The "Jewish Altenburg" 1868-1945

The following map shows Jewish dwelling and commercial buildings in the town of Altenburg. The currently completed project section refers to the period from 1868 to 1945. The former Duchy of Saxony-Altenburg had cancelled the income and trade restriction for Jews only after it has joined the North German Confederation and the Confederation had established the legal equality of Judaism with other religions (1869). Yet the Basic Law of the Duchy of Saxony-Altenburg of 18th February 1831 regulated in § 42 the necessity of the Christian religion to have the chance to get the nationality of Saxony-Altenburg. As it is recorded the Berlin merchant Wilhelm (Wolff) Wolff must have been the first Jew with a clothing sales outlet in the residence town of Altenburg.

The colored dots show buildings in which Jewish residents had lived or worked during this period. The mark takes no account of ownership but gives a comprehensive overview of buildings used by Jews. The overview also includes non-Jewish spouses (#) and children (*) and Jews converted to Christianity (~).

To complete the overview also the Jewish prayer room in the Pauritzer Strasse 54 and the so called "Judenhäuser" ("Jewish houses", also called "Deportation houses") were recorded as well. Not as originally intended by the Nazi regime such "Judenhäuser" were not only in Jewish property, also buildings in non-Jewish hands were used for such purposes. Ultimately, references were attached to the previously installed "stumbling blocks" of Altenburg.

The map project was created based on the latest research results. Because public resources are sketchy the present work can not claim completeness. With the support of the deceased Ingolf Strassmann who has researched the fate of Jews from the Altenburg County for a long time, also not public recorded locations could be included. The research which is the basis of this project was conducted with great care. BMD registers and directories, commercial registers as well as journals and gazettes were research sources. Because of the incomplete source material, unfortunately, not all paths of life of Altenburg Jews could finally be revealed.

I want to thank all supporters of the project, first of all Frank Ludewig (technical realization). This also applies to the public institutions and individuals who have provided images and informations. As no source indication can be found on used image material it´s from my archive.

For availability of information on commercial activities of the Jewish citizens the commercial registers of Altenburg were used if they were available in the project period. I want to thank the town archives of Altenburg, the Thuringian States Archives Altenburg and many other domestic and foreign archives for their kind support.

To the map