This list – drawn by age, handwritten in pencil, annotated – is one of the most important documents about the Jewish community in Themar. On September 3, 1962 – more than 50 years ago – Oskar Stapf, the town archivist of Themar, drew up this list of Jewish families who lived in Themar after 1900. Stapf, born in 1885, knew a great deal about these families because most, if not all, Jewish children attended the elementary school where he had been principal.
Stapf named the head of household, the type of business or economic base of the families, and the number of children in the families. On the left are noted some numbers that have not yet been successfully interpreted and on the right are additional names of individuals: (Klara) Eisenfresser and two additional families. In total, there were 33 households, 74 children, and 8 mixed-race or children with Christian-Jewish parents. It is estimated that 147 people lived in the Jewish families according to Stapf’s list.
About 50 years later, Stapf’s list is the starting point for the names that once belonged to a thriving Jewish community of Themar. Most, not all, of the households have been found. The accuracy of Stapf’s recollections, of course, presupposes our intention to find the missing family members.
Stapf’s list also allows us to look back into family histories in the nineteenth century. As a result, we have an idea of the families that founded the Jewish community in Themar in the late 1860s – the families of Samuel and Jette Baer, Löb and Jette Frankenberg, Samuel and Lotte Gassenheimer, Salomon and Karoline MĂŒller, Abraham and Regina Schwab, Gustav and Berta Betty Schloss, and the various branches of the Walther family.
More information here on this page about the families of the Themar Jewish community.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)