Our ancestors lived in the small villages and countryside of the lower Rhineland area of western Germany for hundreds of years from the Inquisition until the Holocaust.

Jews had been in this region since Roman times and their history there is marked by many bloody persecutions and expulsions repeated over and over again and culminating in the greatest horror of them all, Hitler's Holocaust.

Köln (Cologne) --- the major city in the lower Rhineland --- was founded by the Roman armies in 50 A.D. and was named Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinesium by them. Legend has it that Jewish women, captured by the Roman soldiers in the Holy Land during the Great War against Rome (66-73 A.D.), were brought to Germany. The women allegedly were ordered to camp at the frontier and were permitted to raise their children as Jews, who then founded the communities along the Rhine.

Close behind the armies came Jewish peddlers escaping from overcrowded Rome. They carried merchandise picked up along the way in Italian cities. These Jews helped to establish commerce in Köln, Trier and other cities. According to Albert Stern of Köln (a son of Jakob and Eva Friesem Stern), family tradition has it that he is a descendant of these Handelsjuden who came to the Rhineland with the Romans.

The Köln city archives show that a Jewish community existed there in the year 321, the same type as had existed in the Jewish academy in Sura, Babylonia in ancient times. A document of Emperor Constantine mentions a Jewish community with rabbis, heads of synagogues and community leaders. This leads one to conclude that a large Jewish community existed in Köln since, perhaps, 200.

The Carolingans protected and advanced the Jews, who prospered in the region from the 5th to the 11th centuries. They traded with places as far away as Italy.

From this protection evolved Jewish rights and the Emperor (Kaiser) was given the responsibility to protect each Jewish person's rights and property.

The weakening of the Imperial power was not beneficial to Jewish law, but these laws remained unchanged. The rights of an individual Jew were granted to him in papers he received indicating the right to obtain living quarters and the ability to earn a living in order to support himself and his family.

From the 9th to the 11th centuries the Jews, under the Emperor's protection, had a relatively peaceful time. A synagogue was built in Köln in 1012.

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In 1096 the First Crusaders --- a poorly organized, unrestrained army of peasants seeking adventure --- marched through the Rhineland. Many of them chanted, "Kill a Jew and save your soul." Warned by the bestial fate of their brethren in Metz, Speyer, Mayence (whose citizens pointed out the Jewish hiding places to the invaders) and Worms, Köln's Jews appealed for help to Archbishop Hermann III, who hid them in seven nearby small places. Their property was sent to the homes of friendly Christian burghers for safekeeping. In spite of the opposition of the Emperor and the local Catholic Church, the Crusaders declared the Jews to be the enemy of Christ and this resulted in hard times for them. In some cases the Crusaders succeeded in surprising and killing many of Köln's Jewish refugees. The lower class invariably joined in the invading mob. The local middle class Christians, though distressed to see their fellow citizens suffer, refused to risk their lives to defend the Jews as they had promised. In other cases, Jews committed suicide with the cry of the Shema' Yisrael on their lips rather than fall into enemy hands. Several thousand Rhineland Jews lost their lives in the wild Judenhetze (Jewish pogrom) which lasted three months. Others were forcibly baptized and remained Christians after Emperor Heinrich IV issued an edict permitting them to convert to their original religion.

Nowhere were the Jews safe at this time. Even in Jerusalem, the Crusaders captured the city, drove the Jews into the synagogue, and set it on fire.

Jews are first mentioned in Koblenz, an important city at the junction of the Rhine and Mosel Rivers, in the customs house toll of 1104 when they had to pay four denarii for every salable slave. Vives of Koblenz, a Jew, lived in Köln around 1135, according to a notation in the Judenschreinsbuch (Jewish archives) of Köln.

The Second Crusade, in 1146, was comparatively easier on the Rhineland Jews, mainly as a result of the efforts of Bernard of Clairvaux and Cologne's Archbishop Arnold's protection.

A large Jewish community in Koblenz is mentioned in the Spanish merchant and traveler (Benjamin ben Jonah) Benjamin of Tudela's Itinerary (c. 1172), a diary in which he noted the economic conditions, learning or ignorance, and manner of living of the Jews he visited.

As early as 1188 the Jews became serfs, but the Catholic Archbishops claimed they had the right to tax and make laws for the Jews in return for protecting them. In 1252, however, an agreement was made in Köln with the city guaranteeing the status of the Jews, who were autonomous except that they had to pay a tax to the Archbishop and were subject to his jurisdiction if a grave crime was committed. This practice of paying tribute was to become a tradition for more than 600 years as the Jews became wards of the Emperor.

