Culture of commemoration and remembrance

2021 – ANNIVERSARY “1700 YEARS OF JEWISH LIFE IN GERMANY” – ALSO IN ASCHAFFENBURG

It is verified that Jews have lived on the territory of present-day Germany for 1700 years. To mark this occasion, around one thousand events were held throughout Germany in 2021/22 under the title „#2021JLID – Jüdisches Leben in Deutschland“. The city of Aschaffenburg also took part in the commemorative year with its own series of events.

The city theater, the adult education center, the city and abbey archives, the Digitalladen (space for digital urban culture) the art education network Führungsnetz, the association “Haus Wolfsthalplatz”, and the Martinushaus community center collaborated to put together a diverse program of lectures, concerts, readings, films, theater and guided tours. Also the 2021 event to commemorate the Pogrom Night focused on Jewish life in Germany and in particular in Aschaffenburg.

2019 / 2021 – MEMORIAL FOR THE DEPORTATIONS 1941-1944 ON WÜRZBURG’S MAIN STATION SQUARE

Almost all Jews in Lower Franconia were deported to the extermination camps in the East via Würzburg. In 2015, the idea arose to create a memorial site at the starting-point of the transports. The city of Aschaffenburg was one of the first municipalities to provide generous financial support for the memorial project. In 2019, plans for the Würzburg station square were approved and the memorial was inaugurated in June 2020.

Historical photographs of mountains of luggage on train station platforms provided a model for the design. Each community in Lower Franconia was invited to submit a piece of luggage. For Aschaffenburg, the master stonemason school created a rucksack of red sandstone of the river Main region, which was set up and ceremoniously handed over in September 2021. It is modeled on the rucksack of Helen Feingold (* 1921), worn on her escape, which is exhibited in the Museum of Jewish History and Culture.

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SINCE 2015 – ASSOCIATION “JEWISH LIFE IN LOWER FRANCONIA” – BIOGRAPHICAL DATABASE

The first database with information on former Jewish citizens from the Aschaffenburg area already existed in 1998. In 2015, the association “Jewish Life in Lower Franconia” was founded, whose members and supporters work as volunteers on the systematic data collection for all of Lower Franconia, compiling biographical information. The database is publicly accessible and is expanded and updated on a regular basis.
For the continuous development of the database, the association receives financial support from the district of Lower Franconia, the German Foundation for Commitment and Volunteering, and the Bürgerstiftung Aschaffenburg (civic foundation). The association cooperates in particular with the Aschaffenburg city and abbey archives and the Johanna-Stahl-Zentrum for Jewish history and culture in Würzburg.

To the database

2012 – SPECIAL EXHIBITION “TEXTILE MEMORY – NEW FINDS ON THE JEWISH PAST”

In 2009, 26 Torah wimpels – ornately decorated sashes used to hold a Torah scroll together – dating from 1787 to 1933, as well as other textiles and cult objects from the environment of the Jewish community in Aschaffenburg were discovered. They were stored unnoticed in a museum depot for a long time. This “textile treasure” was carefully restored and could be presented to the public for the first time in 2012 in the special exhibition “Textile Memory” (Textiles Gedächtnis). For Aschaffenburg, this find was a small sensation, because Torah wimpels, mantles and curtains provide a very special view of the religious life in the former Jewish community.

2007 – Museum jüdischer Geschichte und Kultur

The “Documentation Center of Aschaffenburg Jews”, opened in 1984, was renamed “Museum of Jewish History and Culture” in 2007 and in terms of organization linked to the museums of the city of Aschaffenburg. Since then, it has been supervised by the department “Stadtgeschichte” (municipal history). This also entailed a reorientation of the museum: the exhibition was expanded to include numerous pieces, from cult objects to advertising materials of Jewish businesses. The three-dimensional reconstruction of the synagogue destroyed in 1938 provides a vivid picture of the former center of Jewish life.

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2005 – “STOLPERSTEINE” IN ASCHAFFENBURG

The “Stolpersteine” (stumbling stones) project remembers the victims of National Socialism throughout Europe and was initiated in 1992 by artist Gunter Demnig. It commemorates those people who were persecuted, murdered, deported, expelled or driven to suicide. The people who had been reduced to mere numbers in concentration camps are to be given back their names and identities. At the same time, these “stumbling stones” laid in the town centers illustrate that the victims were torn away from the center of society.
In 2005, the Aschaffenburg city council voted unanimously in favor of the project in Aschaffenburg, and in 2008 the first stones were laid. Since then, more than 100 “Stolpersteine” have been added.

