City walk Bayreuth

"This is the gate to the LORD; the righteous shall enter in there." (Psalm 118:20) 
Bayreuth's baroque synagogue in Münzgasse 2 has been home to the Jewish community since 1760. After 1990, new life moved in there... 

The Jewish history of Bayreuth dates back to around 1300, but after 1515 at the latest, there were probably only a few individuals still living in the city and margraviate (cf. stations 7 and 8). The founding of the modern congregation dates back to 1759, when the "court and coin supplier" Moses Seckel and his brother David purchased the Komödien- und Redoutenhaus, which was located directly next to the Margravial Opera House, and had the rear building (today Münzgasse 2) converted into a synagogue. It was consecrated on March 15, 1760. At the same time, Margrave Friedrich III permitted the settlement of ten Jewish families from Baiersdorf - exactly the number required to be able to celebrate religious services. The community grew steadily. Around 1830/40 it reached its peak with a good 100 families (530 persons). The rabbinate was initially assigned to Baiersdorf until 1829, when Dr. Joseph Aub was elected the first Reform-oriented Bayreuth district rabbi. The last incumbent, Dr. Benjamin Falk Felix Salomon, was still able to lead the celebrations of the 175th anniversary of the synagogue in March 1935. During the November pogrom in 1939 it was desecrated and devastated by SS and SA troops, but thanks to its proximity to the Opera House it escaped the flames - just as the US Air Force refrained from bombing it in April 1945. For the small Jewish community after the war, the building was rebuilt several times in a makeshift manner (most recently in 1964/65). Only after new life had long since moved in since 1990, a fundamental renovation followed from 2014.

Notes on accessibility:

• Walkway with new cobblestones
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• Main entrance on the side, access from the street via slightly ascending path (ramp)
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• Access to the synagogue room in the house at ground level, community room on the 1st floor via stairs
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A new home in the "Old Mint"
. In the building at Münzgasse 9, a Jewish community and cultural center is to be built by 2020 - including a kosher café and its own museum for the Bayreuth Geniza discovered in 2009. 

In the mid-1970s, Bayreuth's postwar community (see Station 4) numbered barely more than 30 people, and its future would have been seriously threatened had it not received new growth through the immigration of Jewish families from the states of the former Soviet Union after 1990. With foresight, the long-time chairmen Josef and Felix Gothart endeavored to successfully integrate the more than 500 current members. Accordingly, space is becoming scarce. After the construction of a new mikvah (2013) and renovation of the synagogue (2014-18), the conversion of the Old Mint (1778-1804) into a Jewish community and cultural center is now on the agenda. Until 2013, Münzgasse 9 housed the Iwalewa House of the University of Bayreuth and the city's children's and youth library, then a temporary prayer hall. In addition to event rooms, a kosher café and the community archive, the building will also house its own Jewish museum in the future: In 2009 - shortly before the 250th anniversary - a genizah with filed documents was found in the roof truss of the synagogue from 1760. It was inventoried by the Jewish Culture Museum Veitshöchheim and put online in 2014. From 2020, some originals will then be on display, albeit behind glass.

Notes on accessibility:

• Access at ground level (street-side view only)
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• Accessibility in the house unknown (reconstruction)

"The synagogue still exists as a building..." (Mayor Dr. Meyer, January 1946) 
In 1945, the Jewish post-war community set up its first community center with prayer room in the house Lisztstraße 12. Until 1951 it served as a cultural center. 

From Haus Wahnfried, it is worth taking a short detour along the Hofgarten to Lisztstrasse 12. Today, there is nothing to indicate that the first Jewish community center, including a temporary prayer hall, was established here in 1945 in one of the upper middle-class residential buildings. The few Jewish Bayreuthers who had returned to their hometown after May or had survived in mixed marriages now encountered a steadily growing number of Jewish Displaced Persons (DPs), mostly from Poland. The municipal administration, which was located at Heinrich-Schütz-Strasse 6, also tried to divert the survivors to other places such as Pottenstein or Pegnitz. In 1945-48, the first of a total of 13 Upper Franconian kibbutzim existed in Zettlitz (Bindlach municipality). The Jewish DP Community Bayreuth already counted 184 members in November 1945, and by mid-1947 there were more than 500. With support from the city and state, the synagogue was repaired from mid-1946 and the cemetery in 1950. In addition to the elementary school and the infirmary, there was also a soccer club called Hapoel Bayreuth. Soon, however, most of the DPs emigrated to Palestine/Israel or to the USA, and so the shrunken Kultusgemeinde officially re-established itself on May 27, 1956. In 1986 only 18 persons belonged to it.

