The collection
The Judaica collection currently comprises almost 300 catalogued items, of which only a small part can be shown in the permanent exhibition.
Some items from the collection of the Jewish Museum of the former community, which already existed before 1938, have survived the period of Nazi barbarism with the destruction of the synagogue and could be saved.
Secondly, a number of Jews who emigrated from Worms have donated personal items to the museum, especially since the 1960s.
In addition, there are models (e.g. one of the synagogue as it was around 1600) as well as photographs and documents, some of which are also kept in the Judaica collection of the city archives.
On display are a selection of deeds, plans and documents relating to the history of the community, stone spolia and archaeological evidence, all of which provide evidence of the uninterrupted existence of the community from the turn of the millennium until the Nazi era and the rich and significant Jewish life in Worms and the ShUM cities since the Middle Ages.
More on the media station
Our media station rounds off this part of the permanent collection and brings alive the Jewish past. On a large flat screen monitor you can watch very moving interviews with Holocaust survivors and introductory films on the museum and the Jewish history of Worms (in German, English and French). A selection of additional digital material is also available.
Reports by Holocaust survivors from Worms:
Visitors can watch five approximately ten-minute sequences from eye-witness video interviews with Holocaust survivors from Worms. The City Archives were able to purchase these interviews in 2012 from the collection held by the Shoah Foundation in California/USA.
The interviews were filmed in the 1990s and give gripping accounts of what the young people experienced before their enforced expulsion from Worms. These reports were edited and provided with German subtitles by the media scientist and art historian Ralf Kotschka (from the agency in Trier “visual concepts” with its specialization on media for museums), who undertook all the technical work and programming and prepared the media station for the City of Worms.
The interviews represent in particular a valuable addition to the educational facilities offered by the museum. There are plans to extend this range of educational facilities.
Visitors can watch the following eye-witness video interviews with Holocaust survivors from Worms:
Inge Davidson (née Mann)
- born Ingeburg Mann on 2nd June 1930 in Worms-Pfiffligheim
- Interview USA 1997
- grew up in Worms-Pfiffligheim, father livestock trader
Following the ransacking of their home, the family moved to Mannheim at the beginning of December 1938 to live with Ingeburg’s maternal grandparents. In 1940, Hugo Mann managed to emigrate to the USA with his wife Mathilde and their daughter Inge(burg). Inge Davidson lives in Los Angeles and has two daughters.
Fritz Fröhlich
- born 12th December 1925 in Worms
- Interview USA 1997
- grew up in Worms, father a dealer in fats and oils, especially for agriculture
In March 1939, the married couple Julius and Ida Fröhlich emigrated to Syracuse/USA with their sons Walter and Fritz. Walter worked as a science journalist in Washington and Fritz Fröhlich became a professor.
Elsbeth Schmidt (née Herzog)
- born Elsbeth Herzog on 3rd January 1921 in Worms
- Interview USA 1996
- born and grew up in Worms, father had a shop on the Neumarkt that sold imported lingerie
Elsbeth left Worms for good soon after “Crystal Night” in November 1938, and managed to emigrate to the USA in December 1938, not yet 18 years old. She went to Allentown/Pennsylvania, where she married. Her parents and all her other relatives became victims of Nazi tyranny in 1942.
Frank Gusdorf
- born 12th December 1926 in Worms
- Interview USA 1997
- born and grew up in Worms-Hochheim, son of the furniture maker Hermann Gusdorf, who had fought in the First World War
Following the ransacking of their home and the death of her husband Hermann as a result of imprisonment in a concentration camp after the pogrom in November 1938, Frank’s mother Jenny Gusdorf moved to the centre of Worms with her two children Frank and Ruth and set about organizing their emigration. Frank was taken to London on 9th June 1939 as part of the Refugee Children Movement. His mother and her daughter Ruth left Worms on 11th November 1939 and emigrated to the USA. Frank became an engineer and has three children and several grandchildren. He lives in Santa Clara in California with his family. His sister Ruth died of cancer in 1985.
Suse Rosenstock (née Herz)
- born Margot Suse Herz on 6th May 1931
- Interview USA 1996
- born and grew up the daughter of an ironmonger in the centre of Worms
Following the terror of the pogrom in 1938, during which seven-year-old Suse suffered severe shock and had to be looked after by relatives in Frankfurt, she was taken to England in July 1939 as part of the Refugee Children Movement. A Christian family took her in and raised her as if she were their child. Her parents Albert and Flora Herz left Worms in January 1939 and went to live in Duisburg. From here they were deported together with Suse’s sister Edith to the concentration camp in Theresienstadt, where Suse’s father Albert died in 1942. Her mother and sister Edith survived the concentration camps in Auschwitz and Stutthof (near Danzig). With the help of English soldiers, they re-established contact with Suse, and in 1947 the three of them emigrated to the USA together. Suse married in 1951, has three children and lives in New Jersey.
Contact
Jewish Museum Worms
Hintere Judengasse 6
67547 Worms
Germany
Telephone number: +49 (0) 62 41) 8 53 - 47 01 / 47 07
Email: stdtrchvwrmsd
