Würzburg During the Holocaust
The Jews of Würzburg 1939 – 1943
Würzburg, 25 April 1942. Jews concentrated in Platz’schen-Garten, awaiting deportation to the Lublin district. From the deportation album of the Jews of Mainfranken (part of Lower Franconia).
24 March 1942, Jews in Kitzingen being led to the train station. Jews from Würzburg were among those deported. From the deportation album of the Jews of Mainfranken (part of Lower Franconia).
24 March 1942, Items belonging to the Jews at the Kitzingen train station prior to the Jews deportation. Jews from Würzburg were among those deported. From the deportation album of the Jews of Mainfranken (part of Lower Franconia).
24 March 1942, Items belonging to the Jews at the Kitzingen train station prior to the Jews deportation. Jews from Würzburg were among those deported. From the deportation album of the Jews of Mainfranken (part of Lower Franconia).
25 April 1942, Jews being led through the streets of Würzburg by German policemen, en route to the train station.
In January 1939 the authorities forced the district rabbi of Würzburg, Rabbi Dr. Sigmund (Shimon) Hanover, who had meanwhile been detained in a concentration camp, to leave Germany. He was succeeded in office by Rabbi Dr. Magnus (Menachem) Weinberg, who was to be the last rabbi of the community in Würzburg before its destruction.
In September 1941 the Jews of Germany were made to wear the "yellow badge" on their clothes; all Jews from the age of six were to wear a yellow star on their outer garments. In October 1941 Jews were prohibited from crossing the Reich borders, and November 1941 was the first occasion on which Jews from Würzburg were deported to Riga.
At the beginning of 1942 the authorities dictated that all Jewish apartments in Würzburg be vacated. Their owners were concentrated in the buildings of the Jewish cemetery, under extremely crowded conditions and without any privacy: families were quartered in the mourning room, the eulogy chamber, the prayer room and the guard room, and several families were also placed on the second floor. Jews who had been sent to Würzburg from other communities in Franconia were concentrated in the Jewish hospital. Older Jews, both men and women, were conscripted to serve as force laborers in factories, street cleaning, loading and unloading trains, and other similar tasks. Strict regulations controlled the movement of Jews in the city.
Between 1933, when the Nazi party came to power, and 1942, some 2,300 Jews left Würzburg, among them Jews who had immigrated to the city or been deported to it from other communities in Germany. A quarter of the emigrants from Würzburg resettled elsewhere Germany; the rest left the country, most of them for the United States, Eretz Israel, and Great Britain.
According to a Gestapo report from Würzburg, between November 1941 and June 1943, 2,063 Jews were deported. From Lower Franconia in six transports, among them the Jews of Würzburg. Before boarding the transports the deportees were required to hand in all their valuables, the keys to their apartments, and a document detailing their property, including their bank account details. They were only allowed to take a few belongings with them on the trains. Before boarding the transports they were registered and meticulously searched for contraband objects and other goods which were not allowed to be taken. The deportees were routed to Nuremberg, from where about a third of them were transported to Theresienstadt and the rest – "to the East". Michael Völkl, the Gestapo officer in charge of the deportations from Würzburg, assigned German policemen the task of documenting three of the transports. Other photography of the deportation process was strictly forbidden.
- 27 November 1941, 202 Jews from Würzburg were deported to Riga.
- 24 March 1942, 208 Jews were deported from Kitzingen to Izbica, Poland, among them 24 Jews from Würzburg.
- 25 April 1942, 850 Jews were deported from Würzburg to Krasnystaw; 78 of the deportees were from Würzburg, and the remaining deportees came from some 80 different communities.
- 10 September 1942, 177 Jews were deported from Würzburg to Theresienstadt.
- 23 September 1942, 562 Jews were deported from Würzburg to Theresienstadt.
- 17 June 1943, seven Jews were deported from Würzburg to Theresienstadt, and 57 Jews were deported to Auschwitz.
