History of the Jews in the Koblenz
and Lower Rhineland Area
(of Western Germany)
 

Our ancestors lived in the small villages and countryside of the lower Rhineland area of western Germany for hundreds of years from the Inquisition until the Holocaust.

Jews had been in this region since Roman times and their history there is marked by many bloody persecutions and expulsions repeated over and over again and culminating in the greatest horror of them all, Hitler's Holocaust.

Köln (Cologne) --- the major city in the lower Rhineland --- was founded by the Roman armies in 50 A.D. and was named Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinesium by them. Legend has it that Jewish women, captured by the Roman soldiers in the Holy Land during the Great War against Rome (66-73 A.D.), were brought to Germany. The women allegedly were ordered to camp at the frontier and were permitted to raise their children as Jews, who then founded the communities along the Rhine.

Close behind the armies came Jewish peddlers escaping from overcrowded Rome. They carried merchandise picked up along the way in Italian cities. These Jews helped to establish commerce in Köln, Trier and other cities. According to Albert Stern of Köln (a son of Jakob and Eva Friesem Stern), family tradition has it that he is a descendant of these Handelsjuden who came to the Rhineland with the Romans.

The Köln city archives show that a Jewish community existed there in the year 321, the same type as had existed in the Jewish academy in Sura, Babylonia in ancient times. A document of Emperor Constantine mentions a Jewish community with rabbis, heads of synagogues and community leaders. This leads one to conclude that a large Jewish community existed in Köln since, perhaps, 200.

The Carolingans protected and advanced the Jews, who prospered in the region from the 5th to the 11th centuries. They traded with places as far away as Italy.

From this protection evolved Jewish rights and the Emperor (Kaiser) was given the responsibility to protect each Jewish person's rights and property.

The weakening of the Imperial power was not beneficial to Jewish law, but these laws remained unchanged. The rights of an individual Jew were granted to him in papers he received indicating the right to obtain living quarters and the ability to earn a living in order to support himself and his family.

From the 9th to the 11th centuries the Jews, under the Emperor's protection, had a relatively peaceful time. A synagogue was built in Köln in 1012.

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In 1096 the First Crusaders --- a poorly organized, unrestrained army of peasants seeking adventure --- marched through the Rhineland. Many of them chanted, "Kill a Jew and save your soul." Warned by the bestial fate of their brethren in Metz, Speyer, Mayence (whose citizens pointed out the Jewish hiding places to the invaders) and Worms, Köln's Jews appealed for help to Archbishop Hermann III, who hid them in seven nearby small places. Their property was sent to the homes of friendly Christian burghers for safekeeping. In spite of the opposition of the Emperor and the local Catholic Church, the Crusaders declared the Jews to be the enemy of Christ and this resulted in hard times for them. In some cases the Crusaders succeeded in surprising and killing many of Köln's Jewish refugees. The lower class invariably joined in the invading mob. The local middle class Christians, though distressed to see their fellow citizens suffer, refused to risk their lives to defend the Jews as they had promised. In other cases, Jews committed suicide with the cry of the Shema' Yisrael on their lips rather than fall into enemy hands. Several thousand Rhineland Jews lost their lives in the wild Judenhetze (Jewish pogrom) which lasted three months. Others were forcibly baptized and remained Christians after Emperor Heinrich IV issued an edict permitting them to convert to their original religion.

Nowhere were the Jews safe at this time. Even in Jerusalem, the Crusaders captured the city, drove the Jews into the synagogue, and set it on fire.

Jews are first mentioned in Koblenz, an important city at the junction of the Rhine and Mosel Rivers, in the customs house toll of 1104 when they had to pay four denarii for every salable slave. Vives of Koblenz, a Jew, lived in Köln around 1135, according to a notation in the Judenschreinsbuch (Jewish archives) of Köln.

The Second Crusade, in 1146, was comparatively easier on the Rhineland Jews, mainly as a result of the efforts of Bernard of Clairvaux and Cologne's Archbishop Arnold's protection.

A large Jewish community in Koblenz is mentioned in the Spanish merchant and traveler (Benjamin ben Jonah) Benjamin of Tudela's Itinerary (c. 1172), a diary in which he noted the economic conditions, learning or ignorance, and manner of living of the Jews he visited.

