Part I

If you approach Floss on the Neustadt county road from the west, you will be struck at first by the part of the town on the southern slope of St. Nikolai’s hill, which is crowned by a little decorated church. It is commonly called the “Judenberg” [Jew’s Hill]. Stately rows of houses that were built and occupied exclusively by Jewish people rise above the right bank of the river, on an elevated “range,” an average of 20 meters high. In the middle of this, stands a synagogue in a peculiar style, whose size testifies to the prominence that the Jewish community in Floss must have had in earlier times. From up on Neustädter Street, if you let your eye wander to the east, marveling at the exceedingly beautiful landscape over the “Judenberg”, you will spot straight ahead, a good hour away, on the forested hill, some very handsome castle ruins, towering with audacity and defiance in front of the actual mountains on the border. They are the “Floßenburg,” originally, the Burg [Castle] of Floss—Floßenburg.) This delightful view may have inspired the poet Franz Binhack in his “Epigram from Nordgau”:

“Stark and lonely, the rocky cone shape rises from the depths of the valley;
Israel’s itinerant tent stands next to it on the banks of the stream.”

In fact, the founding, development, prime and decline of the Jewish community of Floss show that Israel has found no permanent sanctuary, even until up to the present time.

Jews have been in Germany since Roman times; they had immigrated to the cities on the Donau and Rhine, even before the mass migration. In the Middle Ages, Jews apparently lived, here and there, across what is now Upper Palatinate; their communities, however, fell victim to blind, raging persecution. This is shown clearly in an entry about the market town of Floss in the Palatinate-Neuburg registry made by Chancellor Kappelbecke in 1588, which says: “Taxes on Jews. Because resident Jews are no longer tolerated in Palatinate, no taxes are collected from them, also no Jew owns a house in this dominion.” A further entry in the register states: “Tariffs on Jews or tolls. Every Jew that goes through Floss pays a toll (that means, a fee for the permission to travel through and probably also to peddle goods) of 14 pfennig, and if he rides [on a horse or in a cart] through, 28 pfennig.” This Jewish tariff was then later “raised” to 15, or 24 kreuzer [silver coins] and was paid to “the merciful princes and lords”, namely to the Count Palatine, Friedrich, who built the Castle Friedrichsburg in Vohenstrauss, and lived for a while in Weiden. Taking the valuation of money at the time into consideration (1 pound lard = 8 kreuzer), the Jewish taxes and tolls seem so high that the people burdened with them must have felt them exceptionally oppressive. In any case, the aforementioned entries certainly indicate that Jews had settled near Floss earlier than 350 years ago, but in a place that was not part of Palatinate.

