DE-1 29293 961122 Gen. resources for German-Jewish Ancestry +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ GENEALOGICAL RESOURCES FOR GERMAN-JEWISH ANCESTRY +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ A JewishGen InfoFile The following material appeared, with some editing changes, as Chapter XII: Genealogical Resources for German Jewish Ancestry by George E. Arnstein Ph.D. In _Germanic Genealogy, A Guide to Worldwide Sources and Migration Patterns_ by Edward R. Brandt, Ph.D. et al. First printing, April 1995, second printing scheduled for Nov. 1995, Germanic Genealogy Society, PO Box 16312, St. Paul, MN 55156 --- Jews have lived in German lands since Roman times. In terms of genealogy the research offers many of the same challenges as it does for all Germans, but in other ways, related to particularistic religion and minority status, there are major differences. The common elements are the scattered and shifting jurisdictions among bishoprics, dukedoms, and empires. Instead of today's Austria, recall the Austrian empire which included seaports on the Adriatic, annexed parts of Poland [Galicia], included Bohemia and Moravia, and also claimed Hither Austria [Vorderoesterreich] with tentacles deep into today's Baden-Wuert- temberg and Bavaria. Jews were especially affected by these shifts in rulers who sometimes taxed them, sometimes expelled them, and often recruited them as a source of economic development. The result was instability as well as links and trading patterns which differed from those of the Christian majority. Here is an example: There was in the 18th century a Landrabbiner [regional rabbi] with his seat in Guenzburg in the Markgraftum [County] of Burgau. His jurisdiction included Hohenems in today's Vorarlberg. And in Hohenems there are visible ties northward into Swabia and Bavaria. For that matter, from 1806 to 1813 Hohenems was Bavarian, including the year of mandated family names, a pivotal event for genealogy. The Bavarian rule over parts of today's Austria is a reflection of the rise of Napoleon, which in turn is a reminder that common to all genealogy is the need to know history and the historical context. Napoleon did not only extend his sway over many German principalities but brought with him ideas and innovations derived from the French Revolution of 1789. He enlisted the rulers of Bavaria, Wuerttemberg and others as his allies, and he promoted the rulers to Kings. He also promoted a major consolidation so that the new Kingdoms of Bavaria and Wuerttemberg, as well as the Grandduchy of Baden were larger than their nonroyal predecessors. There are startling changes in borders as a result of the socalled Reichsdeputationshauptschluss of 1803, the end of the Holy Roman Empire (of which Voltaire said that it was neither Holy nor Roman nor an Empire). The rise and decline of Napoleon merely illustrate the importance of the historical context. For researchers in Jewish genealogy, there had been earlier events, like the Thirty Years War [1618-48] which depopulated entire villages. The significance for Jews is that some rulers actively sought those Jews expelled from one jurisdiction as a means of repopulating and revivifying their domains. But even before Napoleon history and geography were important as shown by the dismemberment of Poland which had a large Jewish population. Here the three partitions of Poland come into play. In 1772 Danzig and its region went to Prussia, while Galizia went to Austria, including Lwow which the Austrians called Lemberg [and today is the Ukrainian Lviv]. In 1792 Poznan and its province went to Prussia which called it Posen. And in 1794 there was a third partition between Russia, Prussia and Austria, leaving a Polish balance of zero. By 1787 the Austrians passed a law providing for family names, as described by Suzan Wynne in "Demographic Records of Galicia 1772-1919" in Avotaynu 8:2. In 1919, of course, Poland was reconstituted and Galicia continues to this day to be divided between Poland and the Ukraine. It is this kind of historic impact which helps to explain the scope of the Paul Diamant collection of family histories, primarily Austrian but including Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland. The collection is part of the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People in Jerusalem [usually abbreviated as Yad Vashem]. Given the extent to the Austrian empire, here are some citiations for the former Czechoslovak Republic which included Bohemia [Czech today] and Moravia [in Slovakia today]: "The Jews of Czechoslovakia" 2 vols. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1968. More recent is Jan Herman's "Jewish Cemeteries in Bohemia and Moravia (Prague, 1982) and Jiri Fiedler, Guide Book:Jewish Sights [sic] of Bohemia and Moravia (Prague The turn of the century - around 1800 - marked the beginning of emancipation, a process which also suffered some setbacks as well as later advances to the point where the period up to World War I saw a veritable flowering,a transformation of rural peddlers, traders and craftsmen into a German Jewish bourgeoisie. For genealogy the Jewish custom of patronymics is important, of first names followed by the father's first name. This changed when around 1800 various jurisdictions enacted laws which mandated last names for Jews. The laws were quite similar but not identical; typically they also called for improved communal records, related in turn to the need of governments to achieve better control of their jurisdictions. [See exhibit 1] Representative of these records is a Familienregister, Israeliten Gemeinde Buchau - today Bad Buchau in Baden-Wuerttemberg - which survives only as a microfilm [fro which various printouts have been reconstituted]. It begins on 1 January 1809 and ends in December 1853, prepared by Max I. Maendle, Gemeindepfleger, i.e. secretary of the Buchau Jewish Community [and one of my peripheral ancestors]. Many of the early entries were prepared almost certainly by the local Roman Catholic priest, with a focus on families. Since this includes the date of birth of husband and wife, plus the names of their parents, some entries allow research back to as early as about 1740. The format is almost exactly the same as a modern family group sheet; the same form was used for Christian and Jewish congregations. Many of these records still exist, largely because of Nazi efforts to establish racial purity for its own purposes. The Wuerttemberg records were microfilmed as late as April 1945, when French and American troops were already well across the Rhine and the end of the Third Reich clearly was in sight. The few surviving originals and the many microfilmed records are in the Landesarchiv Baden-Wuerttemberg in Stuttgart, or care of the Israelitische Gemeinde in Stuttgart. Because Germany was unified only in 1871, researchers will have uneven success in various jurisdictions. And because different jurisdictions vary in their efforts to recall or remember the Jews who used to live among them -- just a bit less than one percent of the German population before World War II -- there are uneven results. Today there are very few Jews in Germany, the majority being descendants of the socalled Displaced Persons [DPs], survivors of Nazi persecution and displacement, who did not go back to the places where they had been kidnapped or impressed or from which they had fled, often behind the Iron Curtain. A file on more than 11,000 DP's dating from 1945-47 is now stored at Heidelberg [see below]. Given the slow tightening of the Nazi noose, the majority of the 600,000 German Jews managed to flee and survive. Some were overtaken when Germany invaded places like France and Holland; others and their descendants are citizens of Israel and especially the United States. Between the German tradition of research and scholarship, and the Jewish interest in history and tradition, there has resulted a veritable flood of published and unpublished material. A Gedenkbuch, in two volumes, has been published by the German archives, an admittedly incomplete listing of all Germans who perished at the hands of the Nazi regime. Details to come. It supercedes an earlier, localized compilation by Paul Sauer, Die Opfer der NS Jud- enverfolgung in Baden-Wuerttemberg 1933-45; Ein Gedenkbuch. Appendix to Volume 20 of the Archival series. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1969. Earlier there had been allegations that Jews had not done their share during World War I. To counter this, the Reichsbund juedischer Frontsoldaten in 1932 counted some 100,000 who served and 10,275 names, with additional data for those who died: Die juedischen Gefallenen...Ein Gedenkbuch. In addition there were specialized rosters like "Juedische Frontsoldaten aus Wuerttemberg und Hohenzollern" published in Stuttgart in 1926 by the Centralverein deutscher Staatsbuerger juedischen Glaubens. There even is a specialized roster, compiled by Felix Theilhaber,"Juedische Flieger im Weltkrieg" Berlin: Der Schild, 1924. A major center, devoted to the preservation of Jewish culture and history, is affiliated with Heidelberg University: Zentralarchiv zur Erforschung der Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland. D 69117 Heidelberg, Bienenstr. 5. One of its major activities is a project to capture data on German Jewish cemeteries; it has not yet been completed and inquiries are discouraged until the material is published. Similarly there is the Hamburg Staatsarchiv which has a separate department devoted to genealogy and biography, including religious minorities. See for example the article by Juergen Sielemann on "Lesser Known Records of Emigrants in the Hamburg State Archives" [Avotaynu, 7:3]. There is much less interest in the former German Democratic Republic, although this is beginning to change. The Zentralstelle fuer Genealogie in Leipzig has German domestic records which cover Danzig/Gdansk, Posen, and also data collected, under Nazi auspices by the Reichsippenamt, for regions like Bessarabia, Bukovina, the Baltics, Sudetenland, Slovenia and South Tyrol. An inventory, Bestandverzeichnis, was published in 1993: Neustadt/Aisch, Degener Verlag. This is not the only legacy of former German conquests and hegemony. A list of some 1300 Polish and [ex-]Soviet places with records now located in Berlin was published in Frankfurt: Verlag fuer Standeamtswesen. It is "Standesregister und Personenstandsbuecher der Ostgebiete in Standesamt I in Berlin." Coverage and contents are uneven. There are Jewish museums in some communities while others avoid memories of a difficult period. Here is a sampling of exhibits and memorials; it, like the rest of this chapter, has a "southern bias" because Bavaria and Wuerttemberg have been the focus of my own research and ancestry: Nordstetten, in the Black Forest, commemorates Berthold Auerbach, a native son who became a celebrated secular German author, especially with his Black Forest Stories. He is the subject of a special issue of Marbacher Magazin 36/1985, to accompany the permanent exhibit at the Auerbach Museum in Horb-Nordstetten. Relevant, as to lifestyle, are autobiographical "Childhood Memories from Nordstetten," translated into English by George Arnstein, in Mishpocha (1991), publication of the Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington. Auerbach was born on 28 February 1812 as Moses Baruch Auerbacher; he earned his doctorate at Tuebingen. He also illustrates the then common secularization of names: "I was born on Haman's feast, the night of Purim...." Austria. Of general interest is the Institute for Historic Family Research [IHFF] which relocated in early 1994: IHFF Genealogie Gesellschaft mbH, Pantzergasse 30/8, A-1190 Vienna. Phone/Fax 011/43/1/317-8806. There are two Jewish museums in Austria: o Jewish Museum of the City of Vienna, Dorotheergasse 11, A-1010 Vienna. Phone: 011/43/1/535-0431. For Fax, the final four digits are -0424. o