Jewish Museum Creglingen

Support

Creglingen Jewish Museum Foundation

Address:

Badgasse 3
97993 Creglingen
Tel.: 0 79 33 – 70 02 52 0 (answering machine)
Fax: 0 79 33 – 70 02 52 1

Contact/administrative address:

Town Hall
Gate Street 2
97993 Creglingen
Tel.: 0 79 33 – 70 02 52 2 (answering machine)
Fax: 0 79 33 – 70 02 52 1

E-mail: jmc@stiftung-jmc.de

Web site: www.juedisches-museum-creglingen.de

Opening hours:

Sunday 14:00 – 17:00

Groups and guided tours on request

The opening hours of the temporary exhibitions are announced on the internet, in the local press and on notice boards. They can also be requested by telephone from the Creglingen Tourist Information (0 79 33 – 6 31).

History of the house

Badgasse 3 was the home of a Jewish family for more than 200 years from 1618. On 15 July 1618, Simson zu Reinßbronn bought the old three-storey house and was the first Jew to be allowed to settle permanently in Creglingen. The building also housed the first school and prayer room of the Jewish community of Creglingen (first documented in 1659). The old half-timbered house had to be demolished in the late 19th century due to dilapidation. The new house was built in 1880 as a stable building and grain and flour store by a local master baker. The last Jewish owner was the horse dealer Hermann Stern, who took over half of the house in 1903 and all of it in 1910. After his violent death in March 1933 and the subsequent expulsion of Jewish families by the Nazi regime, Stern’s son Emil, who was the last Jew to leave Creglingen in 1939, sold his father’s inheritance to a Creglingen farming family, who used it as a stable and barn until their resettlement in 1998.

Conversion into a museum

In 1998, the American businessman Dr. Arthur Sinsheimer Obermayer – a 12th generation descendant of Simson – learned that the house was for sale. He developed the idea of establishing a Jewish museum on the site to commemorate the former Jewish citizens of Creglingen, their lives and their contributions to society. His initiative and generous financial contribution made it possible to establish the Creglingen Jewish Museum Foundation, which bought and renovated the house and opened the Creglingen Jewish Museum in 2001, initially with themed temporary exhibitions.

Establishment of the permanent exhibition

After several years of conceptual and planning work, the Foundation was able to open the new permanent exhibition in the Jewish Museum Creglingen in 2004. The exhibition “Roots and Paths”, with its focus on cultural and social history, brings to life the Jewish history of two rural communities in the Tauber valley from the beginning of the 17th century until 1939. In three sections, the roots and characteristics of Jewish life in Creglingen and Archshofen, the paths and fates of the Jewish people and the survival of the memory of the common past are presented. A memorial book for the victims of the pogrom of 25 March 1933 vividly shows the effects that the National Socialist racial mania had on the fates of individual people.

The Jewish Museum Creglingen is also a place of encounter. Cultural events, lectures and temporary exhibitions are intended to promote the examination of the past, mutual understanding and reconciliation.

The museum is run exclusively by volunteers and is mainly financed by donations.