As early as 1188 the Jews became serfs, but the Catholic Archbishops claimed they had the right to tax and make laws for the Jews in return for protecting them. In 1252, however, an agreement was made in Köln with the city guaranteeing the status of the Jews, who were autonomous except that they had to pay a tax to the Archbishop and were subject to his jurisdiction if a grave crime was committed. This practice of paying tribute was to become a tradition for more than 600 years as the Jews became wards of the Emperor.

From the 11th to the middle of the 14th century Köln's Jewish community lived on friendly terms with the non-Jews. Köln's Jews were known as concives (fellow inhabitants). Jews were assigned to defend a gate ("Gate of the Jews") of the city walls when they were built in 1106. The Jewish quarter had a synagogue with controversial stained glass windows showing lions and serpents, a ritual bath (Mikvah), a hospital (Hekdesh), a community house and a bakery. Many prominent Jews lived there at this time.

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In 1209 Koblenz's Jews had to pay a discriminatory toll rate, but Issac and his wife, Bela, are credited in the Mainz-Nuremberg Memorbuch with its elimination. Suesskind, a Koblenz Jew, granted a loan to Trier's Archbishop Theodore --- with the mortgage on a house as security --- which was repaid in 1238. Archbishop Heinrich granted Koblenz's Jews protection in 1265. Mayor Marsilius of Trier and Knights Heinrich and Dithard of Pfaffendorf testified that Koblenz's Jews were free from taxes for that year. Following a revolt two decades later, in 1285, Archbishop Heinrich signed a peace treaty with the city stating that those who violated Jewish life and property would be punished.

The entire Jewish community in Sinzig --- where a branch of the Friesem family lived in the 19th and 20th centuries --- was burned alive by a mob as they prayed in the synagogue in 1723. Some of the mob's ringleaders took the name of Judenbreter (Jew roasters) to show how proud they were.

From 1279 to 1346 Jews lent money to the Koblenz city council, the Trier Archbishop and local nobility. Jews frequently received Mosel River bridge tolls. In 1307 the Koblenz Jewish community, led by a magistrate, was granted the rights of joint citizenship. Records show a Jew's gate (1282), a cemetery (1303) and a nursing home (1356). R. Asher ben Jehiel moved to Koblenz around 1282 and his older brother, Chaim, was the rabbi. Scribe Eliezer ben Samuel ha-Levi wrote a parchment Bible there in 1344. There were also Jewish settlements in Mayen (1349), Münstermaifeld, Cochem, Kobern, Karden and Sinzig (1200-1300).

The year was 1349. People were suddenly stricken with boils and black patches. They vomited blood and dropped dead. The beginning of the Black Death pestilence brought more horrors and very hard times for the Rhineland Jews, who were made the scapegoats. They had caused it all, it was said. The Jews were accused of poisoning the wells, the food, even the air. Jewish doctors were accused of manufacturing the poison in Toledo, Spain, by compounding spiders, lizards, frogs, flesh and the hearts of Christians, mixed with the dough of the host. And people believed this! Another round of massacres of Jews would take place.

On St. Bartholomew's Eve, a mob smashed into Köln's Jewish quarter, massacred the entire community, stole their property and set fire to many of the houses. Whatever was left was divided by the city and the Archbishop. In Koblenz, the Jews were expelled until 1351 and then allowed to return. Jewish property --- especially their houses --- was frequently confiscated beginning in 1353 and sold by Archbishop Doemund, usually for the ruling Prince's benefit. In 1372, about 23 years after the pestilence, the Köln Archbishop and municipal authorities readmitted the Jews. However, they were again driven out of many cities, including Augsburg in Bavaria (where ancestors of the Hirsch family of Polch once lived).

Most of the expelled Jews went to Eastern Europe. However, Jews continued to live in the German cities of Frankfurt-on-the-Main and Worms, as well as in the small villages around Köln such as Andernach, Bonn, Neuss (until 1462), Mulheim and Deutz. They were permitted into Cologne to trade but not to stay. Emperor Karl IV ordered that the Jew, Samuel, of Koblenz, receive protection in 1354. Two years later the Emperor granted Archbishop Boemund II of Trier the right to let Jews settle in his district. Jewish homeowners were again found in Koblenz beginning in 1366 and Symon the Jew even became the Archbishop's physician.