This place was about 10 km away, today, the little city of Neustadt on the Waldnaab. I don’t know how long a Jewish settlement existed there, but old gravestones with Hebrew inscriptions were found in more recent times, by chance during excavations outside of the city wall in the so-called free zone. In any case, the settlement of Jews in Neustadt had already taken place before the 30 Years War; as was mentioned once in the newspaper, The Upper Palatinate, published by [publisher Michael] Laßleben. In 1621, troops from Mansfeld attacked Neustadt, as they advanced from Bohemia to Upper Palatinate. The first thing they did was plunder the stores and houses of Jews. A pogrom broke out in Neustadt in 1684 that resulted in the complete destruction of the Jewish community there, causing the Jews to settle in Floss. Lindner’s Chronicle of Floss (printed in 1850 in Sulzbach-Upper Palatinate) reports the following about the event: “In 1684, the Jews of Neustadt could not raise a significant sum of money that they had been due to advance to the Prince of Lobkowitz. As a result, they were forbidden to stay there; they had to migrate. At first, with the permission of Count Christian August of Sulzbach, four families settled here (that is to say, in Floss) on the hill, where they bought a piece of land from the citizen Harrer, in order to build houses.” According to this account, the settlement of the Jews in Floss went off without difficulties. But in reality, establishing a settlement was made difficult for the Jews from the beginning. In fact, the history of the Jewish community in Floss in the first two centuries of their existence was like a long, long chain, the links of which are made up of countless incidents of pain and oppression. Among the numerous documents of the market community of Floss in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries that concern the Jewish community and their families is one without a date, but which probably comes from 1876. It provides valuable information in this regard. The detailed report is titled Historical Development of the Reasons There is Opposition to the Application of Moses Meier B[loch]….to Buy a House in the Market Area and [to] the Assimilation of the Jewish Colony in the Christian Community and states the following, “In 1684, four Jewish families (Hirschl Mayer, Henoch Mayer, Nathan Feystas, Eisik Feystas, presumably two pairs of brothers or, indeed, father and son), who had already been driven out of the city of Neustadt by the royal Lobkowitz, allegedly because of the excesses that they perpetrated, asked His Serene Highness, the Count Palatine Christian August, Duke of Sulzbach to take them in until Walpurgis Day 1685. In the meantime they would look for a permanent place to live. Upon payment of 50 guilders, they received permission to stay in an area in the next neighboring municipality, Floss, until the requested time. In this way, despite the objection of the market town of Floss, which claimed an adverse effect on trade, they settled down immediately as if they were guests, probably in inns. In 1685, the Jews who had fled to Floss were taken under the protection of the local nobility for an unspecified time. As soon as possible, they tried to get a firm toehold here. In 1687, “with extensive promises to behave well and to avoid insult and injury to the citizenry,” they acquired from Franz Harrer a field on an elevated area at the extreme end of the town. In the years that followed, it became known by the name “Judenberg” [Jews’ Hill]. Here, they built four small houses at first, “for the reason that the hostels where they had lived until now had become way too crowded and burdensome” and soon their population grew. But the citizenry of Floss had never agreed to take in the Jews. On the contrary, they objected most strenuously to the aforementioned sale of land to the Jews, to their building houses and to their consequent “lawless” proliferation. On April 23, 1687, Christian August, Count of Palatine-Sulzbach, let it be announced to his honorable, beloved and faithful subjects that he had decided to have a commission investigate their complaint about the purchase of the land by his four “protected” Jews. He named his court counselor and dominion provost, Andreas Lazarus Imhof von Merlach, the future administrator in the jurisdiction of Floss, as head of the commission. All their resistance didn’t help the market community; they had to keep their unwelcome settlers. The region’s highest authority, who seemed to favor the Jewish settlement because of the rich financial wellspring provided by the significant amount they [the Jewish settlement] laid out for protection, paid no attention to the legal objections of the citizenry. And the citizenry could that much less rebel against [their rulers] for “the duties of a loyal subject called for humble acquiescence.” Meanwhile the Jews did not presume to address [the issue of] community or civil rights in Floss for a long time. With the authorization of the highest local nobility, they adopted a political and religious entity of their own and were never subject to the jurisdiction of the civil magistrate. Instead [they were under] the supervision and management of the royal district and regional courts and only paid those duties to the town community, which other outsiders were also bound to pay for purchased property in the town. Nevertheless, there was no lack of attempts by the Jews, who a local government statement likened to a spreading cancer, to buy houses, which were part of the market town of Floss itself and could not be justifiably separated. This was denied them [the Jewish community] by all state authorities in early as well as later times.

On October 19, 1712, the administration in Sulzbach decreed, “Indeed we want to accede with mercy to the most humble request of the Jewish widow of tradesman Enechin that her only son be accepted into the protected status of the Jews of Floss, but care has to be taken that the number of the Jews, who at first were just four families, and has doubled in the meantime, does not rise further.” There were eight Jewish families living in Floss at the time. In 1719 their number grew to 12, in 1738 to 15, with 91 souls. The Jews added four houses that they bought from citizens to the houses that they had built themselves. In 1742 [the size of] the Jewish community was to be scaled back to the original number of families and peddling was to be forbidden to them. But in 1745, Prince-elector Karl Theodor, whose inheritance of the Duchy of Neuburg’s Palatine electorship in 1742 had increased his small property in Sulzbach, conferred a formal letter of protection that guaranteed them [the Jewish community] certain rights. In 1780 the number of Jewish families in Floss had risen to 40, which gained validity as the quota. When the Jews of the Duchy of Sulzbach found the means to exceed the established number of families, the Prince Elector issued pointed instructions to the administration of Sulzbach in 1788/89 not to allow more than the previously determined number of Jewish families to settle either in Sulzbach or in Floss in the future. Those who were already there should be reduced to the set quota.

