Adelebsen Jewish Community Records

The small German town of Adelebsen is located about 15 kilometers west of Göttingen, today in the German state of Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen). It serves as the central municipality (Flecken) for the satellite villages of Barterode, Eberhausen, Erbsen, Güntersen, Lödingsen und Wibbecke. The area was historically part of the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneberg; and, following the Napoleonic Wars, the kingdom of Hanover (Hannover). The latter was annexed by the kingdom of Prussia in 1866.

Under Prussian rule and subsequently as part of the German Empire (1871-1918), the region was known as the province of Hanover. Adelebsen came under the provincial administration (Landdrostei) of Hildesheim. Adelebsen itself was a local government seat until 1859, when it was brought under the jurisdiction of the government seat in nearby Uslar.

The Jewish community in Adelebsen had its beginnings in the late 17th century. The first documentation of Jewish residents is a listing for a peddler and farmer by the name of Hertz Naphthali, and his wife and children, in a tax list of 1675. In 1696 there were two Jewish families in the town; and in 1796, 20 families. Through the early 19th century, Jews needed permission to settle in the town (as was the case elsewhere in Germany), in the form of a writ of protection (Schutzbrief), which specified their occupation, and Jews who did not have such permission were periodically expelled. Jews were granted full civil rights for a time under Napoleonic rule (1807-1813), and then, finally, in the kingdom of Hanover, in 1842.

The number of Jews in Adelebsen steadily increased through the mid 19th century. In 1848, there were 149 Jewish residents, making up 13% of the town's population. The Jews of Adelebsen mostly earned their living as peddlers, merchants, or proprietors of small businesses, including cattle and horse dealing; linen and cotton weaving; and lottery collection.

The community built a schoolhouse in 1836, which also contained the living quarters of the Jewish teacher. It was located at 15 Lange Straße ('Long street'), the street on which most Jewish residents lived. As was typical, the office of teacher was combined with that of cantor (Vorsänger) and kosher butcher (Schächter).

Baruch Schlesinger, of Goslar, was a teacher for several years in the mid 1850s. Sally Blumenfeld, of Momberg, Hesse, took up the teacher's post in 1861, and remained for nearly fifty years, until 1910. Due to the dwindling number of students, the school closed in 1915.

Teacher Blumenfeld also headed the burial society, or chevra kadisha (Chewra kadischa); and he was active in the Jewish teachers' association (Lehrerverein) of Hanover, and helped to create the union (Verband) of Jewish teachers' associations of Germany, in 1895. Upon his retirement he moved to Göttingen and died there, in 1925. (He was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Adelebsen.)

Like other Jewish communities in Germany, Adelebsen came under the jurisdiction of a regional, government-appointed rabbi, or Landrabbiner. In that capacity Rabbi Nathan Marcus Adler, of Hanover, issued synagogue regulations (Synagogenordnung) in 1832, applicable to all the Jewish communities in the kingdom of Hanover. Adelebsen also came under the more local jurisdiction of the Landrabbiner in Hildesheim.

In the late 1830s, the community erected a new synagogue, which was located in the vicinity of the schoolhouse. A communal mikveh, for ritual baths, was built around 1860.

In 1861 the Jewish community in the village of Barterode was administratively combined with the Adelebsen Jewish community, a step that had been under discussion since around 1844.

Following are the approximate terms in office of some of the elected heads (Vorsteher) of the Adelebsen Jewish community, from the mid 19th to early 20th century:

Rosenstein, a physician, later moved to Einbeck, where he achieved local renown as a 'doctor of the poor' (Armenarzt), and an advocate in educational and cultural matters, and in 1890 was awarded the imperial Order of the Red Eagle (Rote Adlerorden), 4th class, for his civic service. Salomon Gräfenberg was the father of the famous gynecologist Ernst Gräfenberg, who was born in Adelebsen and spent his boyhood there; the family moved to Göttingen in 1893, where Ernst attended high school and university.

In the late 19th century there was a marked decline in the size of the Jewish community, with the nearby city of Göttingen being a destination for some. There were only 69 Jewish residents in Adelebsen in 1895; 51 in 1911; and 46 in 1925.

When Hitler assumed power in 1933, there were just 32 Jewish residents in the town (2% of the total population). In the night of 9/10 November 1938 (Kristallnacht, or the night of broken glass), Jewish residents of Adelebsen were mistreated, some of them were arrested, and the synagogue was burned down, in actions led by SS and SA members who had arrived from Göttingen, with local SS and SA members joining in.

Of 14 Jews still residing in Adelebsen in 1942, some seven of them were deported to the Warsaw ghetto in March, and those remaining were deported to concentration camp Theresienstadt in July. The only survivor, Noa Rothschild, returned to the town at the end of the war, in July 1945, and died there in May 1948, becoming the last community member to be buried in the Adelebsen Jewish cemetery.

The cemetery is on the outskirts of town to the west, on a steep incline, and in the past was known in the town as the "Judenberg" (Jews' hill). The cemetery was expanded several times so that it comprises five distinct sections. It contains 229 headstones dating from 1733 to 1948. In 1999 to 2004 the graves and cemetery were restored with funding from the Deutsche Stiftung Denkmalschutz (German foundation for monument protection).

References

"Adelebsen/Solling (Niedersachsen)" (2008). Klaus-Dieter Alicke (Ed.). Lexikon der jüdischen Gemeinden im deutschen Sprachraum. 3 vols. Güterloh: Güterloher Verlagshaus. vol. 1, cols. 15-17. Available online at: www.jüdische-gemeinden.de

Schaller, Berndt, & Eike Dietert (2010). Im Steilhang: der jüdische Friedhof zu Adelebsen: Erinnerung an eine zerstörte Gemeinschaft. Göttingen: Universitätsverlag Göttingen. Available online at: http://books.google.com