90 years ago today, the “boycott of Jews” was also declared in Altenburg County. The action, announced as a “German defensive reaction against Jewish atrocity and boycott propaganda”, took place across the Reich. In the Altenburg County, the focus was on the towns of Altenburg and Meuselwitz.
The day before, a boycott was called and a mass rally was held in Altenburg in the "Preussischer Hof" (Teichstrasse 4). There it was announced: “On April 1, Bismarck's birthday, the SA will stand in iron discipline but with unrelenting severity in front of the entrances to Jewish shops. The names of those attempting to enter a Jewish shop will be identified and published." With regard to Felix Freilich's (1920-2002) concert in the Brüderkirche, which had been canceled shortly beforehand, there were threats: "It will no longer happen that a Jew plays in a Christian church". But the situation for the National Socialists was not yet settled in Altenburg at that time and so people complained: "In Altenburg the struggle is particularly protracted. Many still can't get away from the Jewish department store." The most affected by the boycott were the Jewish shops at Sporenstrasse, so the department store M. & S. Cohn and the shoe shops Dannemann and Nordheimer's (Blank family). But the boycott was unsuccessful. “The crowds grew stronger, especially on Sporenstrasse, the larger part of the crowds consisted of opponents of the boycott, who were crowded together on the sidewalk in front of the department store, so the situation looked quite dangerous. By 10 a.m., the Jewish shops had sold out despite the announced campaign. Shortly before 10 a.m., a few police officers appeared who tried to at least clear the sidewalk in front of the Cohn department store. However, the crowd remained. At 10 a.m., greeted with occasional shouts of freedom and boos, a National Socialist storm detachment marched from the crowd from Burgstrasse to Sporenstrasse. Some wore steel helmets. Signs were carried announcing the call for a boycott. The crowd did not release the department store entrance. Threatened by the resistance of the crowd, they forcibly herded them down the street or into the entrances of the department store. A gaping wound in one of the SA men showed that dangerous resistance was being offered. While the shops in Sporenstraße remained open, those on the market (M. Kaiser, Schuhhaus Löwenstamm) were closed by the National Socialists, the Jewish-owned department store Konys & Kruschke at Kornmarkt 12. It is not known what happened to the shops of Isaak Rotenberg, Wolf Goldberg and Cilly Goldberg at Kornmarkt and Topfmarkt.
In Meuselwitz, the Jacob Fruchtmann department store, the Selig Hausmann shoe store, the Isaak Katz hosiery store, the L. Leschziner shoe store (Pick family) and Leon Rubin's raw product store were all affected by the boycott. In Meuselwiz, too, the Jewish business owners received support from members of the “Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold” (a group of democrats to protect democracy). There was a search in the Jacob Fruchtmann department store, as a result of which 13 Reichsbanner members were arrested. Overall, the situation in Meuselwitz remained calm.
The events of the "Jewish boycott" in Altenburg and Meuselwitz show how strong the opponents of the National Socialists still had at that time and how they publicly expressed their attitude. In the “Bonde Collection” in the Thuringia State Archives – Altenburg State Archives there are photographs of the boycott showing a sea of demonstrators and only a handful of SA men with placards.