OBERSULM incorporating AFFALTRACH: 49°09' N 8°41' E. Obersulm is a municipality in the district of Heilbronn formed in the 1970-s as a merger of the formerly independent municipalities Talheim,Sontheim, Horkheim, Öhringen, Eschenau, Lehrensteinsfeld,  Affaltrach, Eichelberg, Eschenau, Sülzbach, Weiler, and Willsbach,12 km E of Heilbronn. Its name refers to its geographical location in the upper ("Ober-") valley of the small river Sulm. Jewish cemetery [detailed history, pictures] in Affaltrach in the municipality of Obersulm was used from about 1670 to 1942. Jews from Affaltrach and other surrounding Jewish communities used this location north of Affaltrach on the northern slope of the Nordhang des Salzberges . Of the fifteen Jewish cemeteries in the district of Heilbronn,this is the oldest and has an area of 73.3 Ar, also one of the largest with more than 600 visible graves.The present entrance, a 1926 newly built morgue (Taharahaus), and a memorial for fallen Jewish soldiers of the First World War are present. [Mar 2013]

74182 Baden-Württemberg (Gerz, Peters).

DISTRICT: Heilbronn.

LOCATION OF CEMETERY: Salzberg, north of Affaltrach (Detail).

IN USE: From about 1665/1670 until 1942. Oldest datable gravestone 1677 (Ritter/Nir 1995, page 9).

NUMBER OF GRAVESTONES:

DOCUMENTATION:

o        From around mid 1980 up to 1998 photographs of all gravestones, mapping of graves, and copies of all gravestone inscriptions with translations in Affaltrach.

o        1990 photographs of all 529 gravestones and mapping of graves by Zentralarchiv.

o        Numerous photographs of individual gravestones and general cemetery views in Alemannia Judaica.

PUBLICATIONS:

o        1 Photographic survey and 2 photographs of single gravestones by Württemberg 1932, page 51.

o        History by Nebel 1963, page 29.

o        History by Kahl 1987

o        Theobald 1984: history page 79; photographic survey page 96.

o        Martin Ritter and Benjamin Nir: Der jüdische Friedhof Affaltrach Obersulm 1998. 469 pages (Deutsche Nationalbibliothek) and Der jüdische Friedhof Affaltrach : ausgewählte Grabsteine Obersulm 1995. 109 pages  (Deutsche Nationalbibliothek).

o        Dokumentation über den Affaltracher Judenfriedhof: Steinerne Zeugen in almost 500 pages by Rolf Muth (haGalil.com).

NOTES:

o        This cemetery was also used for burials up to 1840 by the  surrounding Jewish communities of  Sontheim, Talheim and Horkheim and thereafter also by the communities of Lehrensteinsfeld and Eschenau.

o        From the 17^th century up to January 1941 a total of 700 burials took place in this cemetery. The last burials were between January and August 1942. During this period 12 residents from a Jewish old people's home were buried here. They had died in the Jewish old people's in the Eschenauer Schloß (Eschenauer castle) set up compulsorily by the Nazi government during 1941/42..

o        The cemetery was vandalised during the 1950s and 1960s, especially the newer part (Ritter/Nir 1995, page 12).

o        There is a stone memorial in the cemetery in honour of the Fallen solders of WW1 from the Jewish communities of Affaltrach, Eschenau and Lehrensteinsfeld. The erstwhile mortuary is still standing.

SOURCES: University of Heidelberg and Alemannia Judaica.

To see information and photographs of individual gravestones in cemeteries in Baden-Wuerttemberg, click on this link and follow the directions on that page.

(Researched and translated from German August 2008)