This article is adapted from a presentation at the IAJGS conference in Los Angeles, July 2010—Ed.

Two Jewish communities are flourishing in Germany today, a real community and a virtual community. The real Jewish community consists of about 200,000 individuals, primarily immigrants of Russian origin, most of them uninformed Jews, and, according to many observers, some even questionably Jewish. These Russian Jews have no historical roots in Germany and, hence, no incentive for pursuing or promoting local Jewish genealogical research.

The virtual Jewish community is comprised of philo-Jews, a cadre of German Gentiles who operate quietly in almost all cities and towns, as educators in the public schools and universities, as well as local historians. While no formal connection exists between these geographically

Two Jewish communities are flourishing in Germany today, a real community and a virtual community.

sep­arated groups of individuals, they share a remarkable similar program of recalling and attempting to reconstitute the once-present (ehemaligen) Jewish communities through reconstruction of institutions such as synagogues and cemeteries, as well as fostering Jewish cultural expression despite the absence of any Jews. Toiling for the most part in obscurity, this group seeks to identify and memorialize the past local historical Jewish presence—and thereby they offer great hope and assistance to contemporary Jewish genealogists who are pursuing their personal family history in Germany. There is even a Jewish Genealogical Society of Hamburg (Hamburger Gesellschaft für Jüdische Genealogie), founded primarily by non-Jewish Germans.

This unique group of Gentiles, motivated perhaps by a sense of shame and disgust with what transpired during the Nazi era, now feel a need for rapprochement. They act to resurrect that which has been destroyed or at least suppressed. They recognize what the German people lost because of the repressive anti-Semitism of the Nazi regime and seek to restore some aspects of the former Jewish life in Germany. These individuals have been responsible for:

• Memorials and museums dedicated to a lost Jewish life
• Reconstitution and renovations of synagogues and other public Jewish buildings
• Restoration and maintenance of Jewish cemeteries
• Research and authorship of Jewish histories (creating a body of yizkor books)
• Cultural events that focus on Jewish music and teachings
• Creation of websites dedicated to the role played by Jews in their former communities
  • Through their efforts, a virtual German-Jewish community has emerged, exemplified by the extraordinary website focusing on Baden-Württemberg and neighboring areas of the southwestern portion of Germany at www.alemannia-judaica.de/index.htm.
  • Perhaps the most significant evidence for the existence of this virtual Jewish community may be seen through the efforts of the annual Obermayer German Jewish History Awards that are bestowed on non-Jewish Germans who have made extraordinary contributions in preserving the Jewish history, culture, cemeteries, and synagogues of their local communities. Since the year 2000, 50 awardees, representing all areas of Germany, have been recognized for their concrete efforts in these endeavors. (See www.obermayer.us/award.)

Eppingen as an Example

• Eppingen, Baden-Württemberg, the community from which the author and his family emigrated in 1937, exemplifies one manifestation of this commitment. After many years of silence about the events of the Nazi period, Eppingen has awakened to its once-resident Jewish population primarily because of the efforts of high school teachers and students who represent the second and third generation, respectively, of Germans since the end of World War II.
• One such individual is Michael Heitz, a dynamo who has inspired his community to recapture memory and honor for the once-existing Jews of the Kraichgau area. Heitz, who graduated in 2001 from the Pädagogische Hochschule (Teachers’ Institute) in Heidelberg, wrote his thesis on Jüdisches Leben im Kraichgau am Beispiel der ehemals kurpfälzischen Stadt Eppingen im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert – Mit Unterrichtsbeispielen” (Jewish life in Kraichgau, with the example of the Palatinate town of Eppingen during the 19th and 20th centuries, including teaching examples). It includes lesson plans for teaching about the former Jewish life in Germany to secondary level students. This work demonstrates his understanding of German-Jewish history as well as the cultural and religious practices of Jews. The lesson-plan focus of the dissertation reflects his commitment to develop a methodology to use to educate German youth about the persecution of Jews during the Nazi period.
• Employed at the Albert-Schweitzer-Schule (school) in Sinsheim, Heitz has been teaching about the Shoah in Sinsheim and opening his students’ eyes to xenophobia and anti-Semitism in particular. Every year he organizes a one-week school trip to the former concentration camp of Ravensbrück. Among the fruits of his countless hours of dedicated work and personal expense are the following:
• Student projects, including their creation of a comprehensive website devoted to the history of the Jews of Eppingen and lobbying for the town’s administration to organize a Begegnungswoche (Week of encounter) by inviting members of eight surviving Jewish families back to Eppingen in October 2002.
• A student-authored yizkor book of 208 pages, published in 2006, that discusses the history of the former Jewish community of this rural town, the Jewish institutions that were established, the lives of 30 families and what happened to them because of the Holocaust.
• The production by students of a 2008 calendar that includes photographs and images related to former Jewish life in eight nearby communities as part of the Denkmal-Aktiv Group of the Deutschen Stiftung Denkmalschutz (Active memorial group of the German Foundation for the Preservation of Memorials).
• A student-produced visitors/tourists guide to sites of Jewish interest located in the Kraichgau area. This brochure and accompanying map was published in 2008 as Jüdisches Leben im Kraichgau (Jewish life in the Kraichgau).
• Serving as a resource person and authority on Jewish matters to the local town administration, the Heimatfreunde Eppingen and the local schools, with the goal of creating a cultural center to reflect the Jewish history of the area.
• An educational program sponsored by Traces of the Past (a private-sector Polish organization), which focuses on recognizing student projects in local regions aimed at restoring memories of historic monuments in the students’ local region in order to revive memories of both the place and the people connected with it. Traces of the Past is sponsored by the Polish organization Centrum Edukacji Obywatelskiej (Center for Citizenship Education, CCE), a non-governmental educational foundation. The students of Eppingen are researching the history and related Jewish life of a 17th-century building in their hometown that served as a synagogue until 1873 and, after having been a privately owned structure, is now owned by the town of Eppingen and is in the process of being transformed into a Jewish center. The students are engaged in the architectural design of this center.
• Initiating contact with Jewish families that were once resident in the Eppingen area and providing them with genealogical and collateral family data obtained from local archives. Heitz undertook these contacts to convince surviving Jewish residents of Eppingen to reconnect with their former hometown by communicating with local high school students.
• Collecting letters, photographs and documents to preserve the history of area Jews during the Nazi period, including the production of video interviews with eyewitnesses, both survivors as well as their Gentile neighbors. These items have been made available to Yad Vashem for archival holdings in Jerusalem.
• Achieving the memorialization of a former Jewish resident by having the Realschule renamed the Selma-Rosenfeld-Realschule in spring 2008. Heitz conducted intensive research on Rosenfeld’s career, beginning with her academic positions in Germany and ultimately becoming a professor of German at Los Angeles City College.
• Serving as guide and counselor for Jewish-related sites in the area, including cemeteries, synagogue sites, and a mikveh (ritual bath).
• Co-founding and directing Jüdisches Leben Kraichgau (Jewish life in the Kraichgau), of which he is the director. This is a local society that extends throughout the Kraichgau area and involves towns, schools, businesses, and individuals. The society promotes understanding and appreciation of the lost Jewish life in the Kraichgau. A quarterly newsletter is published and a website is available at www.juedisches-leben-kraichgau.de. A major project of the organization is planting a Kraichgau forest in Israel’s Negev Desert under the auspices of the Jewish National Fund.
• Maintaining press relationships and advancing community awareness regarding issues and events on all of the above.
• These efforts by non-Jews in Germany are creating a Jewish atmosphere that has no Jews, literally a virtual Jewish environment. While this special group of persons is focused on making visible a once-vibrant Jewish life to the contemporary gentile community, the fallout is a significant contribution to those of us dealing with our own family’s history and genealogy in Germany. There is no similar indigenous activity in other areas of Europe that has so much benefit to Jewish genealogists. Testament to the German Gentiles’ efforts to recall their former Jewish communities are the numerous websites that illustrate the past history of Jews in Germany.