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Archbishop Otto drove out the Jews from the Koblenz area in 1418 and three years later gave the Jewish cemetery to the daughters of Gottfried Sack in a feudal estate, and the Jewish home on Burggasse to the Catholic Order of St. Florin.

The division of Germany into innumerable rival principalities with conflicting and confusing politics explains why Jews were able to survive and maintain themselves there.

Then, with the migration of Spanish and Portuguese Jews from the Iberian peninsula resulting from the Inquisition in 1492, new Jewish communities were established in the Rhineland. Family stories, especially among the Friesems and in Polch and Mertloch, indicate that many of our ancestors came to Germany at this time. The Jews had lived in Spain and Portugal since ancient times.

In Kurköln (the Köln region) a law was passed in 1504 against emigration. Five years later, in 1509, the Dominicans of Köln supported Johann Pfefferkorn, a Jewish apostate butcher, in his quest to get Emperor Maximillian to confiscate all "anti-Christian" Jewish literature. He was aiming to destroy the Talmud and its commentaries. Fortunately, the Emperor was convinced not to do this by the distinguished humanist, Johann Reuchlin. The Köln Dominicans unsuccessfully attacked Reuchlin's integrity and scholarship. Reuchlin was supported by Martin Luther.

New Jewish settlements appeared in the neighboring Eifel starting in 1512. For example, the elector Richard admitted two Jewish families to Lützel-Koblenz that year and let five other Jewish families live in Koblenz in 1518, where they received a charter and civil protection, only to be ordered to leave the city in 1583 and the electorate in 1592.

Jews had to wear a Yellow Ring for identification in 1514, a degrading policy first proclaimed by Pope Innocent III's Fourth Lateran Council back in 1215. In the 17th century a number of Jewish laws were promulgated, making their lives still more difficult. They found it hard to get decent jobs. In Köln every profession except glazier was forbidden to them. Beginning in 1555 and until 1771 the Archbishop of Trier issued regulations restricting Jews in his domain to pawnbrokerage and a few other limited occupations. The same applied to Köln, although some of these laws apparently could not really be enforced there. In the early 18th century they were permitted to become butchers and peddlers. Still, they could acquire no property although some Jewish people were able to own houses.

Important Jewish communities existed in cities such as Bonn, Düsseldorf, Koblenz (where they were ordered to live on a Jew's street beginning in 1723 --- renamed Mint Street in 1886 --- and were not allowed to wear bright or expensive clothing) and Trier at this time. Most of the area's Jews, however, lived very hard lives in small villages and rural areas.

The early modern Jewish community had a distinctive character like that of the communities of the earlier Middle Ages. It had self-rule and was autonomous in religious and economic matters, the exercise of police power, and the administration of religious and civil law (as it applied to Jews only). However, almost every German Jewish community developed independently and
thus had its own special character, history and traditions. Most of the area's Jews had a very hard life until 1815.

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On September 10, 1591 some Jews in Münstereifel were designated as being honest Jews. In 1597 Emperor John VII granted a Jewish firm permission to settle in Trier and Koblenz and to conduct trade with the East. Their religious center was in Frankfurt-on-the-Main.

The elector, Lother von Metternich, issued an order in 1618 regulating the status of the area Jews. In the Julich villages there were some Jewish communities around 1648. They were threatened with expulsions in 1671, but nothing came of it. The number of Jewish homes in all of Julich mountain was limited to 60 families. The same thing happened in the Köln region and those Jews who were poor did not get a permit to remain. The reasons for expulsion were always financial.

Around 1700 we began to have definite information about our ancestors who lived in the Polch-Mertloch-Münstermaifeld-Gappenach area near Mayen and Koblenz, in the Satzvey-Schweinheim-Flamersheim-Friesheim area near Euskirchen, and in the Burgbrohl and Niederzissen villages near Sinzig.

The castle at Burgbrohl, where Friesem descendants must have worked as serfs, was first documented in 1093 by Count Palatinate Heinrich, in connection with the Abbey Foundation of Maria Laach. Volcodus de Bruhle was the first lord of the castle. In his coat-of-arms he had 14 red balls on a golden background. It was inhabited by the Archbishop of Trier in the 15th century and the castle was partly destroyed by French troops in 1689. It was rebuilt from 1712 to 1731 by Caspar Franz Edmund von Bourscheidt and his wife, Isabella Countess von Schaesberg - Kerpen.

