„Weg hier!“ – ‘Get out of here!’ This exclamation is meant to attract attention, shake people up, perhaps even frighten them.
It is as relevant today as it was then. Get out of here, but where to? And why? Voluntarily or by force? An exclamation that each of us has surely heard or uttered ourselves, as children playing, as teenagers in the schoolyard, as adults with wanderlust…
Jews heard this exclamation as a command throughout the millennia, even here in Emmendingen in the 20th century. Unwanted lives that were to be eliminated, whether to Dachau, Gurs or Auschwitz…
Jews themselves uttered this exclamation, whether in Moscow, Kiev or Chisinau, when they accepted the invitation of the German government and immigrated to Germany in the early 1990s as so-called quota refugees. Jewish life was to be strengthened again after the Shoah.

The topicality of flight and expulsion, of migrations from one place to another, movements, voluntary or involuntary, with suitcases in hand or packed moving boxes.
It is also a question that Jews today must ask themselves again, whether in Germany, Ukraine or Israel – exposed to hostility, feeling insecure: Am I still safe here? In the place where I live?

These thoughts take shape in the exhibition: exhibits on the Passover festival, the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt to Canaan, which is celebrated in mid-April this year. Unleavened bread, matzo, commemorates the hasty departure from slavery to freedom. The Haggadah read on the first two evenings tells of the exodus from Egypt by divine hand. Jewish children’s books to browse and read invite visitors to learn about the Passover story.

Objects belonging to former Emmendingen Jews guide visitors through decades of flight and expulsion:
photo album and passport of Marion Reet, née Baer, who emigrated to the USA in 1938, 1921, her mother’s pocket handkerchief case and Hebrew Bible in memory of the Israelite Home Community of Emmendingen – farewell gifts to Margot Heymann, née Weil, born in 1927, for the Kindertransport to Switzerland in 1939, as well as certificates from the Emmendingen District Savings Bank from 1939 for Hugo Weil, born in 1877, who was released from Dachau, for emigration to Switzerland. His ancestors were co-founders of the Jewish Community of Emmendingen in 1716.

With the re-establishment of the Jewish community in Emmendingen exactly 30 years ago, a new chapter began: the immigration of Jews from the former Soviet Union to Germany. Hebrew prayers translated into Russian for the search for accommodation, alongside Moldovan matryoshka dolls, are reminders of the early days in Emmendingen, which are recorded in Torsten Wenk’s documentary film ‘Ausgerechnet Deutschland – Jüdische Immigration nach Emmendingen’ (2004). Interviews with members and board members of the Jewish community today can be viewed and listened to at the media station. Now the community even looks after Jewish refugees from war zones itself.

From 2 April to 31 August 2025
Jewish Museum Emmendingen
Schlossplatz 7,
79312 Emmendingen