Street & Locale Names

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the November pogroms of 1938 the Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg inaugurated the "Synagogue Monument" by Margrit Kahl (1942-2009), which was designed as a walk-in square, on November 09, 1988.

Jüdenstraße is a traffic route in the old town of the Berlin district of Spandau and was in the Middle Ages residential area of the Jews of Spandau. It begins at the Altstädter Ring and crosses there the Mühlengraben, crosses the Moritzstraße as well as the Ritterstraße and meets at its northern end again the Viktoria-Ufer. The street originated in the 14th century. The word "Jüden" is a transliterated variant of the Middle High German word "Juden". This street received its name after the Jews living there at that time. The earliest known record of the name dates back to 1537.

As in other places in Germany, the Jews were driven out of the towns during the plague pogroms in the Middle Ages. The fate of the Jews in Kempen was similar.

Only around the year 1800 Jews again settled in the city and set up a prayer room, which was located in the street that was later called Judenstraße. Not far from this street, a synagogue and a private Jewish school were built.

Tombstones of the medieval cemetery ("Judensteine") can be found, among others. in Riegeldorf (from 1240, 1249), in Kelheim (from 1249), in Mintraching (1294, Catholic rectory, garden), Wolkering (wall around the church, right of the gate), Mangolding (Catholic church, left of the entrance), Tegernheim (Catholic rectory, right of the entrance), Karthaus-Prüll, Cham (town hall, stone from 1230, see page on Cham), Straubing, Neustadt a.d. Donau. A stone from 1273 was discovered in 1929 in the terrace of the new parish church (Neupfarrkirche) built on the site of the synagogue in 1519.

In Schweinfurt, a Jewish community existed initially in the Middle Ages. In 1212 a Jew named Abraham from Schweinfurt is mentioned in Würzburg. In 1243 the Nuremberg Butigler pays the amount of 50 marks to the Jews of Schweinfurt. In the following decades one hears about Jews in the city on the occasion of persecutions: By the bands of the "Knight Rintfleisch" in 1298 and during the plague in 1348/49. Jakob von Schweinfurt, who was one of the new founders of the Erfurt community in 1357, will have been a survivor.

Already Landgrave Hermann I (1190-1217), in order to promote economic life in the city, is said to have invited Jews to build houses near the market. The Jewish settlement in the "Judengasse" (today's Karlstraße), in medieval times "the best alley" in the city, could date back to this time. The first Jew known by name in Eisenach was probably the author of synagogal poetry Jechiel ben Jakob (1235). In 1283, the Eisenach city law established provisions regarding Jewish residents. In 1343 one side of the "Judengasse" burned down.

In the Judengasse were the Jews*Jewesses settled in 1349, after the former Judenviertel had been converted into the main market . In 1499 the quarter was dissolved again. The name Judengasse remained.

The street, located in the Sebald Old Town, leads from the south side of the Theresienplatz in an easterly direction to Inner Laufer Gasse. It consists mostly of residential buildings, which were newly built after the 2nd World War.