In 1723 a statute was enacted reestablishing the Jewry in Koblenz and permitting them to have a rabbi. When the elector Wenceslaus made his public entry into Koblenz in 1786 the Jews said they wanted to participate in the ceremonies. On November 23, 1786 they held religious services in his honor and were received by him in an audience.

Around 1800 the center of Jewish life was in the rabbinate of the Jewish communities. The job titles and the exact dates the following people held their rabbinate positions cannot be found as they were never published:
Lazarus Wallich, Deutz (1654)
Lewi Goldschmidt, Deutz and Bonn (1663)
Michael Wallich, Bonn (son of Lazarus Wallich) (dates uncertain)
Moyses Horn, Linz (1681-1696)
Meyer zum [from] Goldstein, Bonn (1696-1716)
His successor is not known. Then the following served:
Dr. Daniel Meyer M.D., Bonn (1733)
Moses Kauffmann, Bonn (until 1751)
Beyfuss Liebmann, Bonn (until 1778)
Baruch Simon, Bonn and Mergentheim (until 1783)
Dr. Moyses Wolff M.D., Bonn (personal physician to the rulers) (until 1794)
The rabbinical synods of the Trier bishopric frequently met in Koblenz. They concerned themselves with education and communal welfare. The authority of the local rabbi extended over the entire region. A welfare organization was founded in 1772. The Memorbuch, begun in 1610, continued until 1850. It lists the names of the community leaders, many of whom were Talmudic scholars and physicians. Foremost among them were the Wallich family. Some of Koblenz's rabbis were:

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Moses Kohen ben Eliezer: author of Sefer Hasidim (1473)
Wolf of Koblenz: he participated in the rabbinical convention in Frankfurt (1603)
Judah Löb Heilbronn ben Abraham David Eliezer (1650)
Jair Hayyim Bacharach (1666-1669)
Moses Meir Grotwohl (1669-1691)
Aaron Spira (1691-1697)
Jacob Kohen Poppers (1697-1717)
Eliezer Lipman (son of Isaac Benjamin Wolf) (1717-1733): tutor of
Simon von Geldern, Heinrich Heine's maternal grandfather
Mannele Wallich (1733-1762)
Hayyim Löb Gundersheim (late 1700's)
Ben Israel (mid 1800's-November 6, 1876)
Dr. Adolf Levin (1878-1885)
Dr. M. Singer (1885-1901)

There were also tribute collectors who played a local role in Bonn, Bornheim, Deutz, Königswinter, Lechenich, Neersen, Rheinberg, Urdingen and Zeltingen. In 1776 these tributes were paid only in Bonn.

In 1761 the local governments gained the power of permitting Jews to come into their communities. In Julich mountain the government had certain powers. Besides that there were a number of other communities which were able to admit Jews. These were Königswinter (1577), Ahrweiler (1585), Kaiserswerth (1611), Budberg (1612), Endenich (1612), Demau (1617), Linz (1617), Schwarzsrheindorf (1617), Villich (1622) and Kessenich (1625).

At the end of the 18th century the old regime came to an end. The power to expel all Jews from the Köln area that had come from the reigning monarch in 1787 could no longer be enforced. This shows that Jewish life in the country had become very strong, mainly because they had lived in the area for 100 years and were economically integrated with the rest of the population, which was Christian. Most of the nobility now sided with the Jews and were negotiating for their rights.

On September 27, 1791 Jews gained the common rights of citizenship and were freed from paying tribute to the nobility as a result of the French Revolution. In 1794 the Jews' gate in Koblenz was broken down and emancipation came to the Jews in 1797. Under French rule the Jews were readmitted to Köln in 1798. After 1802 the entire lower Rhineland territory was annexed to France and its Jews were treated exactly the same as French Jews. Documents, such as Lisette Hirsch's death certificate in Polch in 1810, were written in French (see page 12). Note also that most Jews were able to write only in Hebrew, as indicated by the signatures of Salomon Hirz from Lehmen (written in Hebrew: Lehmen Shlame Hirz) --- the father of Adelheid Salomon --- and Michael Hirsch (written in Hebrew: Hirsch ben Kimar [Mister] Leib) on the birth certificate of Abraham "Baer" Hirsch (see page 11). [Abraham "Baer" Hirsch, the son of Michael Hirsch and Adelheid (Lehmen) Salomon, was born in Polch on May 20, 1808. His Hebrew name was Tzvi bar Levi.] After the annexation by France, all Jews' disabilities were removed and they became French citizens. (In 1806 Napoleon dissolved the Holy Roman Empire and most of the religious principalities. The armies of Friedrich Wilhelm III were crushed by Napoleon's lightning blows within days.) The Rhine and Moselle [French spelling] district Jewish assembly was held in Koblenz in 1808.

