Synagoge Affaltrach

About the museum

The synagogue in Affaltrach was consecrated in 1851. The two-story building in the Historicist style combined under one roof everything the rural Jewish community needed: a prayer hall with a women's gallery, a classroom, a meeting room, a ritual bath, and the teacher's apartment. It is precisely this completeness that makes the building a special testimony to Jewish rural life in Württemberg today.

During the November pogrom of 1938, SA and party members from outside the town ransacked the prayer hall and the apartment of the Jewish family then living on the ground floor. In the following decades the building served, among other things, as a storage space and housing and fell increasingly into disrepair.

At the instigation of the Freundeskreis ehemalige Synagoge Affaltrach (friends' association), the district of Heilbronn took over the building from the municipality of Obersulm in 1986 and had it restored according to the old plans. On November 9, 1988, the 50th anniversary of the pogrom, the synagogue was opened to the public; the Museum zur Geschichte der Juden in Kreis und Stadt Heilbronn (museum of the history of the Jews in the district and city of Heilbronn) opened in 1989.

The exhibition leads through medieval Jewish life, emancipation, religious practice, and persecution in the region. On the women's gallery, a permanent exhibition commemorates the Jewish forced old-age home in nearby Schloss Eschenau in 1941/42. The Freundeskreis looks after educational work and events; the district is the owner.

Highlights

• Fully preserved rural synagogue with prayer hall, classroom, and mikveh
• Museum on Jewish history in the city and district of Heilbronn
• Permanent exhibition on the Eschenau forced old-age home on the women's gallery
• Tours of the Jewish cemetery in Affaltrach
• Free admission

Permanent exhibitions

• Geschichte der Juden in Kreis und Stadt Heilbronn – Tour through the restored synagogue rooms on Jewish life, religion, emancipation, and persecution in the Heilbronn region.
• Jüdisches Zwangsaltenheim Eschenau – Documentation on the women's gallery about the forced old-age home in Schloss Eschenau, to which elderly Jewish people were assigned in 1941/42.

Founded

1989

Operated by

Landkreis Heilbronn (Eigentümer); Freundeskreis ehemalige Synagoge Affaltrach e. V. (Museumsbetrieb)

Admission & discounts

Admission is free.

Free admission.

Accessibility

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Getting there & parking

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Events & venue rental

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