Bad Neuenahr

Summary: Records from 1618 mention a Judengasse (Jew’s Alley) in Bad Neuenahr, but few Jews lived there before the 19th century. In 1896, a Jewish community was founded in Bad Neuenahr, of which the Jews of Wadenheim (a district within Bad Neuenahr) and Heimersheim were members. Local Jews established several communal institutions: a prayer hall in the Jewish-owned Zur Landkrone hotel, located in Wadenheim, in 1866; a cemetery in 1895; a synagogue in 1901; and a Jewish hospital for needy patients in 1910. Beginning in 1903, the community hired a teacher of religion. Twelve Jewish schoolchildren received religious instruction in 1933, and we also know that a youth association and a society for the support of needy patients were active in the community that year. In 1937, the town was still home to three Jewish-owned hotels and two Jewish-owned sanatoria. Jewish tourists were barred from non-Jewish hotels in 1938. In Bad Neuenahr, the riots of Pogrom Night began in the morning. In two waves of violence, the synagogue was destroyed and burned down; Jewish homes and hotels were attacked and damaged heavily. Seventy-five Jews lived in Bad Neuenahr in 1939. Of these, four died in the town, one committed suicide and 51 were, in 1942, deported to the East. At least 42 Bad Neuenahr Jews perished in the Shoah. A residential building was later built on the synagogue site. Two memorial plaques—one at the synagogue site Pogrom Night 1938 (1966), the other at the cemetery—commemorate the destroyed community.

Author / Sources: Nurit Borut; Sources: AJ, DZG, EJL; www.kreis-ahrweiler.de