inaugurated a synagogue on what would later become 9a Hallertorstrasse; renovated in 1928, it housed the Jewish elementary school (founded in the 1870s and closed in 1923) and an apartment for a teacher who also served as chazzan and shochet. Other communal institutions included a mikveh (established in 1868), a cemetery (1879) and, during the years 1911 to 1931, a district rabbinate. In 1933, Neumarkt was home to 105 Jews; nine schoolchildren studied religion. Active in the community were a chevra kadisha, a women’s association, a branch of the Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith and a welfare fund, the last of which was founded in 1933. On Pogrom Night, rioters destroyed the synagogue’s interior, including its ritual objects and windows, and looted Jewish homes. Jews were imprisoned and beaten—the community chairman was fatally injured—and although the women were released several days later, the men were sent to the Regensburg prison, from which some were deported to Dachau. The authorities seized the synagogue building after the pogrom. Fifteen local Jews were deported to Piaski, Poland (via Regensburg), in April of 1942. At least 38 Neumarkt Jews perished in the Shoah. The synagogue was destroyed in an air raid in 1945. The site now accommodates an apartment building, to which a memorial plaque has been affixed. Neumarkt’s Jewish cemetery also houses a memorial plaque.

Author / Sources: Heidemarie Wawrzyn
Sources: AJ, DJGB, EJL