CRAILSHEIM: Crailsheim is a town Incorporated in 1338, 32 km E of Schwäbisch Hall and 40 km SW of Ansbach in the Schwäbisch Hall district. Crailsheim's railroad and airfield were heavily defended during World War II. US bombing and artillery shelling during a second US conquest destroyed much of the city with subsequent fires consuming its historic inner city. Only the Johanneskirche (St. John's Church) escaped . Crailsheim became the postwar home to the U.S. Army's McKee Barracks until the facility closed in January of 1994. Excellent tourism brochure in English. By 1933 only 160 Jews remained when discrimination against Jews had already begun. The overt discrimiation forced them to flee.
Cemetery photos. The Jewish dead were first buried in Schopfloch (Ansbach), but s since 1841 the road to Beuerlbacher (parcel 1296) afforded a separate cemetery used until about 1940 with more than 400 burials. In the cemetery is a memorial plaque for the seven Jewish victims of World War I from Crailsheim (originally installed in the synagogue) and a plaque with the names of Jewish victims of persecution from Crailsheim 1933 to 1945. (cemetery area: 24,93 a). [February 2013]
74564 Baden-Württemberg (Gerz)
DISTRICT: Schwäbisch Hall
LOCATION OF CEMETERY: Beuerlbacher Strasse (separately marked by arrow).
IN USE: From 1841 until 1968 (including 1942 and 1961).
NUMBER OF GRAVESTONES: 415
DOCUMENTATION:
- 1980-1996 with photographs of all gravestones, inscriptions and translations, as well as burial register and cemetery layout in Crailsheim.
- 1988 photographs of all gravestones and cemetery layout by Zentralarchiv.
- 1995 full cemetery documentation with the use of all photographs by the State Office for Historic Monuments ed. Frowald Gil Hüttenmeister).
- Overall photographic view in Württemberg 1932, page 69.
- Overall photographic view in Sauer 1966, figure # 27.
- History by Illich 1987.
- Complete documentation by Crailsheim 1996.
- Numerous photographs of gravestones and general views in Alemannia Judaica.
- Until 1841 the Crailsheimer Jews used the associated Jewish community’s cemetery in Schopfloch (Region of Ansbach, Bavaria) (Taddey 1992, page 251).
- There is a memorial plaque in the cemetery for the Jewish soldiers who died in WW1, which hung originally on the wall of the synagogue. In addition there is a memorial plaque with the names of Crailsheimer Jews who perished during the Nazi persecution 1933-1945.
SOURCES: University of Heidelberg and Alemannia Judaica.
[Researched and translated from German January 2008]
To see information and photographs of individual gravestones in cemeteries in Baden-Wuerttemberg, click on this link and follow the directions on that page.