Rottweil

In the until the beginning of the 19th century free imperial city of Rottweil existed a Jewish community first in the Middle Ages. For the first time 1315 the "Judenort" is mentioned in the city. During the persecution during the plague period in 1349 the community was destroyed. From about 1380 (until 1418) there were again individual Jews living in the town. Around 1500, the Jews were expelled from the town. In the 17th century, some Jews were temporarily admitted to the town (two families in 1648). After that, only since 1806 were Jews*Jews able to settle in Rottweil again.

In 1933 there were still 84 Jewish people living in Rottweil. Immediately anti-Jewish measures began also in Rottweil (Boykotthetze, Schaufensterschmiereien, Volksauflauf). By 1938, all Jewish businesses had been transferred to non-Jewish ownership. A large part of the Jewish inhabitants were able to emigrate in the following years (to the USA and Palestine/Israel; individual families to South America, South Africa, Portugal and Switzerland). The devastation of the synagogue room and the desecration of the sanctuary during the November pogrom in 1938 meant the end of Rottweil's Israelite community. Just one month later - on December 13 - Oberregierungsrat Julius Wissmann of the Jüdische Kultusvereinigung Württemberg e.V. in Stuttgart, as liquidator of the Rottweil Jewish community, sold the house at Kameralamtsgasse 6 ("the synagogue...with teacher's apartment") for 8ooo Reichsmark to a Rottweil merchant.
In the middle of the war, in June 1943, the Stuttgart large community, in which all Jews still living in Württemberg were forcibly united, offered the cemetery area on Hoferstraße to the city for purchase; for 85 RM - corresponding to the amount of 5O guilders paid for the purchase in 185O - the Jewish cemetery was transferred to the community. On a part of the free area three simple houses were built.