Buttenhausen, Germany

Jewish settlement began in 1787 when 25 families received residence rights from the local ruler. By the mid-19th century, the Jews formed the majority of the total and constituted its wealthy class, reaching a peak population of 442 in 1870. Buttenhausen became one of the region's centers of commerce and culture, with the Jews remaining prominent even as their numbers began to dwindle, primarily due to emigration to the U.S. and the larger German cities and a sharply declining birthrate (from 10.3 per family in 1850 to 2.1 in 1925). In 1912, most Jews were engaged in the cattle trade. Throughout the period relations with the local population were excellent and little cooperation was extended to the Nazi authorities, with local residents removing the contents of the synagogue for safekeeping when SA troops set it on fire on “Kristallnacht” (9-10 November 1938). Few of the town's 89 Jews had left at that point; 39 emigrated by 1941; 109, including refugees from Stuttgart and Heilbronn-Sondheim, were expelled to the Riga ghetto on 16 December 1941 and to the Theresienstadt ghetto on 22 August 1942.