Sinsheim

General information: First Jewish presence: 1318; peak Jewish population: 149 in 1890; Jewish population in 1933: 71
Summary: The modern Jewish community of Sinsheim was home to a district rabbinate during the years 1827 to 1875. Prayer services were conducted in private homes until 1836, when a synagogue was established on the corner of Kleine Grabengasse and Synagogengasse (“synagogue alley”); the building housed a mikveh and a school, the latter of which was presided over by teachers who also served as ritual slaughterers and cantors. The dead were buried in Waibstadt until a cemetery was opened at Krebsgrundweg in or around the year 1890. In 1933, 17 Jewish schoolchildren studied religion in Sinsheim. Five Jewish associations were active in the town. In 1936, a local Jew was sent to a concentration camp for alleged “race defilement.” Later, on Pogrom Night, SA men demolished the synagogue building and its roof. Furniture and ritual objects were burned in the town square, and two Jews were beaten and sent to Dachau. Twenty-three local Jews emigrated, 39 relocated within Germany, three died in Sinsheim and four were murdered in the Nazis’ “euthanasia” program. Six Sinsheim Jews and two from Rohrbach were deported to Gurs on October 22, 1940. At least 26 Sinsheim Jews perished in the Shoah. The synagogue ruins were later cleared to make room for a new building. In 1988, a memorial stone was unveiled at the site; a headstone is on display at the local museum.
Author / Sources: Heike Zaun Goshen
Sources: AH, AJ, EJL, HU, PK BW
www.sinsheim.de
Located in: baden-wuerttemberg