Kirn had a Jewish community until sometime between 1938 and 1942 . Even as far back as the Middle Ages , there were Jews living in the town . The violent persecution that took place on 21 September 1287 ( 11 Tishri 5048 according to data in Siegmund Salfeld ’s '' Das Martyrologium des Nürnberger Memorbuches '' ) saw the murder of six Jews in Kirn . This is believed , for it did after all happen in the same year , to have been linked to the wave of pogroms that swept the region as a result of the Oberwesel blood libel ( see '' ' Werner of Oberwesel ' '' ) . The survivors moved away from Kirn . In the earlier half of the 14th century , however , there were once again Jews living in the town . The Waldgrave of Kyrburg , then the town ’s lord , took ownership of three Jews , after having secured leave from King Albrecht to do so in 1301 . In 1330 , Waldgrave Johann asked for the number of Jews ( or Jewish families ) to be raised to 15 , which was likewise approved by the Emperor . Jewish life in the town was , however , destroyed in the antisemitic persecution that arose in the time of the Plague ( 1348-1349 ) . It is believed that Kirn ’s Jewish families saw to their own institutions , such as a prayer room and a graveyard : from the 16th century to the 19th , there was still a cadastral area within the town named “ Of dem Judenkirchof ” ( “ On the Jews ’ Churchyard ” ) in memory of an old Jewish graveyard . Between the 15th and 18th centuries , there were apparently no Jewish residents at all in Kirn . Only in 1693 , during one of French King Louis XIV 's occupations , is a Jewish inhabitant mentioned as being in town for a short while . From the mid 19th century , there were once again Jewish families living in Kirn . The number of Jewish inhabitants developed as follows : in 1843 , there were none ; in 1858 , 5 ; in 1866 , 45 ; in 1895 , 104 ( 1.8 % of all together 5,639 inhabitants ) . The Jews who had moved to town were by and large from smaller outlying places in the region , among others Hennweiler , Bruschied , Becherbach , Simmern unter Dhaun ( today Simmertal ) , Merxheim , Meddersheim , Sien , Laufersweiler and Hottenbach . After 1900 , the Jews living in Becherbach became part of the Kirn Jewish community , having hitherto belonged to the Hundsbach community . The actual entity known as the Jewish community ( the '' Israelitische Religionsgesellschaft in Kirn '' ) was founded in 1866 when a leadership and representatives were elected and at the same time both a men 's association and a women 's association came into being . Appearing on the 1866 list of “ Jews who have been empowered to exercise the franchise ” were Jacob Ullmann ( salesman ) , David Ullmann ( merchant ) , David Wolf ( spice dealer from Löllbach ) , Moses Lieb ( salesman ) Abraham Scholem ( merchant ) , Marcus Loeb ( merchant from Weierbach ) and Jacob Mayer ( musician , innkeeper from Hennweiler ) . In the way of institutions , there were a synagogue ( see '' ' Synagogue ' '' below ) , a Jewish school , a mikveh and a graveyard ( see '' ' Jewish graveyard ' '' below ) . To provide for the community 's religious needs , a schoolteacher was hired , who also busied himself as the hazzan and the shochet ( preserved is a whole series of job advertisements for such a position in Kirn from such publications as '' Der Israelit '' ) . Among the religion teachers were Joseph Seligmann ( about 1880 ) , Max Goldschmidt ( about 1892 ; born in 1871 in Schlüchtern ; died at Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1943 ) , Joseph Nathan Kahn ( in 1898-1899 ; born in 1877 in Rieneck ; had been a teacher in Babenhausen , after his short time in Kirn he moved to Offenbach am Main ) , Bernhard Weil ( beginning in 1908 ; born in 1868 in Eichstetten , died in 1943 in Noé , Haute-Garonne , France , was until February 1939 in Kirn , thereafter and until his deportation in October 1940 in Karlsruhe ; further details can be found at the end of this section ) . One member of Kirn 's Jewish community fell in the First World War , Alfred Moritz ( b. 16 May 1890 in Meisenheim , d. 20 June 1916 ) . In 1925 , Kirn 's Jewish community numbered 106 ( 1.4 % of the total population ) . In 1932 , the Jewish community 's leaders were Ferdinand Schmelzer ( head of leadership ) , since 1911 the owner of a shop that sold brushes and household goods at Radergasse 1 , Dr. med . Richard Asch ( second leader ) , who since 1918 had had a medical practice at Bahnhofstraße 11 , was a doctor for the Deutsche Reichsbahn , and was said to be called the “ poor man ’s doctor ” for his charitable engagement , and Wilhelm Vogel I ( third leader ) , a merchant who lived at Neuestraße 9 . Still working as teacher , cantor and shochet was the same Bernhard Weil already named . In the 1931-1932 school year , he taught 12 Jewish children from the community in religion . After 1933 , the year when Adolf Hitler and the Nazis seized power , though , some of the Jews ( that year , almost 100 persons ) moved away or even emigrated in the face of the boycotting of their businesses , the progressive stripping of their rights and repression , all brought about by the Nazis . On Kristallnacht ( 9 – 10 November 1938 ) , the synagogue 's interior was utterly destroyed by Brownshirt thugs , and perhaps worse , 13 Jewish homes were also invaded and demolished . Nevertheless , there were still 39 Jewish inhabitants in Kirn in 1939 . The last eleven Jewish inhabitants were deported to the camps in July 1942 . According to the '' Gedenkbuch – Opfer der Verfolgung der Juden unter der nationalsozialistischen Gewaltherrschaft in Deutschland 1933-1945 '' ( “ Memorial Book – Victims of the Persecution of the Jews under National Socialist Tyranny ” ) and Yad Vashem , of all Jews who either were born in Kirn or lived there for a long time , 50 died in the time of the Third Reich ( birthdates in brackets ) : Bernhard Weil , third from the bottom in the list and also mentioned earlier , was born on 19 June 1868 in Eichstetten to Isaak Weil and Pauline '' née '' Rotschild . He had himself trained as a schoolteacher and a cantor and worked as such from 1908 to 1939 in Kirn ( and before that in Leutershausen Bergstraße , among other places )
Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht
Kirn