Notes on accessibility:

• Access at ground level (street-side view only)
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"They lived here until their deportation..." 
At the Storchenhaus in Ludwigstraße 29 is one of the few commemorative plaques that so far in Bayreuth commemorates the forced expropriation and deportation of Jewish families. 

Through the baroque courtyard garden, the path leads to Ludwigstrasse 29. There, between the New Palace and the City Hall, you will find the "Storchenhaus" - once named after a stork's nest on the roof, today home to the Protestant Family Education Center. Built in 1758 by Carl Gontard, the striking residential building passed into the ownership of the Weinberger family in 1894. Most recently, Josef Weinberger (1861-1942) and his wife Rosette (1865-1943), née Badmann, ran a flourishing drapery business here, including a men's tailor shop. In 1936 [1940?] they were forced to sell their house far below value to the Evangelische Gesamtkirchenverwaltung. (In return, the National Socialists claimed the parish hall on Richard-Wagner-Strasse for the German Labor Front). A large part of the proceeds of 40,200 RM later went to the purchase of two places in the supposed old people's home in Theresienstadt, where the Weinberger couple was deported on January 16, 1942, via Bamberg and Nuremberg. Shortly before, their son Karl (1889-1941), once first public prosecutor in Würzburg, had died. Their sons Max and Leo managed to escape to the USA. Today, a large bronze plaque commemorates the family's fate. Further information was collected on site in the Storchenhaus book.

Notes on accessibility:

• Access at ground level (street side view only)
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• Street & sidewalk with historic cobblestones
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From Pfefferkorn's white goods to Schemm's brown house 
. In the corner house Opernstraße / Maximilianstraße 2-4 Simon Pfefferkorn operated until 1931 a flourishing store for fashion and white goods. Today there is a gaping hole in the building... 

From the Storchenhaus, Ludwigstrasse leads to Sternplatz - today part of the pedestrian zone, once a busy traffic junction. It was precisely there, in the corner house at Maximilianstrasse 2-4, that the merchant Simon Pfefferkorn moved his store in 1892, which developed into Bayreuth's leading store for curtains, carpets, fabrics and white goods. In 1917 he bought the house. From 1928/29 Pfefferkorn withdrew from professional life and registered his business in 1931. The Bayreuth NSDAP - in the person of the new Gauleiter of the Bavarian Ostmark Hans Schemm (1891-1935) - had an eye on his house: Under massive pressure, Simon Pfefferkorn had to sell his property to Schemm's NS cultural publishing house for 40,000 RM (half of the market value) as early as March 31, 1933. The party architect Hans C. Reissinger (1890-1972), who was also entrusted with the planning of the Bayreuth "Gauforum" in 1938, had the building converted into the NSDAP Gauhaus (the so-called "Brown House"). In April 1945, after the bombing of Bayreuth, it burned out "under unexplained circumstances". A reconstruction was refused and so there stands today in the gap between the Markgrafen bookstore and the new commercial building (1955) a tree... A sign is missing.

Notes on accessibility:

• Access at ground level (street side view only)
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• Street & sidewalk with historic / new cobblestones
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An "alt Judenhauß" (Bayreuth City Chronicle by Heller, 1453) 
In Bayreuther Judengasse (today von-Römer-Straße) Christian and Jewish families probably lived house to house, but never under one roof. After 1488 and 1515, respectively, they were expelled. 

As in most German cities, the medieval residential district for Bayreuth's Jewish population was in a specially assigned Judengasse (today von-Römer-Straße). It ran along the old city wall. The name was first mentioned in a document in 1464, but Jewish dwellings and a "Judenschul" (synagogue) can also be traced there for the period before 1425 and after 1441. Bayreuth also gained special importance through its own yeshiva (Talmud school). It is unclear until when Jewish families were actually tolerated in the city: In a treaty of October 1488, the margraves, together with the bishop of Würzburg, agreed to expel them from their territories, albeit against the will of the emperor. At the latest after the general expulsion of 1515, only individual Jewish merchants are likely to have remained in the city and margraviate - until 1759 (cf. Station 1). The old street name Judengasse remained until 1889. It was renamed von-Römer-Straße in honor of Karolina Freiin von Römer (1804-88) and her Bayreuth charity foundation for the sick.

Notes on accessibility:

• Access at ground level (street side view only)
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• Street & sidewalk with historic / new cobblestones
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"Denk|Steine setzen" 
In the foyer of the New Town Hall, an unusual Denk|Stein tower has been commemorating Bayreuth's 145 Jewish Nazi victims since 2010, but only during official opening hours. 

