Jewish Life in Upper Hessen

 Klaus Konrad-Tromsdorf,  translation by Elborg Forster

 A "History of the Jews in Hessen" was not what Paul Arnsberg set out to write, as he remarked in the two-volume work on the Jewish congregations in Hessen he published in 1971.[1] Given the "existing and published historical materials, there is no need for such a history ... and moreover it would hardly say anything new."[2] Because of certain historically determined peculiarities it is indeed necessary to examine the Jewish congregations in specific regions of Hessen; hence the focus on the Darmstadt province of Upper Hessen[3], where Hilda Stern's family made its home.

Regional Peculiarities

The earliest Jewish settlement in upper Hessen goes back to the twelfth century[4], with the oldest communities to be found in the Wetterau region. In the Vogelsberg area (which includes Hilda Stern's birth place of Nieder-Ohmen) references to Jewish settlements can be found as early as the fourteenth century.

These large numbers of Jewish settlements in certain areas -- among them also the Odenwald, Rheinhessen and enclaves of the bishopric of Mainz in northern and eastern Hessen -- is unusual only at first glance. It can be explained by the existence of a multitude of small patronage holders directly responsible only to the [Holy Roman] Empire.

In admitting and granting protection to Jews, such patrons were not bound by the policies of their respective governing prince; they even continued to exercise this "patronage privilege" after the reforms of 1803. Thus the admission of Jews, for which the latter had to pay a "protection fee," was a welcome source of revenue for these small patronage holders. This situation is a sufficient explanation for the clustering of Jewish congregations in the region.

Accordingly we see in the nineteenth century -- along with the gradual demise of restrictions in the legal status of Jews[5] -- that the demographic distribution of the Hessian Jews began to change. More options in the choice of residence also led to the dissolution of many small rural congregations, as did the increasing opening of the region by modern means of transportation. Many headed for the "economically interesting metropolitan areas."[6]

Nonetheless, remnants of the historical patterns of residence continued to exist until the 1930s. For the year 1932, Arnsberg counts 402 congregations in Hessen as a whole, 198 in the Volksstaat Hessen (the former Grand Duchy of Hessen-Darmstadt). The number of Jewish cemeteries in existence to this day -- Arnsberg advances a figure of 390[7] -- indicates that the number of small Jewish congregations must have been considerably higher, particularly since many of these cemeteries were used by more than one congregation. The "Volksstaat" Hessen, which counted 1,347,279 inhabitants in 1932 was home to 20,401 Jewish Germans, which is 1.5 percent of the total population.[8]

Good Neighbors? 

"Rooted in the land," Arnsberg calls them, the Hessian Jews, and "integrated into their German environment."[9] As late as 1934, one could read the following description in the Israelitische Familienblatt":

In the well-kept villages of Upper Hessen near the Vogelsberg range, Jewish families have been living for generations. Their houses stand in a row with all the others, they trade with the farmers and raise some livestock and grains for themselves and their own needs. Gathered together in their own small congregations of 20 to 100 persons, they until recently had their own Jewish teacher and surely their small synagogue. The weekly trip to Frankfurt was undertaken for the purpose of buying and selling and the occasional small pleasure. They could be recognized by their Upper Hessian dialect and their solid and at times somewhat coarse demeanor."[10]

"A long-standing symbiosis in the sense of a durable coexistence for mutual advantage" is the term Monica Kingreen uses to characterize the neighborly relations between Jewish and Christian families.[11]

The memories of living witnesses also seem to confirm this picture. Thus Otto Schneider writes in a short publication about "the Jews of Nieder-Ohmen":

We old-timers have lived for decades with the Jews of our community. Looking back, one can assert that these Jewish members of the community were really integrated into the cultural life of the village, that they were treated and respected as equals and fellow citizens, and that there were even good and friendly relations."[12]

Not exactly congruent are the memories of some Holocaust survivors:

"By 1920 already," writes Irma Isaak, born 1913 in Lich (Oberhessen) "anti-semitism was in full bloom.[...] It steadily grew worse, especially in school. [...] One classmate, Kraushaar, wrote on the blackboard every day during recess "Juda verrecke [Death to the Jew]." When I mustered the courage to complain, our teacher said, "a sign of the time; I can't do anything about it."[13]

Ernst-Ludwig Chambré, born in Lich into a family of Jewish merchants who had lived there since 1781, notes in this connection:

Until the election of Hindenburg in 1925 relations between Christian and Jewish citizens were quite friendly. After 1925 these relations deteriorated as a result of increasing hate propaganda, particularly when the world-wide economic crisis had dire consequences for the farmers [...]. The Nazis preached that all of this was the fault of "the Jews." [14]

The testimonies quoted here point to a picture that is confusing because wrought with contradictions:

Integrated into society, yet not really part of it. Conforming to the environment in behavior and manner, yet fundamentally marked off. Accepted as belonging to a community of shared interests, yet not respected as members of a social community. Enjoying full legal rights as citizens of Hessen and the German Reich, yet subject to latent anti-semitic defamations.

