Dittlofsroda

Summary: The Jewish community of Dittlofsroda built a synagogue in 1795 (renovated in 1929). Dittlofsroda had a one-classroom Jewish school, presided over by teachers who also performed the duties of ritual slaughterers and cantors; from the 1800s onwards, teachers from nearby Voelkerleier instructed the village’s Jewish schoolchildren. The community buried its dead in Pfaffenhausen, but maintained its own mikveh. By 1937, as a result of the economic boycott, Dittlofsroda’s ten remaining Jews were receiving welfare support. In early 1938, when the community could no longer gather a minyan, its members were affiliated with Voelkerleier, after which the two communities conducted joint monthly services, alternating between synagogues. On Pogrom Night, November 1938, the interior of the synagogue in Dittlofsroda was destroyed along with its ritual objects. The building itself survived the pogrom. In December 1940, the houses of the village’s four remaining Jews were searched for secretly stockpiled food. Two Jews emigrated from Dittlofsroda (one went to South Africa and the other to Palestine); 13 relocated within Germany (mainly to Frankfurt am Main); and two, the last, were deported, via Wuerzburg, to Theresienstadt in September 1942. At least four Dittlofsroda Jews perished in the Shoah. The synagogue building was demolished in 1977. Parts of the foundation walls and the steps that led to the synagogue can still be found at the site, which is now a vegetable garden.

Author / Sources: Nurit Borut
Sources: AJ, EJL, PK BAV