Emmendingen

  • The Jewish museum
  • In the museum
  • Jewish culture explained descriptively
  • Youngsters after a guided tour

 

Official website: >> Jüdisches Museum, >> Alemannia Judaica
Address: Schlossplatz 7, 79312 Emmendingen
Infor­ma­tion and booking: Tel. 07641 574444,
Opening hours: every Wednesday and Sunday from 2pm to 5pm
Admission adults: €2, Children and minors free
Sponsors of the facility: Association for Jewish History and Culture «Verein für jüdische Geschichte und Kultur Emmendingen e.V.», Postfach 1423, 79304 Emmendingen

The Jewish Museum Emmendingen in the historical Mikveh Building

Since April 1997 the renovated mikveh has been the home to the Jewish Museum Emmendingen, the classical museum, memorial, meeting centre and conference room for events. The listed mikveh built around 1840 is in the cellar. An exhibition on the history of the Israelite Community 1716 – 1940 awaits the visitor on the ground floor, a documentation of the fate of the Emmendingen Jew during the Nazi dictatorship as well as alternating special exhibitions. Numerous exhibits illustrate Jewish cults and every-day life, the Jewish festivals in the course of the year are explained in detail. On the first floor a reading and seminar room with literature, videos and DVDs on Jewry and on the Jewish history are at the disposal of visitors. In November 2017 the new permanent exhibition about the mikvah Emmendingen was inaugurated. The Jewish Museum Emmendingen is a place of remembrance and commemoration, of learning and encountering Jewish life in our time.

Pedagogic memorial work in the Jewish Museum Emmendingen

Apart from the standard opening times of the museum, the sponsor offers guided tours / accompaniment to groups of all kinds in the Museum.

Contribution towards expenses per guided tour

  • Pupils: €1.50 each
  • Students: €2.00 each
  • Adults: €4.00

This offer is made intensive use of, particularly by school classes from the southern and central Baden districts, however also by non-school groups of youths and groups of adults. Guided tours and guidance are oriented along the lines of following targets: to impart historical knowledge on site about the occurrences; to underline the perception that the injustice occurred had occurred; to impart an insight into the behavioural patterns of perpetrator societies and of tacit accomplices, or of saviours, helpers and resistors, to contribute towards human rights education, to stimulate the willingness to defend human rights and fundamental democratic values, to develop moral courage, capabilities of dialogue and openness and an own view of past history and the present.

Places to visit in the vicinity

  • Commemorative plaques at the site of the destroyed new synagogue
  • Bronze plaques with floor plans and portals of the destroyed synagogue in the pavement of the palace square
  • Simon Veit House, Kirchstraße 11
  • Memorial for the Emmendingen Jews deported to Gurs in 1940
  • Museum in the Margrave Palace (Collection of the town’s history and Photo Museum Hirsmüller)

Emmendingen Association for Jewish History and Culture (Verein für jüdische Geschichte und Kultur Emmendingen e.V.)

A group of committed Emmendingen citizens initiated a public debate in 1988 on the text for a second commemorative plaque at the site of the destroyed synagogue on the palace square which names the Night of the Pogroms/ Night of Broken Glass as the cause and Emmendingen citizens as perpetrators of the destruction. The fierce public discourse surrounding the commemorative plaques and the reappraisal of the local NS history, the rediscovery of the mikveh and the moving encounter of 42 Emmendingen Jews driven out of their hometown and who are officially invited for the first time by the town Emmendingen in 1989 are the decisive impulse for the foundation of the Verein für jüdische Geschichte und Kultur Emmendingen e.V. /Emmendingen Association for Jewish History and Culture) in 1988. The target of the interdenominational association is to recall the Jewish history of Emmendingen, to explore and document it. Memories of the expelled and murdered Emmendingen Jews and the crimes against the Jewish population should be kept alive. The association plans to restore the rediscovered mikveh as conserved Jewish culture building and to establish a museum of Jewish history in it. With funds of the national monument foundation and of the town Emmendingen, with monetary and in-kind donations from local companies and with private sponsorship the building and the mikveh is restored in year-long, primarily voluntary work of association members. The sponsoring association however does not only find its task in doing research into and documenting Jewish life in the past. According to the statutes its task is primarily to accompany current-day Jewish life and in all aspects to support the Jewish Community Emmendingen newly founded in 1995. The association advocates the peaceful dialogue of religions, a respectful coexistence between people of different denominations, the respect for human rights, against antisemitism and the discrimination of social minorities. A number of further activities of the Vereins für jüdische Geschichte und Kultur Emmendingen e.V. highlight the guiding principles:

  • Open house days accompanied by the cultural programme, e.g. European day of Jewish culture, day of the open memorial, museum night, Emmendingen reading night
  • Cultural events on different aspects of Jewish life in co-operation with the Jewish Community Emmendingen and the municipal culture office
  • Talks with survivor witnesses
  • Commemoration ceremonies in connection with 9.11.1938, 22.10.1940, 27.1.1945
  • Remembrance rooms: Memorial plaques for the murdered Emmendingen Jews, bronze plate with floorplan and portal view of the destroyed Emmendingen synagogue
  • Accompaniment of visiting former Emmendingen Jews or their descendants
  • Conferences, symposiums, excursions and seminars in co-operation with the Jewish Community and other organisations
  • Interlinking with other memorial sites
  • Co-operation in scientific research projects, archiving, releasing publications, information material for pupils and students for presentations, projects and homework, support in own research work, further education events for teachers, book tables in the Jewish Museum and at events
  • Conceptual further development of the museum and protection of the museum as memorial

Publications

Carola Grasse, Helmut R. Merz, Christa Rutz: Jüdisches Leben in Emmendingen. Orte, Schauplätze, Spuren 2001
Günter Schmidt (Hrsg.): Emma Schwarz. Emmendingen – Gurs – Johnnesburg, 1999
Verein für jüdische Geschichte und Kultur Emmendingen e.V. (Hrsg.): Dokumentation zum Besuch ehemaliger Emmendinger Juden, 1999
Gerhard Behnke (Hrsg.): Das Geheimnis der Versöhnung ist Erinnerung, Emmendingen 1989