From the 11th to the middle of the 14th century Köln's Jewish community lived on friendly terms with the non-Jews. Köln's Jews were known as concives (fellow inhabitants). Jews were assigned to defend a gate ("Gate of the Jews") of the city walls when they were built in 1106. The Jewish quarter had a synagogue with controversial stained glass windows showing lions and serpents, a ritual bath (Mikvah), a hospital (Hekdesh), a community house and a bakery. Many prominent Jews lived there at this time.

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In 1209 Koblenz's Jews had to pay a discriminatory toll rate, but Issac and his wife, Bela, are credited in the Mainz-Nuremberg Memorbuch with its elimination. Suesskind, a Koblenz Jew, granted a loan to Trier's Archbishop Theodore --- with the mortgage on a house as security --- which was repaid in 1238. Archbishop Heinrich granted Koblenz's Jews protection in 1265. Mayor Marsilius of Trier and Knights Heinrich and Dithard of Pfaffendorf testified that Koblenz's Jews were free from taxes for that year. Following a revolt two decades later, in 1285, Archbishop Heinrich signed a peace treaty with the city stating that those who violated Jewish life and property would be punished.

The entire Jewish community in Sinzig --- where a branch of the Friesem family lived in the 19th and 20th centuries --- was burned alive by a mob as they prayed in the synagogue in 1723. Some of the mob's ringleaders took the name of Judenbreter (Jew roasters) to show how proud they were.

From 1279 to 1346 Jews lent money to the Koblenz city council, the Trier Archbishop and local nobility. Jews frequently received Mosel River bridge tolls. In 1307 the Koblenz Jewish community, led by a magistrate, was granted the rights of joint citizenship. Records show a Jew's gate (1282), a cemetery (1303) and a nursing home (1356). R. Asher ben Jehiel moved to Koblenz around 1282 and his older brother, Chaim, was the rabbi. Scribe Eliezer ben Samuel ha-Levi wrote a parchment Bible there in 1344. There were also Jewish settlements in Mayen (1349), Münstermaifeld, Cochem, Kobern, Karden and Sinzig (1200-1300).

The year was 1349. People were suddenly stricken with boils and black patches. They vomited blood and dropped dead. The beginning of the Black Death pestilence brought more horrors and very hard times for the Rhineland Jews, who were made the scapegoats. They had caused it all, it was said. The Jews were accused of poisoning the wells, the food, even the air. Jewish doctors were accused of manufacturing the poison in Toledo, Spain, by compounding spiders, lizards, frogs, flesh and the hearts of Christians, mixed with the dough of the host. And people believed this! Another round of massacres of Jews would take place.

On St. Bartholomew's Eve, a mob smashed into Köln's Jewish quarter, massacred the entire community, stole their property and set fire to many of the houses. Whatever was left was divided by the city and the Archbishop. In Koblenz, the Jews were expelled until 1351 and then allowed to return. Jewish property --- especially their houses --- was frequently confiscated beginning in 1353 and sold by Archbishop Doemund, usually for the ruling Prince's benefit. In 1372, about 23 years after the pestilence, the Köln Archbishop and municipal authorities readmitted the Jews. However, they were again driven out of many cities, including Augsburg in Bavaria (where ancestors of the Hirsch family of Polch once lived).

Most of the expelled Jews went to Eastern Europe. However, Jews continued to live in the German cities of Frankfurt-on-the-Main and Worms, as well as in the small villages around Köln such as Andernach, Bonn, Neuss (until 1462), Mulheim and Deutz. They were permitted into Cologne to trade but not to stay. Emperor Karl IV ordered that the Jew, Samuel, of Koblenz, receive protection in 1354. Two years later the Emperor granted Archbishop Boemund II of Trier the right to let Jews settle in his district. Jewish homeowners were again found in Koblenz beginning in 1366 and Symon the Jew even became the Archbishop's physician.

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Archbishop Otto drove out the Jews from the Koblenz area in 1418 and three years later gave the Jewish cemetery to the daughters of Gottfried Sack in a feudal estate, and the Jewish home on Burggasse to the Catholic Order of St. Florin.

The division of Germany into innumerable rival principalities with conflicting and confusing politics explains why Jews were able to survive and maintain themselves there.

