Kehla Bamberger was born in Schrimm (now Srem) near Posen/ Poznan (Poland) on January 4, 1893. She was the daughter of the Rabbi Dr. Seckel Bamberger and his wife Nannette, née Bamberger. Her father was the Rabbi of Schrimm at that time. In 1902, the whole family moved to Bad Kissingen, as Seckel Bamberger had become the successor of his late father-in-law and started his new post as the District Rabbi in the newly built synagogue. 

Kehla, who had remained unmarried and had, therefore, stayed at home with her mother, managed the boardinghouse “Villa Adelaïde” at Promenadestrasse 5c (now 17) together with her mother. The family had built the generous house themselves in 1908. At the beginning, the Bamberger’s establishment was not in danger of being closed in 1938 like most of the other similar Jewish spa establishments were in that year. 

In the course of the Pogrom Night of November 9, 1938 Kehla was arrested. But she was released from the prison of Bad Kissingen Amtsgericht (District Court) two days later, because only Jewish men were supposed to be arrested in the night of the pogrom. In 1940, Kehla Bamberger had to move to Hemmerichstrasse 12. In those days most Jewish citizens were gathered in so-called “Jews’ houses”. On April 24, 1942, on which Kehla Bamberger’s register card bears the hand-written entry “collective transport”, she was deported to Krasniczyn via Würzburg and died in one of the extermination camps near Lublin. 

(Thomas Künzl)