With a rare uniformity of opinion, the citizenry and the authorities resisted, up until the most recent times, the penetration of the Jews out of their ghetto and down into the actual market town of Floss, located on the floor of the valley. In the name of His Majesty the King of Bavaria, the provincial headquarters of Upper Palatinate in Amberg “notified” Juliana, Baroness of Podewill in Floss on September 14, 1807 that in accordance with the sovereign resolution from August 21, 1807, her application for permission to auction off her house—the old grounds keeper apartment—to Jews as well [as Christians], could not be granted. The federal office was notified about this decision. The sale of the house of Neidhardt, the blacksmith, to a Jew was equally forbidden by the authorities. And in 1872, there was official objection that the Jewish Eisak Schaje [had] bought Michael Bieber’s auction house. Nothing came of it.—

On November 2, 1816, the regional court informed the Floss magistrate that no Jewish family would receive permission to shelter in the market town of Floss without the consent of the municipality, because 1.) the Jews were building their own community 2.) in other communities, Jews were not, by edict, allowed to settle, 3.) the Jews had been allowed sufficient room within their district, which they should and can properly use by building their own allotted new houses, 4.) and lastly, Jewish settlement would deprive tradesmen who are citizens of all commercial trade. It can be seen that, although Jews were given citizenship rights in 1893, their grievous treatment continued.

In order to carry out a clean separation between Jews and Christians, two Jewish dwellings which had stood among Christian properties and had burnt down along with 117 town houses, were not rebuilt where they had burned. Instead, a building area was allotted for them on the Judenberg. From the very beginning, the Jews themselves wanted to live in complete harmony with their Christian fellow men, but were repelled by them and thus the separation between the town and the Judenberg was carried out by force. In this respect, a great injustice was carried out against the Jews of Floss.

On March 12, 1817, the royal magistrate in Floss complained to the regional court in Neustadt, that the Jews, who had been burned out of their homes were meanwhile about to move into those (Christian) citizens’ houses that had been repaired enough for occupancy, not only by the owners, but by other households in need. [They complained further that] with this in mind, the Jews advanced money to the citizenry in order to upgrade their dwellings and promised the owners that they would be able to charge high rents, which the “most severely unfortunate” citizenry would be unable to pay. The result would be that these poor people would have to find shelter in the countryside or in stalls or cellars. On March 16, the regional court ordered the Jews to unilaterally avoid confrontation with the citizenry. On May 13, however, the Royal Bavarian Magistrate of the town complained, that the order issued by the regional court remained ineffective: the magistrate was overrun with inhabitants for whom he should find shelter fit for humans. The Jews were taking the opportunity to acquire better apartments. The complaints of the market administration were successful in so far as, on October 18, 1817, the Interior Ministry of the Upper Main district in Bayreuth informed the Neustadt Regional Court, that the quota for the protected Jews in Floss had been set at 40, and should be left at that. As a result, the number of Jews was ultimately 40 and not more. In 1819/20 the administration tried to dissolve the Jewish community in Floss and incorporate it into the “present” town community. However, the administration decision at issue elicited the fiercest opposition from both communities and the relationship between them seemed to have become a very intense, indeed, an extremely hostile one, because the regional court saw itself as obliged to give the market community a grave warning against assaults on Jews and their property and to signify to them that in the case of riotous acts arising therefrom, the community as a whole would be liable for all damages. The authorities in the community stuck to their position: an isolated Jewish settlement does not exist in the market town of Floss itself but, rather, next to it, which should not compete there with personal, but only property charges. [Furthermore] the Jews could not be tolerated in the town itself, considering that two-thirds of the citizenry have gone into financial collapse through the burdens of war, through the loss of the outside administrative bodies that existed here, through the almost total fire, through the extreme rise in prices and through the proximity of the numerous haggling Jews. [In addition,] the Jews, who had little of their own money, but had financial support from outside, would use this sad situation to acquire, before long, half of the citizenry’s dwellings and to drive out the local families, bringing about an accumulation of Christian and Jewish beggars and starving people which would clearly endanger public safety and no adequate basis to feed these unfortunate people could be found. (In 1826 the Jewish community was said to have more poor people than the Christian.) There were indeed the clearest laws, not only for the limitation but even for the reduction of the Jews in Floss, although they were never strongly applied. The order to reduce the number of Jews, was always just a devout wish and the ban on increasing their numbers remained an empty shell for the most part. If you compare the newly built apartments of the Jews of Floss with the older ones, you would be convinced, that the Jews were met with tolerance and humanity. Only, in their [the Christian citizens’] minds, tolerance meant carte blanche for Jews to force Christians from their historic home and to make them slaves to Israel.—