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BIRTH CERTIFICATE OF ABRAHAM "BAER" HIRSCH



To Be Added


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DEATH CERTIFICATE OF LISETTE HIRSCH, March 6, 1810


To be Added



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Under French rule the people were very poor. French writers Chateaubriand and Bonald philosophically opposed equality for the Jews. Peasants who were indebted to Jews told tales of brutality, Jewish usury and alleged avoidance of conscription. Eventually Napoleon spoke out against the Jews too, but those friendly to the Jews persuaded him to tone down his comments.

A group of 112 of the leading Jews of France, Italy and Germany met with Napoleon in Paris. They discussed questions dealing with patriotism and religious matters and they pledged their loyalty to France and to Napoleon.

In 1802, for the first time, there were complaints against the Jews in the area around Köln and in the Eifel. Farmers who were not well versed in business dealings claimed the Jews were taking advantage of them. These complaints caused the French officials in 1808 to take away the Jews' privilege of peddling and trading, thus making it very difficult for them to earn a living. The Jewish community in Köln in 1806 amounted to some 124 persons.

Jews now had to go to public officials to get a permit which they called a Gewerbepatent. (Andreas Friesem's Patent to be a cattle dealer in Burgbrohl in 1808 appears on page 14, courtesy of the late Herbert Fraser.) This made it possible for the local officials, the rich Jewish families and their Christian competitors to exclude anyone without a Patent from peddling or trading.

A law passed on July 20, 1808 forbade Jews from taking on extra family names and it stopped the ancient Jewish tradition of using as a legal name the person's first name followed by son of or daughter of (ben/bar or bat) and their father's first name. Thus Jews had to take on family names such as Hirsch, Herz, Faber, Anschel, Bender, Friesem, Oster, Minkel, Levy, Haas and Wolff, all of which appear in our family tree. Each Jew now had two names --- the traditional Jewish name, used for religious purposes, and the new, European-style name which appeared on all legal and civil documents. A list of the 1808 Jewish family name changes appears in the section beginning on page 131.

In 1811 the bank of Leopold Seligmann was founded in Koblenz and in 1815 that of R.J. Goldschmidt opened for business.

The Jews had salvaged their wealth from the 18th century and held on to it into the 19th century. The new regime took over the unpaid balance of the tribute which Jewish residents owed to the former monarch. The tribute was supposed to be forcibly collected and only those who were unable to pay were excused. Very few Jews, however, were relieved of the very heavy monetary contributions to the new regime.

Following Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo, the great European powers met at the Congress of Vienna (1814-15) to restore the old regime, but the clock could not be wound back in Germany. In 1815 the Kingdom of Prussia took over the lower Rhineland (and Westphalia as well) but the government in Köln continued the right of Jews to peddle, which the French had forbidden them to do without a Patent. The Prussians retained the status of the Jews with all the restrictions as it was previously under the French in the Rhenish provinces even though Prussia had freed its own Jews in the Act of Confederation (1812). Prussian law made the Jews wards of the state.

13
 

To be Added



Patent permitting Andreas Friesem of Burgbrohl to be a cattle dealer. Issued on

October 31, 1808. Courtesy: Herbert Fraser

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Poor economic conditions of the Eifel region farmers was a situation created because of an agricultural depression and had no connection whatsoever with the Jews. The best protection for the farmers at this time would be an improvement in the general economic conditions.

In Koblenz in 1819 anti-Semitic "Hep! Hep!" riots broke out. "Hep! Hep!" were the initials of Hierosolyma est perdita, the traditional anti-Jewish slogan of the Crusade period.

