Vollmerz

Summary: In 1811, the Jewish community of Vollmerz established a synagogue and mikveh on present-day 6A Hinkhofer Strasse. Vollmerz also had a Jewish school and, after 1870, a cemetery. A Jew by the name of Heym Neumark was the community’s schoolteacher at some point during the 19th century, and it is assumed that Jewish children from Vollmerz attended public school in Sterbfritz from the second half of the 19th century onwards. The head of the community in 1932 was Arnold Nussbaum. Jakob Gruenebaum served as secretary, teacher, chazzan and shochet. Twenty Jews lived in Vollmerz in 1933; three Jewish children studied religion that year. The Jewish population began to dwindle soon afterwards, and while it is highly unlikely that the synagogue was in use in 1938, the interior was nevertheless destroyed on Pogrom Night. After the last deportation of Vollmerz’s Jews in September 1942, the cemetery (located to the west of the town) was wrecked by the SA. Nineteen surviving tombstones now flank a memorial. The former synagogue building, used for various purposes after Pogrom Night, was demolished in 1976. Later, in 1987, a residential building was erected on the site; ritual items discovered during the construction process were given to the Bergwinkel museum. At least 11 Vollmerz Jews perished in the Shoah.

Author / Sources: Esther Sarah Evans
Sources: AJ, LJG
www.alemannia-judaica.de/vollmerz_synagoge.htm