My GX5 Grandfather, Jakob Aron Fleischer
We woke up today (Weds 4/20/2022) in Frankfurt and drove out of the city. We knew Frankfurt was a large city, but driving out of it, we realized that it is really large…larger than Minneapolis for certain. The way out led us to the highway, which I’ll be honest, was a bit scary to drive on. It was not the autobahn, but there were very fast drivers and the driving culture is very different from home.
We left Frankfurt about 8:30 and drove south for about 156 years. That is the number of years between the death of Debbie’s Great-Great Grandfather, Isaak Strauss, whose grave we visited yesterday in Frankfurt and my Great-Great-Great-Great-Great Grandfather Jakob Aron Fleischer, whose grave we visited today. That is five greats.
Until about two months ago, I had no idea that Fleischer was a family name for me. Or that I had kin interred in Oberöwisheim, Germany. It turns out that Jews never lived there, but a wooded hillside was where Jews were allowed to have a cemetery in that region of Germany because it had no value for farming. It cannot have been easy to bury there…to get the deceased there…to gather family to pay their respects and complete the rituals…but it is a beautiful part of Germany and, perhaps, because it is tough terrain, covered with trees, and hard to get to…maybe that is why, after 240 years, Jakob’s headstone is still legible and the land the cemetery still sits undisturbed.
I cannot overemphasize how helpful most people I have contacted in Germany have been in helping me find the graves I am trying to find. The two co-chairs of the local historical society met us there. As did the mayor!
Anyone who wants to enter the cemetery needs the gate unlocked by this man who has the only key.
Me at the grave of my Great X 5 Great Grandfather, Jakob Aron Fleicher. His headstone identifies his father, Aron, My Great X 6 Grandfather who would have been born around 1690. Jakob was born in Mulbach about a 30 minute drive by automobile from the cemetery.
You can see headstones among the trees in every direction.
This is Karl-Heinz Glaser, the other co-chair of the historical society and a math teacher in Stuttgart. A real mensch who made this happen for me. He is carrying a rolled up chart of the cemetery to help me find the right area.
According to the cemetery history, it was, “created in the 17th century…in Reimenhälden lies on a steep slope inappropriate for agriculture, which is why the site was used. Jews were not allowed to use Christian cemeteries so they used the Jewish cemetery at Speyer (until 1435) and then Worms. The Jewish cemetery was built around 1629 as Oberöwisheim Cemetery Association for Kraichgauer Jews. Visible are 492 gravestones, the oldest dating from 1735 and the most recent from 1938.“
Debbie and Me with Mayor Tobias Borho of Kraichtal
L-R, me, Karl-Heinz Glazer, Mayor Tobias Borho. They were very welcoming and even posted about it in the local paper.
The area is beautiful. It is largely made up of farmland and vineyards. And lots of small German towns that were untouched during the war so have centuries old architecture.
Every village we passed through was cute and looked like it had not changed in hundreds of years. They all looked very similar. From Oberöwisheim, we headed to the “big city” in the area where Jakob Aron Fleischer’s son and his family are buried. It is called Eppingen and it has a well preserved cemetery cared for by the local historical society, whose head met us and then gave us a tour of the town.
The cemetery is atop of a hill and the roads are reserved for farm equipment. There were homes about 100 yards away as well as a preschool so we heard the sounds of children laughing and playing as we strolled through the cemetery which was established in 1819. We also heard a rooster.
This is the grave of Löb Jakob Fleischer, my 4th Great Grand Uncle. He, like his father Jakob, lived in Muhlbach which is four KM from Eppingen…much closer for the family than the cemetery in Oberöwisheim and was in use by the time Lob died in 1830.
The “Old Synagogue.”
The Mikveh in the basement of the Old Synagogue
The site of the “New Synagogue” which was not destroyed in Kristallnacht as so many others were…it was dismantled for its rich building materials in the 1940s.
The synagogue sat next to the church until it was dismantled. From here we move ahead several generations to Stuttgart.
A few years ago I wrote a Yom Kippur Yizkor sermon about the teaching of Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz on extending the eternality of loved ones. He taught about how there are different stages of death…one of which is the last time someone’s name is ever uttered. On this trip, Debbie and I are extending the eternality of our ancestors, learning about them, and ourselves, as we travel the roads, and forests, that they travelled.