Jewish Museum Hohenems, Villa Heimann-Rosenthal, Schweizer Strasse 5, A-6845 Hohenems, Vorarlberg. Phone: (0043) 05576/3989. The Hohenems Jewish community began about 1631, suffered expulsion, returned, thrived and after about 1900 declined. The most famous local offspring was Salomon Sulzer, cantor, who became an honorary citizen of Vienna. Much genealogical information was compiled by Dr. Taenzer, the rabbi at the turn of the century, since updated by others. Taenzer, Aron, Geschichte der Juden in Tirol und Vorarlberg. Teil 1 + 2. Die Gesch. der Juden in Hohenems und im uebrigen Vorarlberg. Meran, 1905. He completed only the Hohenems portion of this book, reprinted in Bregenz 1982 with additional material. Copies of first ed. at LBI, NYC and Libr.of Congress. Goeppingen/Jebenhausen. The same Dr. Taenzer became rabbi and wrote a comparable history for the Jewish community of Jebenhausen which merged with adjacent Goeppingen. More recently, Naftali Bar-Giori Bamberger published a monograph on the Jewish cemetery with many photographs. Taenzer, A. Geschichte der Juden in Jebenhausen und Goeppingen. Kohlhammer 1927. He was rabbi in Goeppingen. Reprint 1988, with two add'l chapters by Karl-Heinz Ruess, Goeppingen: Stadtarchiv, Band 23. Sulzbach-Rosenberg plans to convert the former synagogue into a city museum and documentation center for Jewish history in the Oberpfalz. Haigerloch, formerly in Hohenzollern, has a memorial, has published three books dealing with their former Jewish citizens, and has inventoried them in a computerized database. All are available from the Stadtverwaltung, D72394 Haigerloch. Switzerland, too, has a Jewish tradition going back at least to the 17th century, especially in two historic villages on the Rhine between Basel and Lake Constance. A local association concerns it self with the cemeteries and in 1993 issued Der Judenfriedhof Endingen-Lengnau, some 400 pages in two volumes: Menes Verlag, CH 5405 Baden, Postfach 5070. While the memorial and collections are uneven, there is a pre-war, pre-Holocaust tradition of genealogy and history. The sources are still plentiful and much of the material has survived the war, especially because of the success of the Leo Baeck Institute, 129 East 73rd Street, New York, NY 10021 (212-744-6400). Explicitly organized to preserve the legacy of the German Jewish community -- broadly defined to include German-speaking areas like Bohemia -- this archival and historical collection has filled a Manhattan townhouse to overflowing. It is the single best place for research and has generated a series of yearbooks and bulletins which are of pivotal importance. The Yearbooks, published jointly with the LBI in London and Jerusalem, are in English; the Bulletin is primarily in German. Genealogy may well be the most popular or fastest growing hobby in America; among Jews it is increasingly established, a kind of deja vu among bourgeois German Jews who often compiled their ancestry, sometimes in handwritten documents or in books, often privately published. Many of these have been microfilmed with the largest collection at the Hebrew Union College library in Cincinnati. Some of these are available through the LDS Family History Centers with its index of holdings. For an illustration of the wealth of available material, there is the work of Monika Richarz, a historian who skillfully mined the archives of the Leo Baeck Institute and produced three volumes, later condensed into one: Richarz, Monika, ed. Juedisches Leben in Deutschland; Selbstzeugnisse zur Sozialgeschichte (Stuttgart: DVA 1976-82) Three volumes of 126 autobiographical ex- cerpts from LBI Archives. Richarz, Monika, ed. Buerger auf Widerruf 1785-1945, (Munich: C.H. Beck 1989), 51 essays from the three volumes. English version Jewish Lives in Germany; Memoirs from three Generations. Indiana Univ. Press, 1991. For another look at Jewish life, there are monographs prepared in a variety of academic settings. Bernhard Purin, for