The Jewish community of Mainstockheim

Jews have lived in Mainstockheim for over 400 years. Since the last six Jewish families were deported by the National Socialists in 1942, the town has not spoken publicly about the time with the Jews.

This only changed in November 2006, when almost 100 visitors from all generations came to a discussion evening on the subject of "Jews in Mainstockheim" in the town hall on the initiative of the Catholic parish of St. Gumbert and Mayor Karl Dieter Fuchs. The former synagogue, abandoned in 1938 after the Reichspogromnacht, has been the Catholic church in Mainstockheim since 1956. Michael Schneeberger from Kitzingen, a member of the Jewish community in Würzburg, reported on his research with pictures and maps. The sources are good, as the Jewish community's register books with marriages, births and deaths have always been kept by the political community. Schneeberger used many small examples to report on the good integration into the village community, including the hidden support from other Mainstockheim residents.

At times, the Jews in Mainstockheim accounted for up to 15 percent of the population and were the largest Jewish community in Lower Franconia. Until the end, they lived in close proximity to the rest of the population as wine and livestock merchants, but also as poor day laborers. In 1540, the first Jews came to the wine village on the Main after their expulsion from Würzburg Abbey, tolerated and supported by the Margrave of Ansbach and several others, including the Barons of Bechtolsheim from Mainsondheim. From 15 Jewish families in 1695, the numbers increased significantly from 1760 onwards, aided by the expulsion of the Jews from Kitzingen. It was good that the Jews were still able to sell their popular goods at the market in Kitzingen even during the expulsion.

Shortly after the new synagogue was built in 1837, the community reached its peak with 212 people. When Jews were allowed to live in Kitzingen again in 1861, many left or moved to other towns in the German Reich. In 1933, the community still had 74 members.

During the general renovation of the Catholic church in 2003, the structural character and the rules of the Jewish house of worship with regard to the pictorial representation of God forbidden in the Old Testament of the Bible were taken into account during the redesign. The jewel in the crown is the colored arched window above the place where the Torah once stood, dating from 1836.

The last Jewish teacher Siegbert Friedmann and Walter Reed from the Rindsberg family in Mainstockheim were particularly prominent figures in the recent history of the Jewish community. For teacher Friedmann and his family, so-called "Stolpersteine" were laid by the Bavarian Teachers' Association in front of the former synagogue in the fall of 2022; for the Rindsberg family in Mühlweg, this took place on November 18, 2011, where Walter Reed, the only survivor of the family, also came from the USA and gave a very personal speech that many still remember today. Father Siegfried Rindsberg was a co-founder of the local soccer club FC Mainstockheim.