Adelsdorf
General information: First Jewish presence: 1448; peak Jewish population: 265 in 1837; Jewish population in 1933: 60
Summary: The Jewish community of Adelsdorf employed its own rabbi from 1769 until 1845. Records indicate that the community’s sixteenth-century synagogue, destroyed by anti-Semitic rioters in 1699, was later replaced. A new synagogue (with a classroom and living quarters for the chazzan) was built in 1822 and renovated in 1852. Adelsdorf’s Jews used the regional cemetery near Zeckern, which was consecrated in either the 14th or 15th century.
In 1933, a teacher from Muehlhausen provided religious instruction for six children. On the morning before Pogrom Night (November 1938), SS men, aided by local Nazis and conscripts from a nearby labor camp, broke the windows and doors of Adeldorf ’s 12 Jewish homes, destroyed their furniture and burned ritual items from the synagogue in the market square. The school’s furniture was also destroyed, and several Jews were sent to Dachau.
Following an assassination attempt against Hitler on November 9, 1939, Jews in Adelsdorf were attacked by individual aggressors. One Adelsdorf Jew was arrested for “defilement” of the “Aryan” race in February 1942. Two local Jews were deported to Izbica in April, 1942; nine “mixed race” Jews remained in Adelsdorf. At least 47 local Jews perished in the Shoah.
The synagogue building was sold in 1939 and demolished in 1979. In 2000, a memorial stone was unveiled near the site.
Author / Sources: Yaakov Borut
Sources: AJ, PK-BAV
Sources: AJ, PK-BAV
Located in: bavaria