At the request of the community representatives, the whole citizenry assembled in the town hall on July 8, 1819 to take note of the upper government resolution, given in Bayreuth on May 11, 1819, according to which the Jews in the local market town had received rights under local laws and could settle in the community wherever they wished. “Since the whole citizenry expressed their dissatisfaction with this highly unexpected reform and could not be mollified, it was unanimously decided, to appeal to the royal Bavarian privy council in Munich.” (Thirteen citizens signed the report with +++). —According to the August 13, 1819 [document], the office of the community leaders in Floss declared: “If the proliferation of the Jews goes ahead at this rate, the now 64 families will jump to 800 within a century and thereafter, Christians will no longer exist in the entire municipality of what was formerly Floss.” On December 29, 1820, the town administration reported to the county court, that before the edict about the Jews from June 10, 1813 was issued, the Jews hadn’t multiplied as much in 10 years, as they now do now in one. Previously, ownership of a house was a condition for being granted a Jewish protection [letter]. With this wise provision, the local Christian community had been protected from the proliferation of the Jews so far, in that there couldn’t be more Jewish families than available Jewish houses here. Lately, the Christian community, to their deepest dismay, saw blanket letters of protection issued for the Jewish population. In this way, the increase in the Jewish population would be an unavoidable manifestation.

The Christians’ fear of the further proliferation of the Jews was boundless. If you read the relevant records, you can’t help but feel stunned and ask, were they serious or just putting it on? Was the indignation real or feigned? It almost sends a shiver down your spine, when, while studying the records, you come across documents with the following content: The incorporation of the Judenberg into the market community would surely result in the complete ruin and total collapse of the citizenry. The correlation is exactly this: as the Jewish community grew in number over time, the prosperity of the [Christian] citizenry sank. In the case of incorporation [from the Christian point of view at the time]: the Jews will soon have the majority of Christian houses under their control. It will take less than the time from the first Jewish settlement until now to see all the Christians forced out. The proximity of the Jews facilitates and exacerbates the manifold opportunities for prodigality, procrastination and debt-accumulation by young people, frivolous females and dissolute men. Pandora’s box had not unleashed as much calamity in the world as the co-mingling of Jews and Christians in the local community would. You only have to observe the squabbling among them [the Jews], to fill the Christians with fear that sooner or later their unfortunate lot would be to get a Jew as a neighbor. Thus, just as they foster eternal enmity, unceasing drudgery and deliberate contention among themselves, every single one of them will act in the same manner with citizens of the [Christian] community. Not the least significant community matter can be dealt with in an orderly, peaceful way, without argument, without ridicule and without legal intervention by higher authorities. Neither the smallest issue nor the slightest contribution can be raised without some people setting themselves against it out of maliciousness or dogmatism. The incorporation of the Jews would be just as great a misfortune for the town as being completely destroyed by fire, [a fate] from which it hoped to be spared by the government’s wisdom.”

