Augsburg, Germany

AUGSBURG, Swabia, Germany. The Jewish community probably dated from the second half of the 12th century. During the medieval period the Jews used to live in a quarter called Judenberg with a synagogue, and several other institutions. In 1276 a municipal statute that served as a model for other communities in South Germany and Switzerland fixed the social and economic rights of the Jews. Augsburg had a famous yeshiva, where a special method of deep talmudic study known as the Augsburg hillukim was developed. However, in the Black Death persecutions of 1348-49, most Jews were massacred by the local population. The few survivors reestablished the community almost immediately but in 1438 the municipality published an expulsion order forcing all 300 Jews to leave the city. For the next few hundred years Jews were allowed to visit the city for purposes of trade, though during the wars of the 18th century such Court Jews as Samuel Oppenheimer and Josef Guggenheimer were active there. Permanent settlement was officially renewed in 1803 and after the Bavarian annexation in 1806 the remaining residence restrictions were gradually removed. In 1861, Augsburg became the seat of the district rabbinate. Though Liberals formed a majority and an organ was introduced into the synagogue in 1865, prayer services remained by and large traditional, preserving the unity or the community. By 1880 the Jewish population was 1,031 with Jews a major factor in the city's commercial life. A new synagogue, one of the most magnificent in Germany, was dedicated in 1917. The Jewish population in 1933 was 1,030. Under the Nazi regime Jews maintained an active communal life, offering a broad range of cultural and social services. A Jewish public school and old age home were maintained, various institutions offered vocational and foreign language study preparatory to emigration, and the Central Union (C.V.), Zionist Organization, and Juedischer Kulturbund were all active. A total of 445 Jews managed to emigrate, half to the U.S. and a third in 1938-39 after the synagogue was destroyed and Jewish stores looted on Kristallnacht (9-10 November 1938). Another 113 left for other German cities. The remaining 170 Jews were herded into a ghetto in late 1941; 19 were deported to the Riga ghetto via Munich on 20 November 1941, another 129 to Piaski (Poland) 3 April 1942, and most of the others to the Theresienstadt ghetto up to 1945. A postwar community, composed of former residents and East European concentration camp survivors, numbered 229 in 1970.