Medieval Synagogue of Diessenhofen

La comunidad judía

According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, which draws on Pupikofer's history of Thurgau and on Löwenstein's history of the Jews of the Lake Constance region, the Jews of Diessenhofen were accused in 1348 of poisoning the wells. Their houses were plundered by the mob and some were burned at the stake. The Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz states that the community was wiped out in 1349. Jews settled again within half a century: in 1396 Michael Vinelmann (Veitelmann) and his son Gütlieb were admitted on payment of eight gulden a year. After the killings of 1401 Jews returned once more. In 1426 the indebted town admitted a Jew as citizen to help meet its heavy yearly tax, over the objection of Junker Molli of Diessenhofen. In 1453 the Jews Triefus (Dreifus) and Mennlis each paid two pounds of heller in tax; Mennlis received a two-year safe-conduct in 1479 and moved to Thiengen in 1481. The town was taken by the Swiss Confederates in 1460, and Thurgau became a common lordship. Attempts to expel the Jews of Thurgau began in 1482; the Jews of Diessenhofen were granted protection for three years in 1489 and had to leave in 1494.

Arquitectura y diseño

Nothing is known of the building's form. No plan, view, excavation report or building record of the medieval synagogue of Diessenhofen was found, and neither the Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz nor the Jewish Encyclopedia describes it. Whether it was a free-standing building or, like the synagogue of medieval Zurich in the Froschaugasse, a room built into an ordinary town house is unknown. Its date of construction, size, materials and builder are also unknown. The only clue to its location is the tradition recorded in 1903 that it stood on the plot later occupied by the house 'Zum Erker', which lies on the Hauptstrasse, the main street of the walled old town. The German Wikipedia article on the town notes that the old town keeps its original medieval street layout, so the plot itself probably lies within the medieval town as it was laid out under the Kyburg and Habsburg lords, but whether any part of the present house incorporates older fabric has not been investigated in any source read.

La vida dentro de la sinagoga

The sources say almost nothing about worship or teaching in the building. The Jewish Encyclopedia states plainly that nothing is known of the religious life of the Jews of Diessenhofen, except that they were forbidden to sell meat slaughtered according to Jewish ritual on the ordinary meat stalls of the town, which implies that the community had its own ritual slaughter and arranged its own sale of kosher meat. The names of no rabbi, cantor or teacher have come down. The community was always small: the few households named in the records, such as Michael Vinelmann and his son Gütlieb in 1396, or the families of Triefus and Mennlis in the 1450s, were moneylenders and traders admitted on payment of a yearly tax and under limited safe-conducts. The synagogue would have served as the prayer room and meeting place for this handful of families and perhaps for Jews from the surrounding villages, but no document read records its use, its furnishings or any event that took place inside it.

Destrucción

No source records the end of the synagogue building. The Jewish Encyclopedia describes the plunder of Jewish houses by the mob in 1348 and says that more than three hundred Jews fled to the fortress of Kyburg; when the Austrian governor was himself threatened by the towns of Diessenhofen and Winterthur, the refugees were either expelled to their persecutors or, by other accounts, burned by the governor on 18 September 1349. In 1401, after the governor's outrider murdered the four-year-old Konrad, son of councillor Hermann Lory, and blamed the Jew Michael Vinelmann, Vinelmann was burned alive without trial. Neither account mentions the synagogue. In 1494 the Jews of Diessenhofen had to leave with the other Jews of Thurgau, then a common lordship of the Swiss Confederates; Pupikofer records that the Confederate envoys refused to extend their safe-conduct. The building may have been destroyed in 1348-1349 or reused and later replaced after 1494. Who demolished it, and when, is not recorded.

El destino de la comunidad

The medieval Jews of Diessenhofen met the fate of most Jewish communities on the Upper Rhine. In 1348-1349, during the Black Death, some were burned in the town after the well-poisoning accusation, and those who had fled to Kyburg were, according to the sources cited by the Jewish Encyclopedia, either handed over to their persecutors or burned by the Austrian governor on 18 September 1349; the Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz says simply that the community was wiped out. In 1401 Michael Vinelmann was burned alive on a false ritual-murder charge, and the case set off new persecutions in Schaffhausen and Winterthur, where Jews were burned or forced to accept baptism. The four-year-old victim, Konrad Lory, was venerated as a saint. The last Jews left in 1494, when they were expelled together with the other Jews of Thurgau. For several centuries afterwards no Jews lived in the town; Jews from nearby Gailingen who came to trade had to pay a special toll, and until the late eighteenth century they could not cross the Rhine bridge on Sundays. A Jew was allowed to settle again in 1865.

El lugar hoy

The house 'Zum Erker' stands at Hauptstrasse 40 in the old town of Diessenhofen; OpenStreetMap records it as a plastered, coral-coloured building. According to the tradition reported by the Jewish Encyclopedia, it occupies the site of the medieval synagogue. No source read records an archaeological investigation of the plot, any surviving medieval fabric of the synagogue, or a marker on the house. The house does not appear by name in the online list of cultural property for the municipality that could be read. Diessenhofen's old town as a whole keeps its medieval street plan, so the plot lies on the original main street running under the Siegelturm gate.

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