Then, with the migration of Spanish and Portuguese Jews from the Iberian peninsula resulting from the Inquisition in 1492, new Jewish communities were established in the Rhineland. Family stories, especially among the Friesems and in Polch and Mertloch, indicate that many of our ancestors came to Germany at this time. The Jews had lived in Spain and Portugal since ancient times.

In Kurköln (the Köln region) a law was passed in 1504 against emigration. Five years later, in 1509, the Dominicans of Köln supported Johann Pfefferkorn, a Jewish apostate butcher, in his quest to get Emperor Maximillian to confiscate all "anti-Christian" Jewish literature. He was aiming to destroy the Talmud and its commentaries. Fortunately, the Emperor was convinced not to do this by the distinguished humanist, Johann Reuchlin. The Köln Dominicans unsuccessfully attacked Reuchlin's integrity and scholarship. Reuchlin was supported by Martin Luther.

New Jewish settlements appeared in the neighboring Eifel starting in 1512. For example, the elector Richard admitted two Jewish families to Lützel-Koblenz that year and let five other Jewish families live in Koblenz in 1518, where they received a charter and civil protection, only to be ordered to leave the city in 1583 and the electorate in 1592.

Jews had to wear a Yellow Ring for identification in 1514, a degrading policy first proclaimed by Pope Innocent III's Fourth Lateran Council back in 1215. In the 17th century a number of Jewish laws were promulgated, making their lives still more difficult. They found it hard to get decent jobs. In Köln every profession except glazier was forbidden to them. Beginning in 1555 and until 1771 the Archbishop of Trier issued regulations restricting Jews in his domain to pawnbrokerage and a few other limited occupations. The same applied to Köln, although some of these laws apparently could not really be enforced there. In the early 18th century they were permitted to become butchers and peddlers. Still, they could acquire no property although some Jewish people were able to own houses.

Important Jewish communities existed in cities such as Bonn, Düsseldorf, Koblenz (where they were ordered to live on a Jew's street beginning in 1723 --- renamed Mint Street in 1886 --- and were not allowed to wear bright or expensive clothing) and Trier at this time. Most of the area's Jews, however, lived very hard lives in small villages and rural areas.

The early modern Jewish community had a distinctive character like that of the communities of the earlier Middle Ages. It had self-rule and was autonomous in religious and economic matters, the exercise of police power, and the administration of religious and civil law (as it applied to Jews only). However, almost every German Jewish community developed independently and
thus had its own special character, history and traditions. Most of the area's Jews had a very hard life until 1815.

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On September 10, 1591 some Jews in Münstereifel were designated as being honest Jews. In 1597 Emperor John VII granted a Jewish firm permission to settle in Trier and Koblenz and to conduct trade with the East. Their religious center was in Frankfurt-on-the-Main.

The elector, Lother von Metternich, issued an order in 1618 regulating the status of the area Jews. In the Julich villages there were some Jewish communities around 1648. They were threatened with expulsions in 1671, but nothing came of it. The number of Jewish homes in all of Julich mountain was limited to 60 families. The same thing happened in the Köln region and those Jews who were poor did not get a permit to remain. The reasons for expulsion were always financial.

Around 1700 we began to have definite information about our ancestors who lived in the Polch-Mertloch-Münstermaifeld-Gappenach area near Mayen and Koblenz, in the Satzvey-Schweinheim-Flamersheim-Friesheim area near Euskirchen, and in the Burgbrohl and Niederzissen villages near Sinzig.

The castle at Burgbrohl, where Friesem descendants must have worked as serfs, was first documented in 1093 by Count Palatinate Heinrich, in connection with the Abbey Foundation of Maria Laach. Volcodus de Bruhle was the first lord of the castle. In his coat-of-arms he had 14 red balls on a golden background. It was inhabited by the Archbishop of Trier in the 15th century and the castle was partly destroyed by French troops in 1689. It was rebuilt from 1712 to 1731 by Caspar Franz Edmund von Bourscheidt and his wife, Isabella Countess von Schaesberg - Kerpen.

In 1723 a statute was enacted reestablishing the Jewry in Koblenz and permitting them to have a rabbi. When the elector Wenceslaus made his public entry into Koblenz in 1786 the Jews said they wanted to participate in the ceremonies. On November 23, 1786 they held religious services in his honor and were received by him in an audience.