The Rhenish Parliament proposed that all the restrictive laws which were passed against the Jews should remain in force until 1837. Only after 1843 was the Rhenish Parliament ready to give Jews equality with the Christians in civil and political rights. The Liberals wanted full equality, but Prussian law from 1847 only went part way, rescinding the restrictions on the Jews' ability to earn a living. However, they still prevented Jews from becoming military officers and teachers and did not give them the right to vote. These restrictions had no meaning in the lower Rhineland because the law restricting Jews from peddling had been removed earlier.

The law now said that all Jews should belong to their synagogue communities. As a result, a lot of synagogue communities were founded in the area and they had to obey Parliament's laws and get permission of the Oberpresidium of the Rhine province. The synagogues received all the rights to govern all the Jews in their area. Whoever was elected leader represented Jews before the courts. These laws also regulated the operations of the synagogue communities. A synagogue was built in Koblenz in 1826 and a new one was dedicated there on January 24, 1851.

On January 1, 1863 the Jewish Consortium in Bonn, stemming from the French occupation, was dissolved there and in Krefeld. After that each synagogue became independent. Only the supervision of the laws remained with the governing religious body.

The emancipation of the Jews in the lower Rhineland was completed with the enactment of the laws of the North German Federation on July 3, 1869. Therein it states that all the old restrictions imposed on residents because of their religious beliefs were herewith ended.

The house of Oppenheim --- the important banking house and protector of the Jews --- moved to Köln from Bonn in the 19th century.

Köln's and Koblenz's Jewish communities grew in size and importance during this era as these figures indicate:

KÖLN (COLOGNE)

1850: 1,235
1885: 5,309
1925: 16,093

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KOBLENZ

1808: 342
1836: 242
1849: 400
1880: 558
1901: 600 (1.33 % of the total population)
1925: 709 (1.8 % of the total population)
1929: 800
1933: 609
May, 1939: 308

The Köln Jewish community kept a moderate course between Orthodox and Reform Judaism. Until 1857 the Köln Jewish community was ruled by the Bonn Consistory. In that year Israel Schwarz became its first rabbi, followed by Abraham Frank (1876-1917), Ludwig Rosenthal (assistant rabbi beginning in 1879) and Adolf Kober (1918-1938).

There were two synagogues in Köln --- one on Glockengasse (built in 1861) and a larger one at Roonstrasse 50 (built in 1899).

The emancipation lasted more than 60 years and the Jews were not molested. This peaceful period was shattered with the coming of the Nazi regime in 1933.

Beginning in 1933 the Nazi boycott of Jewish stores began and Jews were constantly harassed. Jewish physicians and lawyers could only practice among themselves. In 1935 Hitler stripped German Jews of their citizenship. More and more restrictions were placed on the Jews and eventually they were not even allowed to drive cars or own cattle.

Both of Köln's synagogues were destroyed on November 9-10, 1938 (Kristallnacht). Synagogues in Koblenz, Polch, Mayen, Sinzig, Niederzissen, Flamersheim and Euskirchen were torched that night. All of Germany's 600 synagogues were gutted with precision by the Gestapo's Storm Troopers and Nazis. Jewish businesses were sacked, property was destroyed and thousands of Jewish homes were raided. The Münstermaifeld synagogue, untouched on November 9, was destroyed by the town's Nazis on the morning of November 10,

During the late stages of World War II, Lieutenant John Daniels' "War Diary" states that early on the morning of March 9, 1945 the U.S. Army's 738th Field Battalion's "forward parties move out ahead of the howitzers. We travel east for ten or fifteen miles to the 4th Armored Division CP. Here we get the news that the First Army to our north had captured the Remagen Bridge and that our Third Army troops are on the outskirts of Koblenz. Koblenz is at the confluence of the Rhine and the Moselle, and is the first German city of consequence that we have encountered. The strategy for the 3rd Army now is to turn south, cross the Moselle again and dash down the west bank of the Rhine to Mainz where several bridges spanning this great river are still supposed to be standing.

"We are instructed to go into position at Polch, facing south," he continues. "The idea is to fire harrassiag missions that will lead up to final artillery preparations for another river crossing. The familiar Red-Diamond shoulder patch of the 5th Division is soon filling the area. These river crossing specialists are to do the initial job again over their old friend the Moselle.