From Maximilianstraße, the path leads via Schulstraße and Kanalstraße to the New Town Hall on Luitpoldplatz. On the back occupied with parking lots is worth a look at the former central school (today Graser school). After completion in 1875, the Jewish community was also allocated a schoolroom here. Previously, private rooms in Maximilianstraße had been used for religious instruction, then the Jewish school moved to the Gemeindehaus Münzgasse 5 from 1840-75. It found itself there again from the fall of 1936, when Jewish pupils were increasingly excluded from public schools. It was precisely from a school project that the first initiative to "recover the memory of the murdered Jews of Bayreuth" started in 2001: With the support of the Bayreuth History Workshop, Irene Hamel launched her Denk|Stein campaign with six Bayreuth schools and members of the German armed forces sixty years after the start of the deportations of 1941/42. The resulting Denk|Stein tower - one stone for each of the 145 victims - has now been on display in the foyer of the New City Hall since 2010. From 2003 to 2009, it was part of an exhibition in the Historical Museum. Bayreuth's participation in the nationwide Stolperstein project has been under discussion since 2011.

Notes on accessibility:

• Access at ground level (street side view only)
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• Street & sidewalk with concrete slabs / new cobblestones
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"My mother always wanted to go back to Bayreuth." (Hanneliese Reinauer-Wandersmann, 2006) 
. At Luitpoldplatz 2 / corner of Opernstraße, Leopold Reinauer maintained a lingerie store known in the city. Only his wife and daughter survived and returned to Bayreuth in 1945. 

Before 1933/38, various stores of Jewish entrepreneurs were located along Opernstraße, which were both well-known and popular in Bayreuth: for example, the Friedmann department store (No. 11), the Kurzmann fashion house (No. 22, today the Tourist Information) or the Reinauer linen shop (Luitpoldplatz 2). Leopold Reinauer (1889-1943) took over the parental business, his twin brother Hermann (1889-1942) - blinded as a soldier in World War I - opened a tobacco store (Opernstraße 7). The Reinauers' patriotic spirit was well known in town. It must have been all the more humiliating for the family that they were now systematically ostracized and forced to close up store in 1938. All attempts to emigrate to the USA failed. On November 27, 1941, Leopold Reinauer, his wife Friedel, and their children Max (1923) and Hanneliese (1928) were deported to the vicinity of Riga via Nuremberg-Langwasser. 

The father was murdered in Auschwitz in 1943, the son died in a bombing raid in 1944. Only mother and daughter survived several concentration camps and returned to destroyed Bayreuth in August 1945 to start anew under their old name. Friedel remained until her death in 1986. Hanneliese moved to Tel Aviv, but returned a second time in 2005 to a renewed Jewish community.

Notes on accessibility:

• Access at ground level (street side view only)
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• Street & sidewalk with new cobblestones
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"This house was owned by the family Max Steinhäuser since 1906." 
A commemorative plaque on the residential house Schillerstraße 14 puzzles. That one of Bayreuth's "Jewish houses" was compulsorily established here at the beginning of 1939 is not to be inferred from it. 

For those who still have time and desire, a detour to Friedrich-von-Schiller-Strasse 14 is recommended. Here you will find another of those "hidden" stories that must first be told in order to really grasp them. The plaque next to the entrance is irritating at first: "This house was owned by the Max Steinhäuser family since 1906. On 5.4.1945 it was totally destroyed by bombing and rebuilt by the son Justin in 1955-56." A Bayreuth war story? Yes, but a special one: The Steinhäusers were Jewish cattle dealers. Together, father Max (1863-1943), mother Mina (1871-1943) and son Justin (1891-1966) ran the family business. The latter, a war-disabled front-line fighter, caused a great stir in 1933 by his marriage to an "Aryan" woman, Lisette (1897-1987). Nevertheless, at the end of 1938, the Steinhäusers were also forced to close down their business, and their house was declared a "Jewish house". The emigration to the USA failed. On January 12, 1942, the parents were deported via Bamberg to Theresienstadt, where Max died in 1943. Mina was murdered in Auschwitz a short time later. Justin, protected from deportation by his "mixed marriage," survived forced labor. In May 1945 he returned to Bayreuth, where he served on the new city council until his death in 1966. He rebuilt his house with Lisette.

Notes on accessibility:

• Access at ground level (street side view only)
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• Street asphalt
• Access to the front door with plaque over 5 steps
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