Salomon Leuthold came from a family that had been living in Bad Kissingen for five centuries. He was born there on May 25, 1862 as the son of the tailor Hermann Leuthold and the baker’s daughter Karoline (Kaja) Schwed.

After attending Kissingen Realschule, he continued the family tradition and later became the owner of a textile shop at Marktplatz 2. In 1895 he married Rosa Bergmann from Völkersleier and had three children with her: Leo, Martha and Gertrud. In September 1895, Salomon Leuthold was granted the citizen’s right of Bad Kissingen. In or around 1926, Leuthold sold his house at Marktplatz to Solms Heymann. (A Stumbling Stone reminds you of that fact in that place.) Leuthold held on to his right of living in the building for himself and his family and lived there till his deportation.

He was an active member of the Jewish Cultural Community. In about 1919 he was elected a substitute for the Cultural Administration. His name is often mentioned in connection with the administration of the synagogue. Leuthold belonged to those 28 citizens who were arrested in Bad Kissingen during Pogrom Night on November 9, 1938. But he was released from “Schutzhaft” (protective custody) two days later because of his old age; he was 76 by then. In a letter of 1940, the town administration found fault with the sanitary conditions in his apartment. Nowadays it may be assumed that it was a sheer chicane, the only reason of which was to put pressure on the old man of then 78 years. He was threatened with “harshest measures” on that occasion.

On May 1, 1942, when he was 80, Leuthold had to move to Würzburg into “Juden-Altersheim”, the Jewish Old People’s Home in Dürerstrasse 20. On transport II/26 he was deported from Würzburg via Nuremberg on September 24, 1942 into Theresienstadt Concentration Camp. The death list in this concentration camp mentions his death on April 9, 1943 without more detailed references to the circumstances.

His son Leo and his daughter Martha (married Burghardt) managed to escape to the USA and Argentine in time. After the end of Nazi Dictatorship, they had a plaque mounted in the Jewish Cemetery of Bad Kissingen: “Zum Gedenken/ unseres unvergesslichen Vaters/ Salomon Leuthold/ in Theresienstadt umgekommen/ Leo Leuthold – USA/ Martha Burghart/ geb. Leuthold – Argentinien/ Er war der Letzte der Familie, welche ununterbrochen/ 500 Jahre in Bad Kissingen lebte“. (In remembrance of/ our unforgotten father/ Salomon Leuthold/ perished in Theresienstadt/ Leo Leuthold… / He was the last one of our family/ who had been living / for over 500 years in Bad Kissingen”.

(Hans-Jürgen Beck and Thomas Künzl)