Overview stumbling stones

1993 – “BIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCE BOOK OF THE JEWS” IN ASCHAFFENBURG

After years of research and intensive study of all available sources, in 1993 Peter Körner, a member of the “Haus Wolfsthalplatz” association, was able to publish a reference book that brought together information on 2,100 former Jewish residents of the city and former county of Aschaffenburg. In the pre-digital age, the book gathered the Jewish population almost in its entirety and for the first time provided the opportunity of visualizing family relationships, biographical data, professions and places of residence.

1986 – REDESIGN OF THE WOLFSTHALPLATZ

Since the Wolfsthalplatz had not been altered since 1946 and was increasingly perceived as untidy, in 1981 the city council launched an “urban design competition”. The objective was also to develop the gap sites remaining after the destruction of the Second World War, buildings in need of renovation and the infrastructure in the surrounding area. The winning proposal planned to mark the old site of the synagogue with a grove of plane trees.
Since 1992, the sculpture/fountain “Zeitwagen” (chariot of time) (bronze, 1992) by Rainer Stoltz complements the square and uses water as a symbol of the flow and direction of time and it urges us to remember the history of this place.

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1985 – FOUNDATION OF THE “HAUS WOLFSTHALPLATZ” ASSOCIATION

Even before the Jewish Documentation Center was instituted, founding members of the association had campaigned to preserve the memory of the Jewish community. Awareness of the significance of the rabbinate house as a place of remembrance had to be established over some time. In the early years, the association with campaigns drew attention to the issues of the Holocaust, the Nazi era and right-wing extremism. Today, the focus is on non-partisan and scientific work and making available analytical foundations from research and publishing.

In 2010, the Förderkreis was awarded the city’s cultural prize for its work against forgetting and its long-standing activities to reappraise Jewish history in Aschaffenburg.

To the association "Haus Wolfsthalplatz"

1984 – OPENING OF THE “DOCUMENTATION CENTER OF THE ASCHAFFENBURG JEWS”

An architectural testimony of the former Jewish community, which survived the time of National Socialism, is the rabbinate house. When discussing the redesign of Wolfsthalplatz, it was planned to find another use for the building, which had served various purposes since 1946. The intention was to make information about the former Jewish community available to the public in the house and to create a meeting place, thus to protect the Jewish history of the city of Aschaffenburg from falling into oblivion.
After extensively redeveloping the building, the “Documentation Center of the Aschaffenburg Jews” was opened in July 1984.
 

FROM 1978 – PUBLIC COMMEMORATION OF THE POGROM NIGHT

Since the first commemoration event in 1978, November 9 has been marked annually with a public commemoration. In addition to a wreath-laying ceremony on Wolfsthalplatz, the circle of participants and the form of remembrance expanded over the years: rallies, silent marches, ecumenical church services and academic lectures joined in.

1978 – FIRST VISIT OF FORMER JEWISH CITIZENS TO ASCHAFFENBURG

In 1978, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Pogrom Night, the first major public event to commemorate the former Jewish community took place. Surviving citizens of Aschaffenburg were also invited to the festivities. This was preceded by years of extensive research by the city and abbey archives to establish names and addresses. The city of Aschaffenburg covered the costs of the stay and also sponsored the travels.
Through further research, making contacts and word of mouth, the circle of guests expanded in the following years and grew to more than 150 people. Further invitations from the city of Aschaffenburg followed: 1980, 1981, 1984, 1992, 2006, 2008, 2013, 2018.
 

1946 – WOLFSTHALPLATZ AND THE FIRST MEMORIAL STONE

Already in one of the first city council meetings after the Second World War, which were resumed since October 1945, it was decided to give a dignified appearance to the site of the former synagogue and to erect a memorial stone. In memory of the Jewish banker and benefactor Otto Wolfsthal (1870–1942), it was decided to name it “Wolfsthalplatz”. The choice of the inscription for the memorial was difficult and so the erection was delayed until the summer of 1946: “Ah, you can kill, but you cannot bring to life, unless it is done by love.” Friedrich Hölderlin (1770–1843)

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