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"We move out of Polch the next day and travel five miles south to Münstermaifeld --- an old Gothic town that lies only two miles from the Moselle.......Münstermaifeld is located on a high ridge that parallels the Moselle. Our howitzers are put into position on the reverse slope of this ridge. I set up two dandy OPs [observation posts] on a high bluff overlooking the Moselle. From these vantage points we can spot the slightest tremor of action on the opposite bank.

"In addition to my two river bank OPs, I establish a breathtakingly high OP on top of Münstermaifeld's double church steeple. This OP is a natural. It sticks up above town, by far the highest point for thirty miles around. It was used as an air raid spotters' post by the Krauts before we came so I don't feel too badly about our using it, church or no church.

"When I try to get my men up these twin medieval towers that form the church spire," Lieutenant Daniels' writes, "I find that the only entrance is from inside the church and that the spiral staircase is closed and locked by a gigantic oak door. I pay a formal call on the village priest and ask him politely for the 'schlissel' to the big door. The padre speaks excellent English and after I have asked him for the key he solemnly hands it to me and 'hopes we will leave everything as we have found it when we depart.' I stammer something about this being total war and get out of his house and back to my men as soon as I can. I hate dragging the church into this mess.

"Like most of Germany's municipal organizations, the Fire Department has been completely Nazified. As a result, Münstermaifeld's Fire Department has had something new added to its archaic guild of fire fighters. The two fire engines which are hand-drawn affairs have not changed in the last fifty years, but the rest of the gear shows the Nazi touch. Modern army parade uniforms, Swastika flags and daggers and bayonets have replaced the old fire-fighting garb.

"Amidst this mess of Nazi loot is the old Fire Department Guild Flag. A silk and gold-braid masterpiece that must have been the pride of the department on parades and ceremonies. It is not exactly legitimate loot, but it tempts me so much with its old-worldiness that I finally pick it up and carefully pack it away with the Nazi daggers and German army equipment I have so far accumulated." [In 1998, Jack Daniels and his wife Martha traveled back to Münstermaifeld and returned the Volunteer Firefighters' Guild Flag to the Fire Chief.]

The battalion left the Münstermaifeld area on March 15, 1945 to displace across the Moselle River.

A Jewish memorial was erected in Sinzig on Yom Hashoah in 1992 due to the efforts of Richard Meyer of London. Those present at the unveiling included Mr. and Mrs. Meyer, Dr. Heinz and Inge Kahn of Polch, Sinzig Mayor Robert Hesch and Rabbi Üdit Kaiserslautern of Rheinpfalz. The memorial has Hebrew writing on top and a Mogen David on the bottom. It is inscribed in German:

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HIER STAND DIE SYNAGOGE
DIE AM 9 NOV 1938 DURCH DIE
NAZIS ENTWIERT WÜRDE
HERIGTUMNER UND SCHRIFTEN
VERBRANNTEN
WIR GEDENKEN DER
OFFER UND VEROLGTEN
DER JUDISCHEN GEMEINDE
SIZING
SCHALOM
FRIEDE

"One of the few, perhaps the only one, of the synagogues in Germany and at that the most beautiful one, was saved by the mayor of Ansbach (Franconia), who deceived the Nazis by staging a mock fire," Eugene Anschel told me on September 10, 1982.

There was no way out but to leave --- if the Jews could find a haven. But no country welcomed them. By mid-1939 half of Germany's approximately 500,000 Jews --- about two per cent of the total population of the nation --- had left the country.

Many of them came to the United States to start new lives with the help of relatives who already lived there. Eugene Anschel was one of those who came to New York, where he authored three books in English on historical and political themes, The American Image of Russia, 1775-1917 (1974), American Appraisals of Soviet Russia, 1917-1977 (1978), and a political biography, Homer Lea, Sun Yat-Sen and the Chinese Revolution (1984, Praeger Publishing).

World War II broke out and the Nazis deported the remainder of the Jews in 1942. All of the lower Rhineland Jewish communities were finished.

From 1942 to 1943, 177 Jews were deported to the East from Koblenz and 544 from the Bendorf-Sayn-Koblenz district, where a Jewish mental hospital was located. Only 22 Koblenz Jews survived the concentration camps.