Cemetery Data

• http://lagis-hessen.de/juf.html, organized by the Kommission fuer die Geschichte der Juden in Hessen: (Research on Jewish history in Hessen)
• www.jcdp.de/login.php, headed by Norbert Heyeckhaus, encompassing the Jewish Cemetery Database Project with more than 20,000 records, including all cemeteries of the Rhein-Lahn-Kreis and Köln Bocklemünd.

Student Projects

• www.attendorn.de/stadtinfo/geschichte/juedisch, under­­­­taken by the classes of the St. Ursula Gymnasiums of Attendorn with a focus on “Jewish life during the time of the NS-Nazis.”
• www.juedisches-leben-kraichgau.de, site maintained by Jewish Life Kraichgau, an organization of small communities located in the Kraichgau, including a link to a student- created site that captures the former Jewish community of Eppingen.

Community Projects

• www.juedisches-leben-in-breisach.de, an effort of individuals of Breisach who have reconstituted the former Jewish community building now called the Blue House.
• www.historisches-unterfranken.uni-wuerzburg.de/ friedhoefe/HausWolfsthalplatz/, a site devoted to the story of the Jews of Aschaffenburg maintained by a local society.

University Institutions

• http://134.91.195.113/wiki/index.php/Hauptseiteuisburg.de describes activities of the Steinheim Institute at the University Duisburg-Essen, devoted to researching German-Jewish history.
• www.lzz.uni-halle.de introduces the Leopold Zunz Center for Researching Judaism in Europe, associated with Martin Luther University in Halle.

Museums

• www.edjewnet.de/index_en.htm is a site that provides access to the museum of the Jews of Göppingen and Jebenhausen.
• www.juedisches-museum-muenchen.de/cms/?L=1 is the portal to the Jewish Museum of Munich.

Synagogues

• http://www.synagogen.info provides information on more than 2,200         synagogues in Germany and Austria.
• www.cad.architektur.tu-darmstadt.de/synagogen/inter/ start_de.html shows computerized, reconstructed synagogues, a project of students at the Technical University of Darmstadt.

Memorials

• http://www.freiburg-schwarzwald.de/gurs.htm, sponsored by the Protestant Diocese of Freiburg, lists the many memorials that recall the 1940 mass deportation of Jews of Baden to Gurs.

Specialized References

• www.germaniajudaica.de, a private library created under the auspices of the city library of Cologne, devoted solely to the history of the Jews in Germany.
• www.compactmemory.de provides access to the full texts of more than 100 Jewish periodicals published in Germany during the period 1806 to 1938.

Governmental Bodies

• www.digam.net/?str=247 a rich archive of digitized documents reflecting the history and events of Jews in Hesse, sponsored by the State Archives of Hesse.
• http://www.gedenkstaetten-bw.de/gedenkstaetten0. html a listing of memorials connected with Jewish persecution and deportations, established by the State of Baden-Wuerttemberg.

Werner Frank is one of the founders of Ger-SIG (the German Special Interest Group of JewishGen) and has written articles for ROOTS, Maajan, AVOTAYNU, and Stammbaum (of which he was a former editor). Frank has been researching his family’s history, amassing a genealogical database of over 33,000 names. This research has extended to the 13th century by tapping into a rabbinical dynasty and has led to the publication of his 900-page book devoted to the history of his family, Legacy: The Saga of a German-Jewish Family over Time and Circumstance, published by Avotaynu Foundation in 2003.