Moerfelden-Walldorf

Summary: Records from 1806 mention Yitzhak ben Aharon, a teacher of religious studies. Community member Moshe Katz began fundraising for the construction of a synagogue in 1816; inaugurated in 1829, the synagogue was located on Kalbsgasse. Burials were conducted in two older cemeteries until 1841, when new burial grounds were consecrated in Gross-Gerau. Community membership— Moerfelden-Walldorf belonged to the Orthodox rabbinate in Darmstadt—began to decline after 1861. In 1933, the Agudat Chovevei Hatevi club was shut down. Later, in 1935, members of the Hitler Youth heavily damaged the synagogue. Three Moerfelden-Walldorf Jews emigrated in 1936; one local Jewish woman committed suicide. On Pogrom Night, Simon Goldschmidt’s shack was burned down, windows in Jewish homes were broken and two Jewish men—Max Strauss and Adolf Reiss—were sent to a concentration camp. Although the synagogue had been sold in 1937, the building was nonetheless ravaged on Pogrom Night. In 1938, three local Jews immigrated to South Africa, one to England and one to Luxemburg. Others relocated within Germany, mainly to Frankfurt am Main. On May 17, 1939, 16 Jews still lived in Moerfelden, of whom three (Erna Strauss and her two children, Ruth and Kurt) managed to immigrate to New York on January 6, 1941. In 1941, the 13 remaining Jews were forcibly moved into Simon Schott’s home at 9 Mittelgasse. Schott, the 72-yearold community chairman, hanged himself in his shack on March 5, 1942. Two weeks later, on March 20, 1942, the remaining Jews were deported to the death camps. Ten were sent to Poland, and two were deported from Walldorf to Theresienstadt in September 1942. In 1947, a local sports association unveiled a memorial stone to the Jewish community at the cemetery. At the initiative of the German Communist Party, a memorial stone was unveiled at the former synagogue site.

Author / Sources: Esther Sarah Evans Sources: IAJGS, PK-HNF www.synagoge-pfungstadt.de/ www.synagoge-heubach.de www.moerfelden-walldorf.de www.fjgk.de/