Like Zurich, Winterthur can look back on centuries of Jewish history. But why is so little known about it?
Emanuel Biedermann’s Rothaus on Mittlere Marktgasse, opened in 1908, was Winterthur’s first modern commercial building.
Although an economically and culturally important Swiss city, there are hardly any visible signs of Jewish life in Winterthur. Neither synagogue, nor shops, neither monuments, nor orthodox men rushing to prayer on Shabbat.
And yet there has been a small community in Winterthur since 1886 that takes care of its members with conscious discretion. With the setting of three stumbling blocks on the central Marktgasse in memory of the Levitus family (see additional text), Jewish Winterthur now has a special memorial site.
It is unclear how closely the Levitus family was connected to the Israelitische Gemeinde Winterthur (IGW). After moving from Zurich to Winterthur in 1893, she was a member of the congregation, but shortly afterwards she was threatened with expulsion because she had not paid her dues. When the man left in 1902, at least his membership expired; His wife and children stayed in Winterthur for a while.
As a Bohemian-Swiss couple, Karl and Therese Levitus fit into a Jewish Winterthur, which around 1900 was very much characterized by migration, mixing and trade and always oriented beyond the national borders. The close family ties of many Jewish families in Winterthur, especially in Germany, make it clear that Switzerland was anything but an “island” in National Socialist Europe.
A billboard for Simon Levy’s furniture and trousseau shop, early 20th century.
Advertisement for the modern man from the interwar period by Benno Seligmann.
Many Jews ran cloth and clothing businesses: early 20th-century billboard for Simon Levy’s furniture and dowry shop (left), Benno Seligmann’s advertisement for the modern man from the interwar period.
Salomon Bloch’s clothes shop on Neumarkt Winterthur, postcard from the early 20th century.
First modern department store in Winterthur
Like Zurich, Winterthur can look back on centuries of Jewish history, but conditions have always been modest and manageable. First Jewish inhabitants have been handed down since the 14th century; when larger cities forbade Jews from settling in the early 15th century, Winterthur established itself as a small-town location for individual moneylenders who went about their business throughout eastern Switzerland.
The Council protected these Jews, but charged a very high tax in return. After 1500, Jewish doctors and glaziers (spectacle makers) regularly stayed in Winterthur; In 1565 a Jewish scholar from Venice was even baptized in the town church.
In the course of the early modern period, Jews disappeared from the cityscape and only appeared as itinerant traders in the region, with Winterthur – unlike Zurich – being more oriented towards southern Germany with the Hegau Jewish villages. The peddler Jonas Biedermann came from Gailingen, who established himself in Veltheim in 1842, at that time an independent suburb of Winterthur, and in 1867 was one of the first Jews in the canton of Zurich to receive citizenship.
Around 1900, a little more than 100 Jews lived in Winterthur, most of whom came from the Hegau and Surbtal, rarely from Alsace and Vorarlberg, but hardly ever from Eastern Europe, and almost all of them worked as merchants. A few traded in livestock, furniture or household items, and a striking number ran a cloth or clothing business. At its head was the Biedermann family, who had the first modern department store in Winterthur built in 1908 with the “Rothaus” on the middle Marktgasse.
The grave of Jonas Biedermann (1812–1887) in the Jewish cemetery in Gailingen; he was naturalized in Veltheim in 1867 and died shortly after the founding of the Winterthur “Cultusgenossenschaft”.
In the shadow of Zurich
Jewish Winterthur experienced its heyday in the 1920s: almost 150 Jews lived in the city, around two dozen shops stimulated trade, and several associations contributed to the Jewish identity.
However, the focal point was and always was the Jewish community, which had been founded in 1886 by eight men as a “cult association”. Initially, the service took place in private rooms, only in 1905 could a prayer room be set up in the middle of the old town. A cantor attended to religious instruction and the needs of the community. Winterthur was too small a community for a synagogue with a rabbi.
Those who wanted to live orthodoxly had to move to Zurich, which offered and offers an incomparably wider choice, from different faith communities to kosher shops to schools.
Nothing has changed to this day, on the contrary. A few years ago, the last Jewish shop closed its doors, and the prayer room only holds services on high holidays. And yet the IGW lives as a community that – although in the shadow of Zurich – continues to create identity beyond Winterthur.
The small cemetery opened in 1998 contributes to rooting in the region, but above all a story that has now been enriched by a chapter with the installation of three stumbling blocks. Although a tiny minority, the approximately 80 Jews currently belong to the multifaceted city of Winterthur, precisely because of their special origin and past.
The three stumbling blocks are reminiscent of a tragic chapter in Winterthur’s history.
The tragic fate of a Winterthur family
Peter Niederhauser In memory of the victims of National Socialism, the stumbling blocks by the Berlin artist Gunter Demnig have been laid since the 1990s. These are located in front of the last place of residence and literally represent “stumbling blocks” as an unusual memorial to commemorate Jewish and other victims of the National Socialists.
The situation in Switzerland differs from that in Europe during the Second World War, but there are also traces of the extermination camps here. Therese Levitus (née Dreifuss) with her daughters Bertha and Lina, who lost her Swiss citizenship after marrying a Bohemian trader, is remembered at Marktgasse 45 in Winterthur. After separating from her husband and leaving Winterthur in 1908, the woman slipped into ever more precarious circumstances. She and her daughters became the focus of the judiciary for pimping and prostitution before they were forcibly deported to Prague in 1922/23. In 1942/43 he was deported to Theresienstadt and Auschwitz – with well-known consequences.
The Winterthur historian Miguel Garcia has reconstructed the tragic fate of the family. With the support of the IGW, the Swiss Stumbling Stones Association and the city of Winterthur, three Stumbling Stones were laid by Katja Demnig in a small ceremony on August 31st. They now form a special memorial in the center of Winterthur.
Peter Niederhauser is a freelance historian in Winterthur and editor of the book Das jewish Winterthur (Chronos-Verlag, Zurich, second edition 2013). Under his direction, “Birth of a Big City. Hundred years of Winterthur incorporation».