example, took his master's degree at the university in Tuebingen, based on a study of the short-lived Vorarlberg community in Sulz. This is the town where many of the Jews expelled from Hohenems sought refuge. Purin's study, which offers a marvelous slice of Jewish small town life, has been published: Purin, Bernhard. Die Juden von Sulz; eine juedische Landgemeinde in Vorarlberg, 1676-1744. Bregenz: Vorarlberg. Autoren Gesellschaft 1991. The trick, of course, is to find some of these studies, including unpublished ones, complicated by the fact that Germany has nothing comparable to the American "Dissertation Abstracts." There are, however, valuable compilations like the massive bibliography by Angelika G. Ellman-Krueger, "Auswahlbibliographie zur juedischen Familienforschung vom Anfang des 19. Jahrhunderts bis zur Gegenwart." D 65183 Wiesbaden, Postfach 2929: Otto Harrassowitz, 1992. It contains more than 2500 well organized citations, with a name and separate place index. Other compilations seek to capture and list all residual Jewish evidences. Here are two of these: Schwierz,Israel. Steinerne Zeugnisse Juedischen Lebens in Bayern: eine Dokumentation. Munich: Bayerische Landeszentrale fuer politische Bildungsarbeit, 1988. Hahn, Joachim. Erinnerungen und Zeugnisse Juedischer Geschichte in Baden-Wuerttemberg. Stuttgart: Theiss, 1988. Detailed list, town by village, of whatever traces remain of Jewish life in SW Germany. The Rev. Dr. Hahn's cited some unpublished and published theses and Zulassungsarbeiten [a kind of senior thesis], like these, cited here mostly to indicate the variety and obscurity of some of the resources [again, focused on my personal area of research]. Buchau: Adler, Reinhold. Beitraege zu einer Geschichte der israelitischen Gemeinde Buchaus von den Anfaengen bis zu Beginn des Hitlerreiches. (Kreisarchiv Biberach Nr. 961). Paedag. Hochschule Weingarten, 1973, (Typescript thesis; copy at LBI, NYC, filed under G=Gemeinden, then B=Buchau.) Also note: Mohn, J., Der Leidensweg unter dem Hakenkreuz, Buchau 1970. Lists all who suffered, ranging from Jews to Wehrmacht soldiers who died. Laupheim: Indlekofer, Sybille. Juedisches Gemeindeschicksal aufgezeigt am Beispiel der Stadt Laupheim, Paedagog. Hochschule Loerrach/Baden, 1970. (Kreisarchiv Biberach 431). Copy at LBI, NYC. No mention of Kohl thesis in biblio; contents heavily overlap. Laupheim: Kohl, Waltraut. Die Geschichte der Juedischen Gemeinde in Laupheim, Paedag. Hochschule Weingarten, 1965. (Kreisarchiv Biberach Nr.365) Typescript thesis, copy at LBI, NYC (donated or arranged by John Bergman, Media, PA). Aufhausen (Bopfingen): Laurentzsch, U. Zur Geschichte der Judengemeinde Aufhausen bei Bopfingen. Paedag. Hochschule Schwaebisch Gmuend 1978. Type- script thesis. Oberdorf [am Ipf, Bopfingen]: Kucher, W. Die Geschichte der Oberdorfer Judengemeinde von der Gruendung bis zur Emanzipation. Paedag. Hochschule Schwaebisch Gmuend, 1976. Thesis. Schwaebisch Gmuend: Grimm, J. A. Zur Geschichte der Juden in Schw. Gmuend. Paedag. Hochschule Schw. Gmuend, 1962. Thesis. Buehl [Baden]: Pieges, H. Schicksale juedischer Familien Buehls. Paedag. Hochschule Freiburg 1962/63. Thesis. Hemsbach. Hoessler, H. Juden in Hemsbach von 1660-1933. Paedag. Hochschule Heidelberg 1984. Thesis. -- Also a 1984 compendium by students of the Friedrich-Schiller Hauptschule Hemsbach: Documentation "Traces and Recollections" -- Our Neighbors of the Jewish Faith. 