Jewish Museum Frankfurt

A merchant from Darmstadt, Julius Pfungst initially worked in the processing of hare and rabbit fur after setting up his business in Frankfurt. In 1871, however, he pulled off a coup that was to establish the success of the family business: he acquired the exclusive right to sell the emery mined on the Greek island of Naxos in Germany. In the same year, Pfungst founded the "Gesellschaft des ächten Naxos-Schmirgels". In the following decades, he expanded industrial production of the coveted abrasive on a large scale. The manufacture of grinding machines was also added.

The building at Baumweg 5-7 housed the Moritz and Johanna Oppenheim Kindergarten for Israelites from 1907 to 1938. During the Second World War, the "Aryanized" property housed the kindergarten of the Nazi People's Welfare Association. Immediately after the liberation of Frankfurt by the US Army in March 1945, the property was made available to the Jewish community and a care center for Jews was set up. After renovation and conversion of the building, the Baumweg Synagogue in the front part of the building was inaugurated on March 10, 1949.

Alfred Joseph Meyers (1895-1956) was a Frankfurt industrialist and president of FSV Frankfurt from 1929 to 1933. He was born in Brookline, Massachusetts in 1895 into a German-Jewish family. In 1916, he married Alicia "Liesel" Gertrude Dahlsheimer from Frankfurt. Their children Norbert and Edwin were born in 1922 and 1927 respectively. They attended the Philanthropin. The family lived in the Westend and attended the liberal Westend Synagogue there. Alfred Meyers founded "Enameline Werke" in Höchst am Main in 1917 together with his brother William.

The buildings in Hölderlinstraße, which included house number 10, were erected in 1903; the architect Carl Runkwitz was responsible for the plans and the construction company commissioned was Cohn & Kreh. From around 1906/07, the building housed an auxiliary school. From the 1930s at the latest, the address was linked to the history of the neighboring Samson-Raphael-Hirsch-Realschule. Due to increasing persecution in the Frankfurt area and far beyond, many families now sought shelter there for their children.

The institution, centrally located at the old Hanau railroad station/east station, advertised with moderate overnight prices, home-style and kosher cuisine "Polish and Romanian style". It was sometimes noted in the press that the majority of guests had an Eastern European, i.e. migrant, rather than a "Western" biographical history. When it was founded - the date is not known - the establishment first traded as Hotel Ostbahnhof, then as Hotel Diehl and finally - completely renovated - as Hotel Löwenhof; until the end of 1923 under owner or director Adolf Mangel.

In the 1950s, Nassauische Heimstätte (now the Nassauische Heimstätte/Wohnstadt (NHW) group of companies) also built apartments for survivors of the Shoah in cooperation with the city of Frankfurt am Main. To this end, in 1953 the city increased its capital contributions in favor of Heimstätte and the housing associations it manages by two million Deutschmarks.

From the middle of the 19th century, after the gradual demolition of the Judengasse, the former ghetto, Wilhelminian-style residential and commercial buildings were built on the demolition sites. One of the new buildings was the well-known Café Goldschmidt, prominently located in the immediate vicinity of the main synagogue, which was inaugurated in 1860.

In 1873, the banker Isaac Königswarter and his wife Elisabeth donated 215,000 guilders for the construction of a modern hospital in memory of their father and father-in-law Marcus Königswarter and their older brother and brother-in-law Zacharias Königswarter; the Israelite community acquired four plots of land for this purpose. On June 27, 1875, the Königswarter Hospital of the Jewish community with more than 50 beds and a synagogue was officially opened; the architect Johann Christian Gramm was responsible for the building plans.