They are a surprisingly sober and touching 27 lines, written in a clear, firm and striking script. They came to the Sommerach municipal archive via a bequest. A 79-year-old Jewish citizen named Abraham August Mohrenwitz is the sender of the letter. He obviously wanted to make a Sommerach citizen happy - at a time that was to become less joyful for the writer himself: the National Socialists had taken power a few months earlier.
The letter was sent from Frankfurt am Main on July 12, 1933 from Bürgerstraße 10, as expressly noted. It was addressed to the "Gasthofbesitzer zum Schwan" in Sommerach. Apparently August Mohrenwitz had been out of contact with his birthplace Sommerach for too long, so he could not have known that the owner Franz Schmitt had already died in 1930. At that time, his wife was running the renowned inn: Margarete Schmitt with her two daughters Agnes and Ida.
The primary purpose of the letter was an original document that Mohrenwitz wanted to send back to Sommerach. He had "found a billiard concession" among the papers of his ancestors. He therefore suggested that this historical document could perhaps be hung up in a guest room "as a reminder of the past".
The "innkeeper of the Schwanen zu Sommerach", Dominicus Mohr, had applied for the license to play billiards and the "royal Bavarian district court in the Lower Main district of Volkach" had approved it on May 9, 1817. The document shows what the authorities thought of this new-fashioned pastime at the time. "Only respected foreigners and residents, excluding young people" were permitted to play billiards, as was expressly noted.
Dominicus Mohr was the second landlord of the Schwane from around 1809. He is described in an "anniversary gazette" from 1900 as "a finely educated man, very pleasant to deal with". It goes on to say that he brought the Schwane "to great heights through fine cuisine and an excellent cellar". One of the special features of the house was the billiard table.
After his death in February 1849, the restaurant was owned by the Jewish families Samson and Lämmlein (Levi) Mohrenwitz from Sommerach until around 1866. Both were involved in the wine trade, Samson in the stately inn and his brother Lämmlein a stone's throw away in what is now Maintorstraße 14, the property of the Lothar Utz family. Levi's son, the letter writer, was born in this house on June 26, 1854. He spent the first twelve years of his life in Sommerach until 1866, when his family moved to Schweinfurt.
One detail of his childhood remained engraved in his memory well into old age: the billiard table. Mohrenwitz knew his relatives' inn and decades later still knew exactly where it was, namely "on the first floor in the hall". In retrospect, he wrote that the "purchase of a billiard table in those days for the fine inn" was a great "achievement". Such a game also testified to "the progressive spirit of the better inhabitants and the incoming foreigners of the old days".
Although the Jewish community in Sommerach, which numbered over 100 people in the 19th century, was subject to some hostility from the other residents, August Mohrenwitz obviously enjoyed his childhood years in the wine-growing village.
"I still like to think of my birthplace Sommerach", he writes and concludes his letter with a request: "If any of my contemporaries are still alive, please give them my best regards". He therefore deliberately adds "born June 26, 1854" after the greeting line "Yours sincerely, A. Mohrenwitz".
It is hard to believe that a schoolmate would have reacted in view of the aggressively anti-Semitic and inhuman political circumstances. To today's reader, the emotionless letter from the 79-year-old seems like an unspoken cry for help: as if August Mohrenwitz was just looking for an excuse to remember himself and long for the better times of a long life by sending the license to play billiards.
This unexpected greeting from Frankfurt was not without significance for the Schmitt family. Otherwise they would not have kept the letter from the Sommerach native and even had a copy made, which is now in the community archives. Abraham August Mohrenwitz died in miserable circumstances in Wiesbaden in 1942 at the age of 88. In the end, disenfranchised and pushed around.