1984. Ulm. Engel, A. Juden in Ulm im 19. Jahrhundert. Anfaenge & Entwicklung der juedischen Gemeinde von 1803-1873. Tuebingen University, 1982. Master's thesis. Goerwihl, Oberwihl, nr. Waldshut. Fichtner R. and Wegemer, B. Kindern eine Zukunft; von zwei Kinderheimen in der Weimarer Zeit. Tuebingen University, Erziehungswissenschaft, Thesis 1986. [One of the children's home was Jewish]. Haigerloch. Schaefer, W. Geschichte und Schicksal der Juden in Haigerloch. Paedag. Hochschule Reutlingen. Thesis 1971. Hechingen. Breimesser, H. Ursprung, Entwicklung & Schicksal der jued. Gemeinde Hechingen. Paedag.Hochschule Schwaebisch Gmuend. Thesis 1968. Freiburg im Breisgau. Blad, G. Die Entstehung der israelitischen Gemeinde Freiburgs 1849-1941, Freiburg University, Thesis, 1985. Goeppingen, Jebenhausen. Kuehner, J. Der Rabbiner Dr. Aron Taenzer und die jued. Gemeinde in Goeppingen. Paedag. Hochschule Schwaebisch Gmuend, Thesis, 1981 Jebenhausen, Goeppingen. Munz, G. Die Geschichte der Juden in Jebenhausen. Paedag. Hochschule Schwaebisch Gmuend, Thesis, 1963. Heilbronn-Sontheim. Graef, H., in charge of the project of students of the Helene-Lang Real Schule and others: Der Juedische Friedhof Heilbronn- Sontheim, eine Dokumentation. Typescript, processed, 1987. Ludwigsburg. Gut, B. Die Judenverfolgungen im Dritten Reich und deren Darstellung in der Ludwigsburger Zeitung. Paed. Hochschule Schwaebisch Gmuend. Thesis 1971. Archshofen, Creglingen. Bauer, E. Die Geschichte der jued. Minderheit in Archshofen. Zulassungsarbeit zur Fachgruppenpruefung in Geschichte 1964. [Apparently published in 1985 - no details]. Offenburg. Moeschle, S. Das Schicksal der jued. Bevoelkerung Offenburgs in der Zeit des Nationalosozialismus. Freiburg University, Thesis 1977. The following appear to be obscure publications or typescripts: Rastatt: Stiefvater, O. "Geschichte und Schicksal der Juden im Landkreis Rastatt" in Um Rhein und Murg 5 (1965), pp. 42-83. Reutlingen. Schoen, Th. "Geschichte der Juden in Reutlingen" in Reutlinger Geschichtsblaetter V (1894), pp. 36ff, 59-62; VI (1895) p. 64. Schwetzingen and Ketsch. Lohrbaecher, A. and Rittmann, M. Sie gehoerten zu uns. Geschichte und Schicksale der Schwetzinger Juden. Schriften der Stadt A. Schwetzingen 7, 1978. (City archive). Nordstetten. Wagenpfeil, H. "Manuskripte zur Geschichte der Juden in Nordstetten" Typescript, before 1988. Similarly there is much valuable material in obscure publications, accessible only through diligent searches. The LBI Yearbooks annually have massive lists, organized by major topics, of books and articles touching on German Jewish history. Here are some entries I culled because they are of potential interest for the SW corner of Germany: Baisingen. Geppert, Karlheinz. "Vom Schutzjuden zum Buerger" in Der Suelchgau Vol 23:145-168. Suelchgauer Altertumsverein, Rottenburg am Neckar, 1988. Copy at Harvard Library. Baisingen. Becker, Franziska. "Die nationalsozialistische Judenverfolgung in Baisingen" Der Suelchgau Vol 23:169 ff. Copy at Harvard Library. Hechingen. Werner, Otto. "Die Juedische Gemeinde in Hechingen bis 1933" in 1200 Jahre Hechingen pp. 177-97. Hechingen: 1987. Hechingen. Kuhn-Rehfus, Maren. "Das Verhaeltnis von Mehrheit zu Minderheit am Beispiel der Juden von Hohenzollern," in Zeitschrift fuer Hohenzollern Geschichte 14 (1978) pp. 9-54. Hechingen. Werner, Manuel. "Die Juden in Hechingen" in Zeitschrift fuer Hohenzollern Geschichte 20 (1984) pp. 103-213, and 21 (1985) pp. 199-215. Hohenems (Austria): Welte, Thomas. "Die Hohenemser Judengemeinde im 20. Jahrhundert." Diplomarbeit Innsbruck 1990. Publications and Resources ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The German Historical Institute in Washington, DC (and another one in London) has a fair selection of materials dealing with Jewish interests. It subscribes to Ashkenas, an annual magazine in German, now in its fourth year. GHI holdings, by way of illustration, include such standard works as: Hundsnurscher, Franz, and Taddey, Gerhard, Die juedischen Gemeinden in Baden. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1968. Sauer, Paul. Die Juedischen Gemeinden in Wuerttemberg & Hohenzollern. Stuttgart Kohlhammer 1966. Zelzer, Maria, Weg und Schicksal der Stuttgarter Juden, Stuttgart: Stadtarchiv, 1964. Contains long lists which are not quite reliable, in part because compiled relatively soon after WWII. Electronic Research ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A resource of increasing importance for all of genealogy is the computer and its capability for outreach. With a modem researchers can tap into the socalled Fidonet, a network of local electronic bulletin boards [BBS]. Several dozen of these carry a national "conversation" known as the Jewish Genealogy Conference or Echo. There are questions and answers, exchanges of data including entire branches of family trees, and listings of citations and bibliographies. The list of theses and unpublished materials shown above, for example, was available on the JGC and later was published in Stammbaum. To be sure, there is the very large "haystack" known as the National Genealogy Conference, the smaller JGC of which items of German interest are merely a small subset. With software, however, it is easy to "capture" all of this daily information, then quickly search it in order to select only those items of possible interest. Analogous to Fidonet, there are genealogical conferences -- newsgroups -- on the Internet, including at least one with specific Jewish, not necessarily German Jewish focus. Both of these networks -- Fidonet and Internet -- have German participants who are Jewish or have Jewish interests. Tentacles reach to Israel, Netherlands, Australia and other places, with obvious research possibilities. A third electronic tool or method deals with CD-ROM. The LDS Church through its Family History Centers now makes available the Social Security Death Index as well as the International Genealogy Index [IGI]. Researchers with computers need only bring an empty diskette to a FHC, reserve some time on the computer, search for missing ancestors or dates, then "capture" the data for transfer to their own computers for inspection and possible preservation. CD-ROM is a growing medium, a means for easy compilation of U.S. Census data, national telephone files, and other reference materials, especially those amenable to search by keyword. A modem also makes it increasingly possible to search library catalogs from a distance. The Library of Congress catalog is now on line, via Internet. As an example of how LOC can be used, Peter Lande in the Summer 1993 Stammbaum published a generous sampling of what he found simply by extracting all items under the call letter DS 135. German Jewish Genealogical research is like all others: It relies on passenger lists and their indices, census records, telephone directories and communal records. It tends to be easier because Jews are strong on tradition, thus tend to be more historically oriented than most others, a generalization which is open to challenge although at least partly valid. It also is one area where past discrimination has some benefits: German Jewish data and records tend to be segregated, thus easier to find, consult and use. Exhibit 1: Laws Mandating Jewish Family Names ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ from a 1935 compilation: Austrian Galizia 1774 Austria 23 Jul 1787 South Prussia and New East Prussia (formerly Polish) 17 Apr 1797 City of Frankfurt [Main] 30 Nov 1807 Grand Duchy of Frankfurt 26 Nov 1811 French possessions on the Rhine and in North West Germany 20 Jul 1808 and 12 Jan 1813 Kingdom of Westphalia 31 Mar 1808 and 04 Jul 1811 Oberhessen-Starkenburg 15 Dec 1808 Baden 13 Jan 1809 Lippe 16 Dec 1809 Sachsen-Altenburg 20 Jun 1811 Prussia proper (east of Elbe) 11 Mar 1811 Mecklenburg-Schwerin 22 Feb 1813 Bavaria, Vorarlberg, Tyrol and Salzburg 16 Jun 1813 Schleswig-Holstein (Danish) 29 Mar 1814 Mecklenburg-Strelitz 01 Jun 1814 Anhalt-Dessau 1822 Sachsen-Weimar 1823 Kingdom of Wuerttemberg 1828 Grand Duchy of Posen (Prussian) 1833 Sachsen (= Saxonia) 1834 Oldenburg 1852 For additional resources for Jewish genealogy in general, and several listed German resources, see Warren Blatt's "JewishGen FAQ", Frequently Asked Questions, available as a retrievable file via e-mail to or via WWW at: http://www.jewishgen.org. ------------- 2Nov95gea]bik Provider: George E. Arnstein Ph.D. +----------------------------------------------------------------------+