Süssen Is Now Free of Jews offers a close look at the legacy of
a few Jewish families from Süssen-a village in the District of
Göppingen, which is located in the state of Baden Württemberg in
southern Germany. The author, Gilya Gerda Schmidt, looks at this rural
region through the lens of two Jewish families-the Langs and the
Ottenheimers-who settled there in the early twentieth century. As a
child, she shared with the Langs the same living space for just a few
months. She remembers her mother's telling her of the Jews who lived in
Süssen until the Holocaust.
More than thirty years later, in a used bookstore in Knoxville,
Tennessee, the author accidentally found documentation verifying the
Jewish presence in a book about the surviving Jews of Württemberg. In
it, she found confirmation that there had been Jews living in Süssen
until the Holocaust. For the first time, she had the proof she needed to
look into the reality behind this lingering mystery. Here began her
detective-like journey to find out what happened to the Jews of
Süssen.
A decade of research into local and regional archives ensued, and this
very penetrating study is the result. In it, the author attempts to shed
light on not just the original question of what happened to the two
families during the Holocaust but also on a host of other questions:
What was it like to be Jewish in rural southern Germany a century ago?
What were the Jewish traditions of this region? What were the relations
between Jews and Christians before the Holocaust? And where did those
family members who were able to escape or who survived the concentration
camps go when they left Süssen or Göppingen? Few witnesses came
forward, yet the documents in the archives spoke volumes. This
micro-history records the not-so-romantic journey of two Jewish families
who lived in the Fils Valley. The study also addresses issues of being
an American prisoner of war; of resuming life after the Holocaust; of
the bureaucratic nightmare of requisitions, restitution, and
reparations; and of life in
America.
This unique book will be of interest to a general readership and is an
important book for scholars in German and Holocaust studies.
