Letter from Lydia K. Mansbach born Kahn, New Jersey, United States

Despite all the commercial difficulties for us Jews, which have increased noticeably in 1938, my father still went on business trips.
When the 8 November 1938 from Würzburg to Lauda drove the train home, he heard well into his compartment, that the Nazis Jews attacked and beaten. But in the meantime, our house was visited in Bad Mergentheim by an SS man who asked my mother where my father is, and she said that he has made a business trip, he was satisfied and left. My mother lost no time and went straight to the next train to Lauda, where they just encountered when transferring my father and told him, what had happened in Mergentheim. So they got out in Edelfin conditions and Moses went to our friend Frank, who hid my father for the night in a haystack. Until the following night, after everything was quiet again, my mother went with a friend to walk to Edelfingen and took my father home.
From my mother, both brothers Ludwig Jonas and wife Clare and Jacob Jonas and wife Martha were killed in concentration camps.
My father's brother Benno born Kahn with his wife Therese and daughter Marianne, who had already fled to Holland, have also been killed by the Hitler gangs.
It's so hard to remember, and I can not write about it.

Letter from Jacob Fröhlich, Israel, 22 November 1964

The financially and emotionally very difficult years in our immigration in August 1938, all my powers have exhausted prematurely and undermine my earlier indestructible translucent health. What Hugo is concerned, unfortunately this kind brother has been snatched from over 9 years ago in the middle of full activity after a heart attack suddenly us. Hugo's daughter from his first marriage to Maya, Gizella Miriam, who had inherited the great grace and loveliness of her mother, has achieved a certain notoriety as Israel's first beauty queen. Our beloved mother Bertha born Neuhaus is in Theresienstadt on 29 Shevat 5703 died. My sister Sophie was killed with her husband and four children in Lodz, my sister Flora Weil, were rescued by the two daughters with her husband and other children in Izbica perished, and Rosel Eldod is, with her husband and four been shot very young children in Riga.

Miss Israel (Miriam Yaron [Jaross]) 1950 and her runner-ups

November 1918 Hermann starts drawing classes

After a leg amputation, as the result of a grenade explosion at the Battle of Passchendaele, which opened the way for Hermann Fechenbach to start his eagerly awaited artistic training. He took as a hospital inmate drawing classes at a school and visited the wounded in Stuttgart from November 1918 to the fall of 1921, the School of Applied Arts in Stuttgart (including Prof. P. Haustein). Then for two semesters studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart (Prof. R. Pötzelberger and Prof. C. Landsberger), which in 1922/23 at the Munich Academy of Art (Prof. Franz von Stuck).

Synagogue demolished November 1938

A first Mergentheimer synagogue was established in 1658, 1762, 1837 and 1912 respectively rebuilt and renewed. On 9h November 1938 demolished, but still survived the war years. After another renovation and consecration 1946 it was closed in 1957 and fell victim to the pickaxe.

Current commemoration plaque of site of synagogue, Bad Mergentheim

Letter from David Fröhlich about Kristallnacht, November 1938

David Fröhlich, Brooklyn, N.Y., My childhood memories, especially the last terrible years in Bad Mergentheim, I will never forget. Before Kristallnacht, November 8th-9th 1938, everything was bearable, although the Hitler Youth used every opportunity to harass us Jewish children. My father was very ill with a high fever, so that he could not meet their planned work. The Jewish doctor Dr. Hirnheimer was already in the Dachau concentration camp, and all the other doctors in Mergentheim were too timid and cowardly, to help the sick Jewish fellow citizens. My parents and we three children were completely without knowledge of what atrocities where to happened in the Kristallnacht, because we slept undisturbed exceptional that night. When I look back now, it was like a miracle that we were spared. The next day was a lot of shouting in the street, so we stayed at home scary, because we already felt that something terrible had happened, which was then also confirmed the radio. The neighbor of our grandmother, Mrs. Stern-Herzog, who lived in the Holzapfelgasse, came to us and told us that they had destroyed all in the synagogue and school. Many of the Jewish men, especially those who were on the blacklist, had beaten half to death, including our honorable Rabbi Dr. Moses Kahn. Those who could still walk were arrested that morning and taken to prison, and transported to the concentration camp of Dachau. My father asked my mother that she should go into the Holzapfelgasse to check on the Fröhlich’s grandmother, and how had she survived everything, since they all lived near the synagogue. We moved into a terrible anxiety and fear, so that I fell helplessly and I hid in the kitchen on the ground and prayed. Suddenly there was silence again, and I heard that the policeman had left the house without my father, because he saw that the Nazi doctor Dr. Weiß (White) treated him as he was seriously ill in reality. So my father had the good fortune to be spared from all the raids. Nevertheless, we did not dare to go out on the streets, until we heard the next morning, that the action was over. In contrast, an order came from the mayor's office that the Jewish community had to put everything back in order, which the Nazis had broken and bruised. And we children were taken to the cleanup service, I could not understand that you can be so thoughtless and wildly smashed everything. All chandeliers and lamps, prayer books and Torah scrolls, benches and galleries, as well as all the windows were shattered one after the other in the synagogue. Even the holy ark was not spared, in which we found pork skin. At school the harmonium (musical instruments), and all benches were smashed, torn books and notebooks and all smeared with ink. It was a cruel and horrible sight. When the war broke out in August 1939, we were allowed to have only one hour a day for any purchases outside, but this provision was changed again. We were able leave Bad Mergentheim on 28 0f August 1939, but not until we felt free and safe, and on the 1st of October 1939 crossed the Dutch border. A rewarding feeling came over us that we have come out of this hell even with their lives.