Every time I travel somewhere in Germany - and in Europe - I discover traces of Jewish life. In most cases, there are stories about a life that used to be and the past in general. But learning about the past is always a good opportunity to think about the future.
The last week, I visited the small locality of Ettlingen, situated 5 minutes away by train from Karlsruhe, in the Western part of Germany, close to the border to France.
During WWII, many of the Jews murdered in this part of the country were sent to Gur concentration camp in France. Ettlingen has a relatively small Jewish community, with origins as far as the beginning of the 14th century. The Black Death persecutions and pogroms between 1348-1349 when Jews were accused and killed for an imaginary fault of spreading this epidemics - instead of thinking more logically at the precarious hygienic conditions most part of the population lived in, decimated the community. The Jews returned in Ettlingen in the 17th century, with most of them used to live on Färbergasse - Dyers alley - that was also named Jüdengasse - Jewish alley. With the number increasing, a synagogue was built on Alberstr. in 1849, that was further replaced by a biggest one in Pforzheimstr. According to local statistics, in 1910, there were 75 Jews living in Ettlingen.
During Kristallnacht, this synagogue was destroyed and the deportation of Jews started. In 1933, there were 48 Jews living here, the number increasing to 79 at the end of the decade. Most of them were sent to death during WWII, Stolpersteine being installed in the recent years to remember the fate of the former Jewish residents. The ones featured in the picture are situated on Rheinstrasse, on the way to the central train station.
Source of the information: The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life before and after the Holocaust, A-J, ed. by Shmuel Spector, Geoffrey Wigoder
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