BAD LAASPHE: North Rhine-Westphalia

50°55′49″N 8°25′0″E, 240.1 miles WSW of Berlin in Siegen-Wittgenstein district. In the Middle Ages, Counts Wittgenstein protected the Jews in Laaspherhütte with synagogue and school. Population: 1682: 3 households with 24 persons: 1732: 5 households 125 persons: 1786: 9 households with 20 people: 1819: 80, 1855 1895: 145, 1925: 124 Jews in Laasphe. After the edict of March 11, 1812 in Prussia, all Jews took a surname.

Mannus in 1640 and Nathan were the first Jewish residents of the city. In 1750 the Jewish community received a piece of land for a cemetery. In 1764 the Jews acquired a building in the Mauerstraße to build a synagogue that lasted rom the mid-19th century until the dissolution of the Jewish community by the Nazi terror. The upper floor was used as a residence for the Jewish teachers. Jewish children attending secondary school (Realschule) until the Nazis banned these schools. In the pogrom of 9-10. November 1938, the interior of the synagogue was destroyed. The building itself was not set on fire because of the risk to the immediately adjacent houses. In the postwar years the building was used by a locksmith.

In 1846, 7% of the Laaspher Jews mostly worked as a butcher and cattle dealer. In 1938 53 Laaspher Jews left . On 28/04/1942, 47 Jewish citizens were deported to Zamosc Poland. 18 more wenton 07.27.1942 to Theresienstadt (Czech Republic). The mayor, Max Prager and his family, were the last Laaspher Jews to leave their hometown on 17/05/1943. Max Prager, his wife Joan and daughter Ursula were murdered in Auschwitz. Holocaust and memorial information.  [Sep 2012]

57334 North Rhine-Westphalia (Gerz)

Cemetery: Located on Puderbacherweg. used since 1750-1939. 73 visible gravestones. Besides the municipal cemetery and in 1750 the Jewish community (then outside the city and now next to a nursery) set up cemetery that served all Jews from the southern part of the county of Wittgenstein (with Erndtebrück and Feudingen) as a place of burial. Since 1768, "someone from a foreign place" paid eight thalers for a double grave. A building has been there as well as in Berleburg and Elsoff. Devastated in the Kristallnacht pogrom in 1938, in 1959 the cemetery was on the National Association of Jewish Communities in Westphalia and now has a size of 2035 m². The tombs are mostly in E-W direction, gravestones erected at the W end grave "at the head" of the dead. The oldest, probably only recently re-established gravestones are located in the SW (10 of them from the period 1869 to 1886), two are older. In 2006, the cemetery was opened again for the funeral of the Holocaust survivor Herbert Moses. The key to the gate of the cemetery is in the nursery. Opening times: Mon-Sat 8:00 to 12:30 clock and 14:00 to 18:00 Mon-Fri and Sun 10:00-12:00 [Sep 2012]

In 2006, Cologne artist Gunter Demnig created a Holocaust memorial. Blocks are embedded in the concrete sidewalk  with a 10 x 10 cm brass surface before the homes of Laaspher citizens persecuted by the Nazis where they were last voluntarily. A total of 69 Jewish citizens were murdered in the death camps.

- Approximately 1975-2000 by Heritage Office (Photos)
- 1979-1981 by Joan Morgenstern Wulff (allocation list, occupancy)
- History in Westphalia-Lippe 1987 , p.121
- Assignment list, layout, translation of individual stones in Siegen-Wittgenstein 1991 , pp. 17-18, 24, 35-36