Assuming that the judgments cited above -- based as they are on personal memories -- are essentially subjective positions, we must ask whether there are any patterns that account for this odd dichotomy. Where, in other words, do we find indications for the existence of antisemitic prejudices? Here too, we shall endeavor -- as much as possible -- to concentrate on the specific situation in Upper Hessen. In the past Rüdiger Mack has done meritorious work on this question.[15]

In view of the regional peculiarities outlined above, a closer look at the relations between the Christian and the Jewish population suggests itself. Mack postulates that with the end of the seigneurial regime, the rural people of Hessen became independent economic actors and that this led to a change in their relations with the Jewish population.

The end of the Napoleonic wars freed the peasants from serfdom, but also demanded that they manage their own economic affairs. Very few peasants had the know-how to do this. Working together with their Jewish neighbors was a solution that offered itself. The institution of the "Hofjude" comes into being; he was the one who handled various business transactions for "his" peasants; Mack reports that this could even include marriage-brokering.

According to Mack, the institution of the "Hofjude" was still in existence in a few places as late as 1933, but the economic crisis of 1840-50 had greatly worsened the situation of the peasant farmers. Harvest failures and low grain prices led these farmers, who were usually unable to understand the wider economic circumstances, to blame the Jews and treat them as scapegoats (usurers/ exploiters, etc.). This evolution, which can be observed in other regions as well, was particularly clear and widespread in Hessen.

While better harvests and the displacement of the rural population due to industrialization led to a lessening of tensions, a pernicious structural pattern had been established, as was to be seen again in the aftermath of the so-called "Gründerkrise" [depression of the founding years of the Second Empire] after 1871. This crisis had a major impact for agriculture, and it took more than twenty years to overcome it. Once again, the Jews were cast in the role of scapegoats. This attitude eventually made it possible for the Marburg librarian Dr. Otto Böckel to act as the spokesman for antisemitic parties, which were to remain a political potential to be reckoned with in Upper Hessen until the beginning of the First World War. Even though Böckel's movement never gained decisive political influence, even under his successor (Philip Köhler from Langsdorf near Lich), and indeed stagnated due to the improvement of the farmers' economic situation in the years before the outbreak of war in 1914, it did provide a well-nigh perfect starting point for the antisemitism of the NSDAP (Nazi Party) of the late 1920s: the ease with which antisemitic prejudices could be reactivated all too clearly shows their virulence. Moreover, many adherents to the Böckel movement were still alive and enthusiastically joined the NSDAP.[16]

In a nutshell, this description makes it quite clear on which (economic) basis antisemitic prejudices could arise. There can be little question that these in turn were grounded in the pre-existing traditional anti-Judaism of the Christian churches (Jews as Christ-killers).

It is important to note Mack's reference to the rural antisemitic movement and its considerable resonance in Upper Hessen. However, the "Böckel movement" was more than a local protest-movement. Antisemitic parties that competed in the Reichstag elections (such as the Deutschsoziale Reformpartei) provided a forum in which prejudices could find political expression. [17]   

The electoral results of the National-Socialist parties yield a compar able picture.[18] Here a decided discrepancy between town and country is no longer clearly visible; it can probably be assumed that approval of the NSDAP and its ideology was not exclusively based on that party's antisemitic positions, but that these resonated more with certain segments of the population than with others. This is confirmed by the fact that in the 'twenties a number of antisemitic groups and organizations were active in Upper Hessen, among them the "Deutsche Jugend" organization.[19]

And finally it must be recalled that in the immediate aftermath of the Reichstag elections in March of 1933 pogrom-like popular excesses against the resident Jewish Germans occurred. Such a pogrom is documented for the night of 12-13 March in Lich/ district Giessen, another is documented for the hamlet of Gedern in the Vogelsberg.[20]

These data clearly show that antisemitic prejudice was rooted in the Upper Hessian population long before 1933. Here it seems appropriate to include a few thoughts about the manner in which antisemitic prejudices are passed from generation to generation.

Understood as "pre-judgment" in the sense of the sociologist Alphons Silbermann, antisemitism generates "feelings" that bring people to "conclusions unmotivated by a great deal of thinking or familiarity with the facts." These -- Silbermann continues -- determine "human interactions, not only between specific individuals but between entire groups."[21]  The sources of the latter prejudice -- again according to Silbermann -- can be identified as " Group Identity," "Learning," and "Motivational Factors.

