September 14th, 2014: „European Heritage Day” and „European Day of Jewish Culture"

We tried to make a program for the „European Heritage Day” and the „European Day of Jewish Culture”, which in 2014 both were celebrated on the same day.

Since there were huge delays in the restauration work we opened the synagogue „as building site”.

The numerous visitors could hear about our plans for the restauration and see the measures we had taken so far. Of course there were also questions and comments about the history of the building and its future.

At 15.00 there was a reading session. Three Jewish femals from the Kraichgau were presented in texts from the book „Jüdische Persönlichkeiten im Kraichgau” :

Pauline Maier (1877 - 1942), born in Baiertal, who was a nurse in Mannheim since 1913. She was ordered in 1940 by the Gestapo to stay but followed to Gurs on her own will. Likewise she was ordered to stay in Gurs but follwowed her patients nad her two sisters to Auschwitz where she was murdered.

Selma Rosenfeld (1892 - 1984), who was born in Eppingen and emigrated already in 1923 to the USA. From 1930 she held a professorship for German in Los Angeles until her retirement in 1958. 
After the war she studied the new German educational system during several visits.
In Eppingen the name of the Realschule is „Selma-Rosenfeld-Realschule” since 2008.

Ruth Schwob (1919 - 2012) was born in Neckarbischofsheim as daughter of the teacher Heinrich Bloch. In 1935 she went to a boarding school Lausanne, then to Paris to study arts. 1943 she married the Swiss Alexis Schwob and was able to enter Switzerland legally.
Later she was an internationally acclaimed artist.
From 1978 Ruth Schwob visited Germany again and again as a contemporary witness.