The community was officially liquidated on September 22, 1943. Several days before this date, the remaining Jews brought a wooden crate containing 25 Torah scrolls to the Jewish cemetery, where they buried it in the ground. A tombstone was placed over the grave, with the marking "The Mosaic Torah". The incident went unnoticed by the authorities, as at the time there were many deaths and suicides among the Jews in Würzburg.
Following the final deportation 29 Jews remained in Würzburg, of them 14 were originally residents of the city; the rest were Jews who had been brought in from surrounding communities. Five of the Jews were the children of mixed marriages, considered Jews according to Nazi racial law (Geltungsjuden); the others were Jews married to Germans.
24 March 1942 – The Deportation of the Jews of Kitzingen
On the 24th of March 1942, 28 Jews were deported. From Kitzingen and its environs toward the East. In the two days which preceded the deportation, the Jews of Kitzingen and Ochsenfurt were concentrated in the Fränkischer Hof hotel in Kitzingen. They were sent by train to Nuremberg and from there to Izbica, in the Lublin province of Poland. Some 1,000 Jews were deported in this transport, among them 426 Jews from Nuremberg, 228 Jews from Fürth, 208 Jews from Kitzingen and its surroundings, and 24 Jews from Würzburg.
During the 12th century, Kitzingen had held a large and organized Jewish community. In 1933 there were 360 Jews living in the city, who amounted to 3.3 percent of the population. By the 22nd of September, 1942, there remained only two Jews living in Kitzingen, one of whom was married to a non-Jewish man.
This deportation from Kitzingen was photographed by German policemen, and collected in album form for Michael Völkl, the Gestapo officer in charge of the deportations from Würzburg. The album, containing 128 photos, documents two other transports from Würzburg to the East. Also depicted is the deportation of Jews from small German towns, and the complicity of different authorities in the process: the local police, the Gestapo, the local and higher levels of the SS, porters, clerks and more. The photos are not always arranged chronologically. The handwritten captions under several photos are of an antisemitic nature. The deportation is referred to as an "evacuation" (Evakuierung).
10 September 1942 – The Deportation of Jews from Würzburg to Theresienstadt
177 Jews were deported on September 10th, 1942, from Würzburg, via Nuremberg, to Theresienstadt. This transport included some 1,000 Jews from Nuremberg, Fürth, Bamberg and Würzburg. The deportees were later transported from Theresienstadt to Treblinka and Auschwitz. Only 51 people from this transport survived.
23 September 1942 – The Deportation of Jews from Würzburg to Theresienstadt
562 Jews were deported from Würzburg on the 23rd of September, 1942, arriving the next day at Theresienstadt. The transport contained 680 people, most of them elderly people. Some of the elderly Jews had been collected from across Lower Franconia, and concentrated at the Platz’schen-Garten in Würzburg. On the morning of September 23rd they were driven by busses to the train station. Later they were deported. From Theresienstadt to Treblinka and Auschwitz. Only 41 people from this transport survived.
17 June 1943 – The Last Transport from Würzburg
The last transport of Jews from Würzburg took place on the 17th of June, 1943. 64 Jews were transported to Nuremberg, and from there to Theresienstadt and Auschwitz. On the 18th of June a transport carrying 36 Jews, among them seven Jews from Würzburg, left Nuremberg, arriving at Theresienstadt the next day. The transport to Auschwitz contained 73 Jews, among them 57 from Würzburg.
The Deportations from Lower Franconia
A communication from the Würzburg Gestapo dated August 6, 1943, reports that 2,063 Jews were deported, and that their valuables and possessions were confiscated and transferred to the Ministry of Finance.
This report is part of a collection of over 1,200 documents of official communications between the Gestapo and the office of the State Police in Würzburg. The collection also includes an album with 128 photos documenting the transports from Würzburg. The collection was discovered in August 1947 by the prosecution team in the Nuremberg trials, and it was used in the war crime trials of Nazi criminals. A copy of the collection was used as evidence in the Eichmann trial.
Source: State archive (Staatsarchiv) Würzburg; copy: Yad Vashem, Documents Archive, Eichmann Trial Division, TR.3/1287.