Around 1800 the center of Jewish life was in the rabbinate of the Jewish communities. The job titles and the exact dates the following people held their rabbinate positions cannot be found as they were never published:
Lazarus Wallich, Deutz (1654)
Lewi Goldschmidt, Deutz and Bonn (1663)
Michael Wallich, Bonn (son of Lazarus Wallich) (dates uncertain)
Moyses Horn, Linz (1681-1696)
Meyer zum [from] Goldstein, Bonn (1696-1716)
His successor is not known. Then the following served:
Dr. Daniel Meyer M.D., Bonn (1733)
Moses Kauffmann, Bonn (until 1751)
Beyfuss Liebmann, Bonn (until 1778)
Baruch Simon, Bonn and Mergentheim (until 1783)
Dr. Moyses Wolff M.D., Bonn (personal physician to the rulers) (until 1794)
The rabbinical synods of the Trier bishopric frequently met in Koblenz. They concerned themselves with education and communal welfare. The authority of the local rabbi extended over the entire region. A welfare organization was founded in 1772. The Memorbuch, begun in 1610, continued until 1850. It lists the names of the community leaders, many of whom were Talmudic scholars and physicians. Foremost among them were the Wallich family. Some of Koblenz's rabbis were:

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Moses Kohen ben Eliezer: author of Sefer Hasidim (1473)
Wolf of Koblenz: he participated in the rabbinical convention in Frankfurt (1603)
Judah Löb Heilbronn ben Abraham David Eliezer (1650)
Jair Hayyim Bacharach (1666-1669)
Moses Meir Grotwohl (1669-1691)
Aaron Spira (1691-1697)
Jacob Kohen Poppers (1697-1717)
Eliezer Lipman (son of Isaac Benjamin Wolf) (1717-1733): tutor of
Simon von Geldern, Heinrich Heine's maternal grandfather
Mannele Wallich (1733-1762)
Hayyim Löb Gundersheim (late 1700's)
Ben Israel (mid 1800's-November 6, 1876)
Dr. Adolf Levin (1878-1885)
Dr. M. Singer (1885-1901)

There were also tribute collectors who played a local role in Bonn, Bornheim, Deutz, Königswinter, Lechenich, Neersen, Rheinberg, Urdingen and Zeltingen. In 1776 these tributes were paid only in Bonn.

In 1761 the local governments gained the power of permitting Jews to come into their communities. In Julich mountain the government had certain powers. Besides that there were a number of other communities which were able to admit Jews. These were Königswinter (1577), Ahrweiler (1585), Kaiserswerth (1611), Budberg (1612), Endenich (1612), Demau (1617), Linz (1617), Schwarzsrheindorf (1617), Villich (1622) and Kessenich (1625).

At the end of the 18th century the old regime came to an end. The power to expel all Jews from the Köln area that had come from the reigning monarch in 1787 could no longer be enforced. This shows that Jewish life in the country had become very strong, mainly because they had lived in the area for 100 years and were economically integrated with the rest of the population, which was Christian. Most of the nobility now sided with the Jews and were negotiating for their rights.

On September 27, 1791 Jews gained the common rights of citizenship and were freed from paying tribute to the nobility as a result of the French Revolution. In 1794 the Jews' gate in Koblenz was broken down and emancipation came to the Jews in 1797. Under French rule the Jews were readmitted to Köln in 1798. After 1802 the entire lower Rhineland territory was annexed to France and its Jews were treated exactly the same as French Jews. Documents, such as Lisette Hirsch's death certificate in Polch in 1810, were written in French (see page 12). Note also that most Jews were able to write only in Hebrew, as indicated by the signatures of Salomon Hirz from Lehmen (written in Hebrew: Lehmen Shlame Hirz) --- the father of Adelheid Salomon --- and Michael Hirsch (written in Hebrew: Hirsch ben Kimar [Mister] Leib) on the birth certificate of Abraham "Baer" Hirsch (see page 11). [Abraham "Baer" Hirsch, the son of Michael Hirsch and Adelheid (Lehmen) Salomon, was born in Polch on May 20, 1808. His Hebrew name was Tzvi bar Levi.] After the annexation by France, all Jews' disabilities were removed and they became French citizens. (In 1806 Napoleon dissolved the Holy Roman Empire and most of the religious principalities. The armies of Friedrich Wilhelm III were crushed by Napoleon's lightning blows within days.) The Rhine and Moselle [French spelling] district Jewish assembly was held in Koblenz in 1808.

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