Meisenheim
Meisenheim is a state-recognized recreational resort (Erholungsort) and it is set out as a middle centre in state planning.Sometimes cited as such, however, is a document dated 14 June 891 from the West Frankish king Odo (for example by K. Heintz in Die Schlosskirche zu Meisenheim a. Gl.In the 12th century, Meisenheim was raised to the main seat of the Counts of Veldenz and in 1315 it was granted town rights by King Ludwig IV.Both buildings were built only after the Counts of Veldenz had died out in 1444 and the county had been inherited by the Dukes of Palatine Zweibrücken.While these three states were now de jure in personal union, this did not shift the power structures on the ground at all, for Palatinate-Zweibrücken had already been occupied by French Revolutionary troops along with the other left-bank territories.After the end of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars in 1815, the Congress of Vienna assigned the part of Palatinate-Zweibrücken lying north of the Glan, including Meisenheim, to the Landgraviate of Hesse-Homburg rather than Maximilian's Kingdom of Bavaria.In 1866 the Grand Duchy of Hesse inherited Hesse-Homburg but had to cede its territory to the Kingdom of Prussia later that same year following its defeat in the Austro-Prussian War.Until then, the lands just across the Glan had been Bavarian (either as foreign territory or as another province within Imperial, Weimar or Nazi Germany) since the Congress of Vienna.…Fourteenthly, no more than four Jewish families should live and be tolerated in the local town; this rose under High Prince Gustav’s state government to 7 such, …which has not only caused the local grocers through the constant hawking and the butchers through shechita great harm and loss of sustinence, but also has already put many citizens and peasants to ruination, and furthermore still means that the little protection money that Your High-Princely Serene Highness draws from these people by far does not offset this harm, whereby Your High-Princely Serene Highness harms his truest subjects.If a few provisions have been indulged-in as a result of the hawking and shechita, bizarrely the butchers' guild article, then these Jews, as a dogged and naughty people, are not troubled by them, but rather begin their abuses anew after some time has gone by; we therefore ask, most humbly, that Your High-Princely Serene Highness most kindly deign to reduce the Jews here, to the citizenry’s greatest consolation, back to 4, by strengthening the provisions for the forbidden hawking and the butchers' guild article for excessive shechita.The modern Jewish community arose in the 18th century, According to a report from 1860, the oldest readable gravestone then at the Meisenheim graveyard bore the date 1725.On Kristallnacht (9–10 November 1938), the synagogue sustained substantial damage, and worse, the Jewish men who were still in town were arrested.According to the Gedenkbuch – Opfer der Verfolgung der Juden unter der nationalsozialistischen Gewaltherrschaft in Deutschland 1933-1945 ("Memorial Book – Victims of the Persecution of the Jews under National Socialist Tyranny") and Yad Vashem, as compared against other data, critically examined and completed by Wolfgang Kemp, of all Jews who either were born in Meisenheim or lived there for a long time, 44 were killed during Nazi persecution (birthdates in brackets): After 1945, the only Jews who came back to Meisenheim were one married couple, Otto David and his wife.[6] Like many places in the region, Meisenheim can claim to have had its dealings with the notorious outlaw Schinderhannes (or Johannes Bückler, to use his true name).In the 18th century, there was another composition in the town's seal showing a lion above a bendy lozengy field (slanted diamond shapes of alternating tinctures) while the tit appeared on an inescutcheon.The following are listed buildings or sites in Rhineland-Palatinate’s Directory of Cultural Monuments:[11] Meisenheim's Old Town is the only one in the area that can boast of continuous development, uninterrupted by war, fire or other destruction, since the 14th century.In the grave chapel, the 44 mostly Renaissance-style tombs of the House of Palatinate-Zweibrücken and the rich Gothic rib vaulting bear witness to sculptors’ highly developed art; also often praised is the wooden Rococo pulpit.Together with the organ at the Augustinian Church (Augustinerkirche) in Mainz, it is one of the biggest preserved instruments built by this Hunsrück organ-building family.The Baroque Catholic parish church, Saint Anthony of Padua, has very lovely interior décor, parts of which were endowed by former Polish king Stanisław Leszczyński, who for a time during his exile lived in Meisenheim.From the earliest time during which donations were being gathered comes a report from the magazine Der Israelitische Volkslehrer published in October 1860:Meisenheim.All doors, windows and great parts of the galleries were reduced to rubble and a fire was set, although this was quickly quenched once the Brownshirt thugs realized that one of the neighbouring buildings was an SA house.In the time of the Second World War, the building was mainly used as an industrial works, quite contrary to its originally intended purpose, and thereafter as a municipal storehouse.In a conversion, the remnants of the women's galleries were torn out, the windows were walled up and upper floors were built inside.On 9 November 1988 – fifty years to the day after Kristallnacht – the former synagogue building was opened to the public as the Haus der Begegnung (“House of Meeting”).On the upper floor, as a visible reminder of the former synagogue, a glass window by the Israeli artist Ruth van de Garde-Tichauer was installed.The window's content is the return of the Twelve Tribes of Israel to Jerusalem based on the text from the Amidah (תפילת העמידה; Tefilat HaAmidah “The Standing Prayer”), also called the Shmoneh Esreh (שמנה עשרה; “The Eighteen”): “Sound the great shofar for our freedom; raise a banner to gather our exiles, and bring us together from the four corners of the earth into our land.”[12] In a decision taken on 21 May 1997, the synagogue building received the protection of the Hague Convention as a cultural property especially worthy of protection.Since 1999, above the entrance, has been a Star of David made of Jerusalem limestone, endowed by the Bad Kreuznach district's partner town in Israel, Kiryat Motzkin.
MeißenheimGermanyRhineland-PalatinateDistrictBad Kreuznach Municipal assoc.MeisenheimTime zonePostal codesDialling codesVehicle registrationMatthäus MerianBad Kreuznachlike-named Verbandsgemeindemiddle centreNorth Palatine UplandsRaumbachRehbornCallbachReiffelbachOdenbachBreitenheimDeslochWest FrankishCounts of VeldenzKing Ludwig IVcastleChurchPalatine ZweibrückenZweibrückenDuke Wolfgang of ZweibrückenBergzabernThalerDuke of Zweibrücken Maximilian IVElectorate of BavariaElectorate of the Palatinatede jurepersonal unionoccupiedFrench Revolutionary troopsleft-bank territoriesCongress of ViennaLandgraviateHesse-HomburgKingdom of BavariaOberamtOberschultheißereiGrand Duchy of HesseKingdom of PrussiaAustro-Prussian WarSecond World WarImperialWeimarNazi GermanyJewishMiddle AgesThirty Years' WarHigh Prince Gustav’shawkingshechitaprotection moneyYour High-Princely Serene HighnessMedardSchweinschiedLöllbachMerxheimBärweilerMeddersheimStaudernheimHundsbachFrench RevolutionHunsrücksynagoguemikvehhazzanshochetprimary schoolEvangelicalWestphaliaAuschwitzSobernheimLusatiaMünsterPrussianFlehingenMannheimYeshivaUniversity of HeidelbergTauberbischofsheimGaliciaKikindaVojvodinaMagyarizationMüllheimBreslauÓ-GyallaHungaryUniversityBernburgRatiborEisenstadtBerlinPísekBohemiaDirschauWest PrussiaFirst World WarHennweilerJewish religionAdolf Hitlerseized poweremigratedBrownshirtDer StahlhelmAryanizedKristallnachtGedenkbuchNational Socialist TyrannyYad VashemDachauSobibórdeath marchBergen-BelsenStolpersteineSchinderhannesburglaries