Roedelsee

Summary: Records from 1432 indicate that Roedelsee’s Jewish cemetery had been established well before that date; later, this cemetery was enlarged to accommodate burials by other Jewish communities in the region. Roedelsee was home to a renowned yeshiva in 1560. The community established its first synagogue in or around 1646. In 1851, a new synagogue (with 37 seats for men and 30 for women) was built at 8 Alte Iphoefer Strasse. The Jews of Roedelsee also maintained a Jewish elementary school (until 1874) and a mikveh. In 1907 or 1908, the community was officially dissolved, after which the town’s remaining Jews were affiliated with the Jewish community of Grosslangheim. Roedelsee’s chevra kadisha, however, continued to conduct biannual services in the Roedelsee synagogue. The Jewish cemetery was desecrated in 1929, 1931, 1936 and 1939. On Pogrom Night, SS men from Kitzingen and Roedelsee, aided by local villagers, threw furniture from the synagogue onto a bonfire; the cemetery’s purification house was also set on fire. At least 29 Roedelsee Jews perished in the Shoah. The purification house was demolished in 1950, but its stone washing table was preserved as a memorial. During the 1960s, Roedelsee’s former synagogue was demolished and replaced by a new residential building. The stone washing table was destroyed in 1981, after which, in 1983, a memorial stone was unveiled in Roedelsee.

Author / Sources: Esther Sarah Evans
Sources: AJ, EJL, PK BAV