This strongly-worded protest against the incorporation of the Jewish community was not without success. According to the resolution of the royal Bavarian administration of the Upper Main district from February 19, 1824, in accordance with a sovereign edict from February 9, 1824, the mandated incorporation of the Jews would be lifted, because the investigation beforehand had revealed that the Jews had built their own community, separate and apart from the town. Thus Sections 21 and 22 of the edict from June 10, 1813, about the circumstances of Jewish co-religionists, did not apply. As a result the Jewish community felt compelled to send a very thorough petition to the king, asking for either a total separation from or a complete integration with the market town of Floss. The existing middle course had become unbearable. “Why should there be, only in Floss, special obstacles to what has been implemented without impediment in the whole Kingdom of Bavaria? According to sovereign provisions, we should quit buying and selling, and gain our living from other trades or from agriculture. But then, even though we live in one and the same place, they keep us isolated—a Jewish community, which should help Christian citizens carry the [collective] burden but still is not granted the rights of members of the community. We have surely earned, as honest subjects, that the beneficial direction (of the new legislation) that all of our brothers blessedly enjoy and that are withheld only in Floss, will also come to fruition for us.” Nothing seems to have been achieved from the approach to the king other than that, in certain cases, a representative of the Judenberg should be called to meetings of the community representatives. Furthermore, the Jewish settlement counted as its own village, which shared only the police department with the market community. (A “statistical overview of the condition of the community” in 1842, the next year, spoke of the market town of Floss together with the adjoining Jewish settlement.) A relocation of the Jews, the purchase of houses and the exercise of a business interests by the Jews in the town was dependent upon the approval of the citizenry, which would never be obtained.

In 1839, the Jews filed a civil law suit against the town to acquire rights in the community, but their case was denied. The exodus of the Jews seemed to have begun soon afterward, because the town administration of Floss made the following announcement on July 1, 1845. As a result of a community decision, all Jewish families, who had been allowed to rent in the town because of special patronage, would have to move out of their domiciles within a quarter of a year and look for shelter on the Judenberg. Apartments were empty there, and yes, many houses were offered for sale, so the preferential treatment was lifted. “It was all about upholding a constitutional principle and protecting the legal status of the Christian community whose rights were anchored in the State’s constitution. No amount of money could compensate for or alter it [their legal status].” For this reason, the town administration latterly explained to the regional court of Neustadt on October 8, 1846, that the Jews in Floss were only protected non-citizens and weren’t fully entitled members of the community.

A review of the circumstances of the Jews in Floss in 1848 showed that the number of families was 13 more than the 40 allowed in the civil register, with 11 not entered in the register. Thus, the whole amounted to 64. The number of souls totaled 385. Seventy people had emigrated to North America in the last six years.

