Binswangen, Germany

A Jewish settlement existed in the second half of the 16th century, augmented after 1617 by Jews expelled from Burgau and its environs. Jews engaged in money lending and the cattle trade. A new synagogue was built in 1837. Rabbi Hirsch Gunzenheimer was chief district rabbi and headed a local yeshiva until his death in the late 1860s. The Jewish population declined from 327 (total 894) in 1811 to 193 in 1871 and 36 in 1933. Most were still present on “Kristallnacht” (9-10 Nov. 1938), when the synagogue and cemetery were vandalized, windows smashed in Jewish homes and stores, and valuables stolen. Eleven Jews left by the end of 1940, nine emigrating. Of the seven remaining in 1942, five were deported to Piaski (in Poland) on 3 April and two to the Theresienstadt ghetto (27 July).