Gottmadingen is a municipality in the district of Konstanz next to the border to Switzerland, 5 km SW of Singen, and 12 km E of Schaffhausen. GOTTMADINGEN: incorporating RANDEGG. 47°44' N 8°47' E, At one point almost 50% of Randegg's population was Jewish, but none remained after 1940. Randegg (Gemeinde Gottmadingen, Kreis Konstanz). By the 17th century the Randegger Jewish community cemetery in Won "Flözler" (Parcels 1414 and 1415 directly at the Swiss border, surface 75.15 a). The cemetery was desecrated several times after 1945, heavy (1945, 1966, 1970, 1986).
Cemetery map and photos. [Feb 2013]
78244 Baden-Württemberg
DISTRICT: Konstanz
SOURCE: Gerz and Peters
LOCATION OF CEMETERY: outside village close to Swiss Border. (DETAIL).
IN USE: From 1742 until 1938 according to grave registry. Oldest surviving gravestone dated 1810.
NUMBER OF GRAVESTONES: 330.
DOCUMENTATION:
- 1988 photographs of all gravestones and cemetery layout by Zentralarchiv.
- 1955 full cemetery documents including the photographs by the Office for Historic Monuments (Landesdenkmalamt ed: Monika Preuss).
- The burial register contained in the Landesdenkmalamt document was published in Maajan 2003, pages 2257-2261.
- Overall photographic cemetery views in Hundsnurscher/Taddey 1968, figures # 177, 178.
- Overall photographic cemetery views in Theobald 1984, page 99.
- History by Moos 1986, pages 57-58.
- Burial register by Maajan 2003, pages 2257-2261.
- Numerous photographs and general views of cemetery in Alemannia Judaica.
- The Jewish Museum in Hohenems (Austria) acquired a register of the graves in this cemetery in 1995.
- This cemetery was repeatedly and severely vandalised in 1945, 1966, 1970 and 1986 (Hahn 1988, page 306).
- The cemetery is enclosed by a low masonry wall with a locked gate, for which the key is obtainable from the nearby German/Swiss border control post.
- *Otto Dix* painted „jüdischer Friedhof in Randegg. 1935” during the Nazi era. As he himself explained “Banned to the countryside” – The motive, a cemetery of the persecuted Jews in the freezing winter, has to be understood as a commentary on the prevailing times. (Source: Saarlandmuseum Saarbrücken - Stiftung saarländischer Kulturbesitz.)
[Researched and translated from German February 2008]