The opposition had become milder since 1848, the centuries of disputes between Jews and Christians stopped as the two groups became closer and finally joined together. Although community, county court and administration came out against it, a sovereign resolution on November 11, 1861 incorporated the previously isolated Jewish community into the market community of Floss. The complete and final merger of the two neighboring communities, who had been hostile to each other for so long, only occurred in 1869/70. A resolution of the Upper Palatinate district administration from March 7, 1870 handled the circumstances of the Jews of Floss to the satisfaction of both parties. The royal administration found: “The so-called Judenberg in Floss, earlier inhabited exclusively by Jews, does form a component of the market town of Floss, but because of a continued refusal of the citizenry there to countenance an integration of the Jews into the town community, the sovereign ministry passed a resolution on February 9 and June 7, 1824. The resolution declared that according to Section 3 of the community edict, the Judenberg will be considered part of the municipality of Floss only in matters concerning the police. The community administration followed suit with its own edit on February 19, 1824. This exceptional circumstance was maintained until recently and even reaffirmed through administration resolution of February 13, 1861. The situation was partly brought about because of the former laws of exception in regard to the Jews, which didn’t however correspond to the factual conditions. It was founded in the continuing opposition of the Christians in Floss to a union of the Jewish community with the town community and in the entrenched adherence of the regional court in Neustadt to the outmoded views of the previous century that extended far beyond the legislation that still existed then and was no longer in force. It was founded, as well, in the constant endeavors of the court to hinder each step of the Jews toward assimilation or rapprochement with the Christians and to maintain the strictest exclusivity. The assumption that the Judenberg was its own municipality was pure fiction, because in truth it was nothing other than a street in Floss without a separate municipal boundary. The creation of a special Jewish quarter was not compatible with the newer legislation (since 1813). The regional court had deceived the higher administrative authorities. Through the changes of the administrative authorities in Neustadt, as well as through the resolution to repeal all still existing exceptional laws relating to settlement and trade by Jews, which was almost contemporaneously passed by the parliament on November 11, 1861, the time had come for Jews to gain full rights of citizenship in the community and in the principality. In 1870, Jews lived in the town, while conversely, Christians had bought houses on the Judenberg. After the community ordinance of 1869 came into effect, two Jews were elected to the community council. What’s more, the Jewish community’s firefighting equipment was transferred to the market community. Relief for the Jewish poor, with the exception of the so-called “charity meals”, was combined with that of the Christian poor, although a Jewish poor house existed. And the implemented merger was unanimously endorsed with a resolution by the Jewish religious community on January 18, 1890 and one by the market community on January 20, 1890. What a turnaround in the opinions and attitudes in just a few years! Subsequently, the “Market” and the “Hill” grew profoundly intertwined and the Christian community was in no way, as the old folks feared, displaced or destroyed. On the contrary, by now, 28 of the 40 Jewish houses on the Hill are owned by Christians, while only 2 houses in the Town have become property of Jews. Jews and Christians live peacefully, even on friendly terms, with each other. The present Jews of Floss feel themselves absolutely to be native Germans, who deserve that we regard them as brothers of equal worth in the national sense.

Within a generation, the Jewish religious community has become small, after having reached their highest level in 1842. In 1684, they numbered: 4 families, 1712: 8, 1719: 12, 1738: 15 families with 91 people, 1780: 40 families, 1808: 242 souls, 1830: 325 souls, 1842: 72 families with 394 souls, 1871: 191; 1880: 119, 1890: 75, 1900: 43, now 30-40 souls. Until about the middle of the previous century (1842), that is to say, under difficult circumstances, the Jews increased. Since then, a rapid decrease has occurred, although they finally succeeded in breaking the chains that had bound them and held them down for centuries, and won equal civil rights and freedom of gainful employment. What caused the sudden exodus of the Jews of Floss? The unfriendly even hateful behavior of the Christians against their Jewish neighbors may have induced some of them [to end] their sojourn in Floss. However the relocation to Weiden, Regensburg, Munich, Nuremburg, Bayreuth and other places was caused mainly by the fact that our town, from the beginning, was situated far from the main road. In the middle of the previous century, too, it was far from the main railroad and only got a local railroad in 1886. Moreover, the Jewish tradesmen had significant competitors among the Christian populace. Through business acumen, indefatigable diligence and prudence, those who had moved away, almost without exception, broke through to prosperity, even to wealth. Yet also those who remained faithful to their hometown have not done badly. They enjoy a high standing in Floss and in the greater area around it. Their businesses flourish and their prosperity grows visibly. In honor of the deceased and to the rightful satisfaction of the Jews living today, I can affirm, that the many still existing, written entries in the town registries, do not contain any accusations or indications on the part of Christian inhabitants that local Jews may have been dishonest, usurious in intention, or exploitative. Neither is there any mention of such things in oral tradition. An antisemitism in the usual sense of the word never existed in Floss. May our home be spared from such national aberrations in the future, too! Our native-born Jews, who, just like Christian Germans, sacrificed enormously (2 casualties: Ludwig Ansbacher and Richard Wetzler) in the ill-fated world war, deserve no affront, denigration or hostility either on account of their heritage and religion or personal traits or business practices. May German culture unite Christians and Jews in peaceful coexistence!