Süssen Is Now Free of Jews : : World War II, The Holocaust, and Rural Judaism / / Gilya Gerda Schmidt.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Fordham University Press Complete eBook-Package Pre-2014
• VerfasserIn: Schmidt, Gilya Gerda,
• Place / Publishing House: New York, NY : : Fordham University Press, , [2022]; ©2012
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Language: English
• Series: World War II: The Global, Human, and Ethical Dimension
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (236 p.) :; 40 Illustrations, black and white

Süssen Is Now Free of Jews offers a close look at the legacy of a few Jewish families from Süssen—a village in the District of Göppingen, which is located in the state of Baden Württemberg in southern Germany. The author, Gilya Gerda Schmidt, looks at this rural region through the lens of two Jewish families—the Langs and the Ottenheimers—who settled there in the early twentieth century. As a child, she shared with the Langs the same living space for just a few months. She remembers her mother’s telling her of the Jews who lived in Süssen until the Holocaust. More than thirty years later, in a used bookstore in Knoxville, Tennessee, the author accidentally found documentation verifying the Jewish presence in a book about the surviving Jews of Württemberg. In it, she found confirmation that there had been Jews living in Süssen until the Holocaust. For the first time, she had the proof she needed to look into the reality behind this lingering mystery. Here began her detective-like journey to find out what happened to the Jews of Süssen. A decade of research into local and regional archives ensued, and this very penetrating study is the result. In it, the author attempts to shed light on not just the original question of what happened to the two families during the Holocaust but also on a host of other questions: What was it like to be Jewish in rural southern Germany a century ago? What were the Jewish traditions of this region? What were the relations between Jews and Christians before the Holocaust? And where did those family members who were able to escape or who survived the concentration camps go when they left Süssen or Göppingen? Few witnesses came forward, yet the documents in the archives spoke volumes. This micro-history records the not-so-romantic journey of two Jewish families who lived in the Fils Valley. The study also addresses issues of being an American prisoner of war; of resuming life after the Holocaust; of the bureaucratic nightmare of requisitions, restitution, and reparations; and of life in America. This unique book will be of interest to a general readership and is an important book for scholars in German and Holocaust studies.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Foreword by Werner Runschke, Director, Süssen City Archive -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Post-Nazi Süssen: An Attempt at Reconciliation -- 2. A Village Called Süssen -- 3. Klein-Süssen: The Ottenheimer Family -- 4. Gross-Süssen: The Lang Families, 1902–37 -- 5. Süssen under the Nazis: The Lang Families, 1937–41 -- 6. Hugo Lang’s Escape and Life in the United States -- 7 Deportation of the Lang Families -- 8 Lang Family Liberation, Requisitions, and Restitution -- 9 Lang Reparations -- 10 Jews in Jebenhausen and Göppingen -- 11 Kirchheim unter Teck -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Glossary -- Index