The horrors of the Holocaust have been recorded in many books, in motion pictures, on television, in plays and in official documents. All of us are familiar with them, but nothing is as close to us as the knowledge of those we knew personally who perished. To others --- like me --- who did not live in Nazi Germany, or to those who were born after World War II, the list of relatives in this book who perished under Hitler's fanaticism will bring unforgettable grief to our hearts. We must never let our descendants forget these people.

The post World War II Jewish population of the Koblenz area --- including the area around Polch --- was:

1945-46: 68
1948: 78
1963: 94

Koblenz had 35 Jews in 1961 and only one Jewish family has lived in Polch since the end of World War II --- Dr. Heinz and Inge Kahn (both concentration camp survivors), their children, and her deceased parents, Ludwig and Sophie (born Faber in Mertloch) Hein (also Holocaust survivors).

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The late Julius Günther, whose ancestors lived in Mayen, county seat for Polch, was the leader of the Koblenz Jewish community. He was succeeded by Dr. Heinz Kahn, who holds that post today.

Trude Kahn of Polch, daughter of Dr. Heinz and Inge Kahn, was married to Abraham Joseph Lehrer on Tuesday, September 15, 1981 in the rebuilt synagogue on Köln's Roonstrasse.

The Polch synagogue on Ostergasse, was restored under the leadership of Mayor Hans Baulig, who consulted not only with Dr. Kahn, but also with me and he asked me to gather information from the members of the former Polch Jewish community around the world who were still alive in the early 1980s. This is discussed in the next chapter.

The ancient traditions hang on, but with few to continue them.

Occasionally, some of those who fled in the 1930s and some of their descendants have returned to visit their ancestral homeland.

Alba Arboleda Gross --- the granddaughter of Olga Herz Siegel from Polch, who died in Lima, Peru in 1978 --- received a BA degree in English literature and film history from the University of California at Santa Barbara and an MA degree in communications from Stanford University, She lives in Surrey, British Columbia, Canda, with her husband, Michael, and she has worked as a television news reporter for KSBW (NBC), a film editor, technical writer and editor.

"Going to Germany in 1964," Alba Arboleda Gross told me, "was an emotional experience for my mother [Marie Ruth Siegel Arboleda, who was born in Koblenz in 1925] --- who had escaped in 1937 with most of her family to places as disparate as Peru, England, and the United States. In 1964 she returned to Metternich, the little village outside Koblenz where her father, Nimar Siegel, had once owned a pharmacy, where she had grown up.

"It was a charming place, sitting on the banks of the Mosel River. Orchards and houses and shops hundreds of years old. We wandered tyhrough the village to the banks of the river. My mother pointed out the school house where her teacher had (somewhat mockingly) ordered the children to do math problems calculating the fortune "Herr Hitler" was amassing through sales of Mein Kampf. Where she had been gently told that it was unnecessary for her to say "Heil Hitler" at the start of class. She stood at the edge of a cherry orchard and told us how she and all the other school children would steal ripe cherries on their way home from classes.

"Spying an elderly gentleman making his way through the cherry trees, she told me to go down and ask him if he would sell us a bag of cherries. I went up to the old man and in my stammering German asked to buy some cherries. He stared at me with his head cocked to one side. He looked up to where my mother stood and then looked back at me. Taking me by the hand he led me up to the road and, in a stern voice, spoke to my mother: 'Marie-Ruth, you come home after all these years and you don't say hello?'

"In 1964 I was ten. My mother had been 11 when she had left in 1937. Somehow, although I am darker complected than my mother, he had seen the

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child she had been in the child I was. Haltingly, he asked about her family and was moved to hear they had escaped. He then took her by the hand and led her back into town, calling to the shopkeepers to come out, to see Marie-Ruth Siegel, all grown up.

"And out they came, crowding around her. One of them ran to get the butcher. The butcher was now in his 60s; he had been a young man when she left --- the only other Jew in town. He told us his story --- how the entire town had cnspired to protecxt him for seven long years. Lying to the Gestapo over and over. Insisting there were no Jews in their town.

"I have a picture of our family standing with my mother's childhood friends, the butcher, his neighbors in front of what had once been her father's drug store.

"This story is important because it reminds people that small town bonds are often the strongest," Alba concluded.

However, the Jewish communities and their social life that existed in the Lower Rhineland and alongside and near the Mosel River for centuries before the Holocaust are probably gone forever, destroyed by a manical regime the likes of which must never again be allowed to resurface and gain power.

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