The Würzburg Jewish Community During the Holocaust

In 1933 there were 2,145 Jews living in Würzburg; they amounted to two percent of the city’s population. Some two thirds of the Jewish population worked in commerce. The Jewish community operated two synagogues – one for immigrants from Eastern Europe – as well as a community center, a ritual bath and a cemetery. The rabbinate of Würzburg covered 18 communities. The chief rabbi of the district was Rabbi Dr. Sigmund (Shimon) Hanover. There were seven charitable organizations which operated in Würzburg, together with 15 funds which dealt with supporting the needy. Würzburg was...

The Jews of Würzburg suffered a heavy blow during the November Pogrom ("Kristallnacht"), between the 9th and the 10th of November, 1938. Nearly 1,000 SA militiamen raided Jewish residences throughout the city, robbing their valuables and destroying their contents. Jewish shops were looted and destroyed. Though the synagogue in Würzburg was not set on fire, as it was too close to neighboring buildings, its contents were gutted and burnt. The Torah scrolls disappeared, and later a few charred scrolls resurfaced in the yard of a local resident. The contents of the small synagogue...

In January 1939 the authorities forced the district rabbi of Würzburg, Rabbi Dr. Sigmund (Shimon) Hanover, who had meanwhile been detained in a concentration camp, to leave Germany. He was succeeded in office by Rabbi Dr. Magnus (Menachem) Weinberg, who was to be the last rabbi of the community in Würzburg before its destruction.

At the end of November 1941, Jews were for the first time deported from Würzburg toward the East. On the 27th of November they were taken by passenger train to Langwasser concentration camp on the outskirts of Nuremberg, from where they were transferred, two days later, to Riga, Latvia. This was the first deportation of Jews from Germany to Riga. The transports arrived at the Jungfernhof concentration camp.

The Würzburg Gestapo ordered some 800 Jews from 19 different sub-districts and three different counties (a total of 80 different communities) to present themselves in Platz’schen-Garten, for the purpose of "evacuation". On the 25th of April, 78 Jews from Würzburg were ordered to present themselves as well. At about 3:00 PM the deportation train left Würzburg, carrying 852 Jews. The train stopped at Bamberg to collect 103 Jews from the area, among them Jews from Nuremberg and Fürth, who had not been deported in the previous transport on the 23rd of March. On April the 28th the...