While "partaking of a shared body of attitudes and adhering to shared social norms" generate social cohesion as well as loyalty to institutions, those who are not participants in this communality become "different," "alien," and hence "outsiders."[22]

This "group-consciousness" is by definition learned, learned from others.[23] Aside from the family, the school also, i.e. the attitudes and opinions of the teachers, exert their influence. After all, prejudices serve to satisfy individual needs and desires (for security, prestige, or compensation for unfulfilled ambitions). In this sense such factors as "aggression, frustration, competition, and recrimination" can be considered "individual" and "motivational." Deeply involved in shaping individual feelings, thoughts, and actions, they are ingredients in the constitution of a "group consciousness" when manipulated by "social, cultural, or religious rationalizations."[24]  Understood in this sense, it seems clear to me that the apparently sudden outbreak of antisemitism after the handover of power to the National Socialists must in fact be seen as the violent manifestation of this "group consciousness" among sizable segments of the population that had every reason to consider such behavior politically legitimized.

"Hitler was no explosion of 1933," Ernst-Ludwig Chambré wrote in 1987; "he was the result of fires that had been smoldering for centuries until he helped them break into flames."[25]

Expulsion and Extermination [26]

February 1945: A few weeks before the end of the war, 27 persons (for the most part Jewish wives in so-called "mixed marriages") were arrested by the Gestapo and deported to Theresienstadt (Terezin). On 25 March US-American troops occupied Darmstadt, on 27 March Frankfurt, and on 28 March Giessen.

These events had been preceded by the systematic expulsion of Jewish Germans in the years 1933-38. Here too, there is evidence that the pressure for expulsion in the rural districts of Upper Hessen began quite early and clearly had the massive support of the local population.[27]

The remaining Jewish families were brutally terrorized in the pogrom-night of 9 November 1938. By way of forcing their expulsion, 238 men (most of them heads of families) were forcibly taken to the Buchenwald concentration Camp.[28] Upon the written promise of their speedy emigration, most of these men were released by the end of the year, although some did not survive their incarceration.

With the outbreak of war, emigration was made increasingly difficult and soon prohibited altogether. By late 1940 the deportation of the remaining Jewish population began. In the fall of the following year (1941), Jews were deported from Frankfurt, and in 1942 from the rest of Hessen. Their destinations were ghettoes and camps in occupied Poland. In the fall of 1942, Jews still present in Upper Hessen were deported, and some of these transports went to Theresienstadt (Terezin). Prior to these departures, however, the financial administration systematically stripped the potential deportees of all of their possessions. Financial assets were confiscated; houses, furnishings, and valuables were "forfeited to the State."  The "good neighbors" seized these opportunities: public auctions of Jewish property took place everywhere in Hessen, the population showed great interest, and participation was more than lively. Few people refused to participate in this "legalized robbery."[29]

"The expulsion of the Jews had taken an extremely radical form in Hessen..." Monica Kingreen concludes. "By the end of 1942 the only Jewish persons left were those married to a so-called Aryan." [30] These persons too were deported in the course of the years 1943 and 1944 -- usually to the extermination camps in occupied Poland.

Some of the deportees of the February 1945 transport were liberated by the Soviets at Theresienstadt and could return to their home villages by early summer.

No New Beginning

In 1961 Harry Maor established a numerical accounting in his empirical study about the rebuilding of Jewish congregations in Germany.[31] He came to the conclusion that the term "rebuilding" was not really applicable here. For the (new) federal Land of Hessen, Maor gave the following data: In addition to Frankfurt, Jewish congregations existed in 9 towns: Bad Homburg. Bad Nauheim, Darmstadt, Fulda, Gelnhausen, Kassel, Marburg/Lahn, Offenbach, and Wisebaden. Of the 400 members of these 9 Jewish congregations, 120 lived in 48 communities in the rural areas around these towns. According to Maor the total number of Jews living in Hessen in 1961 was 2,142.[32]

In 1971 Max Willner, writing for the Hessian Association of Jewish Congregations, noted in his preface to Arnsberg's work: "Today (1. January 1971) the number of Jews in the Land of Hessen is 1,563. They associate in the congregations of Darmstadt, Fulda, Gelnhausen, Bad Homburg, Kassel, Marburg (Lahn), Bad Nauheim, Offenbach (Main), Wiesbaden (this enumeration does not include the Frankfurt congregation, which did not belong to the association [KT])... This finding alone points to the difference between today's status and the traditional structure of Jewish life in Hessen, which was characterized by hundreds and hundreds of small congregations. These small congregations will never again come into being..."[33]

There is every reason to agree with this conclusion today, in the year 2003.