Sontheim

Summary: The Jewish community of Sontheim established a synagogue in a part of town known as the so-called Judengaengle (“Jews’ warren”) in 1773 (the synagogue was rebuilt in 1827); a The synagogue of Sontheim in 1896. Courtesy of: City Archive of Heilbronn. school in the 1830s (closed in 1924), a mikveh in 1864, and a cemetery near the river Schozach in 1840. In 1907, the chevra kadisha of Stuttgart opened the Wilhelmsruhe retirement home in Sontheim. In 1933, the Sontheim community ran its own chevra kadisha, women’s society and a synagogue association. During the Nazi period many elderly Jews were sent to the Wilhelmsruhe retirement home. Most of the synagogue’s interior was destroyed on Pogrom Night, November 1938, and the Wilhelmsruhe home was severely damaged; its physician beaten. The cemetery’s purification hall was also destroyed. One hundred and sixty residents from the retirement home were sent to other institutions after the home was shut down in 1940; 36 of those remaining were murdered in “euthanasia” killings and in the camps. Twenty-two local Jews had emigrated from Germany by 1940, and nine were deported to Riga or Theresienstadt in 1941/1942. At least nine Sontheim Jews were murdered in the Shoah. In 2001, an educational institution was established in the Wilhelmsruhe home; its building contains a memorial hall for the town’s former Jewish community. A commemorative stone and a plaque have been erected in memory of the former synagogue, which was demolished in 1985.

Author / Sources: Heike Zaun Goshen Sources: AH, AJ, EJL, HU, PK BW