Social Exclusion and Deprivation of Rights of the Jews of Bad Kissingen

At the same time as the dictatorship of the National Socialists, advancing policies of social exclusion and deprivation of rights of the Jewish population started. Their aim was to deprive the Jewish fellow citizens of their bases of existence and to increase the pressure on them to emigrate. Immediately after the seizure of power of the Nazis, the first boycott actions against Jewish businesses and repressions against Jewish citizens began.

Kupsch Boykott 1933

NS-Geschäftsboykott gegen "Kupsch & Co" 1933 wegen jüdischen Teilhabers
© Hans-Jürgen Beck

Reglementierung 3

The following chart shows the different phases of the persecution of the Jewish population and gives a detailed overview of the concrete transformation of the policy of social exclusion in the spa town.

Social Exclusion and Deprivation of Rights of the Jews of Bad Kissingen

  • "protective custody" against Jewish citizens
  • house searches
  • agitation against emigrated Jews in Nazi press
  • “swimming pool affair” (ban for Jewish spa guests)
  • nightly acts of terrorism against Jewish shops and private citizens
  • anti-Semitic rallies of spa guests against “invasion of Jews”
  • mounting of anti-Semitic signs 
  • maltreatment of a Jew by members of SA
  • riots on Kissingen Market Place against Jewish merchants
  • desecrating of the Jewish Cemetery

AIM: displacement from social life – loss of means of existence – Increase of pressure to emigrate

  • Dismissal of non-Jewish domestic workers in Jewish households
  • attempted Ostracism of Jewish students
  • refusal of concessions for Jewish spa establishments
  • marking of Jewish establishments
  • restrictions for Jewish spa guests by means of new terms of use:
    • Yellow spa cards
    • Ban from entering the spa gardens, the spa house, the spa theatre, the medicinal springs, the pump room and gallery
    • Marked benches for Jews 

AIM: displacement from social life – loss of means of existence – Increase of pressure to emigrate

  • Riots of the November Pogrom
    • Synagogue set on fire
    • Damaging of Jewish spa establishments, businesses and private homes
    • Arrest of 28 Jews (14 of whom were deported into Dachau Concentration Camp)
    • Humiliation of imprisoned Jews: police leads Jews chained together to the Jewish Cemetery and forces them to dig for “incriminating materials” in vain
    • Insults by Kissingen citizens
  • complete exclusion of Jewish spa guests
  • “Aryanisation” of Jewish businesses
  • prohibition of Jewish religious services

 AIM: displacement from social life – loss of means of existence – Increase of pressure to emigrate
 

  • Forced relocation of Jews in special “Jews’ Houses”
  • Obligation to do underpaid forced labor
  • Confiscation of Jewish possessions
  • Deportation of 23 Kissingen Jews to Krasnizcyn (April 1942)
  • Deportation of the remaining 18 Kissingen Jews into Theresienstadt Concentration Camp (September 1942)

Aim: extermination of the Jewish population   - murder of at least.... Bad Kissingen Jews