Sandersleben

At the heart of the former Duchy of Anhalt, in the valley of the Wipper, the small town of Sandersleben occupies a singular place in the geography of German Judaism. Now part of the federal state of Saxony-Anhalt and the administrative community of Arnstein, it no longer counts any Jewish inhabitants; yet for nearly two and a half centuries it was home to a Jewish community whose intellectual influence far exceeded the modesty of its size. According to local chronicles, the town developed along the road linking Erfurt to Magdeburg from around 1300, the town council being attested in 1386, and the castle—built upon the fortress—served as a princely residence until 1632, before Sandersleben passed in 1603 to the principality of Anhalt-Dessau [Deutsche Schutzgebiete]. The recurrence of this Dessau allegiance is essential, for it was under the benevolent authority—at least at times—of the dukes of Anhalt that local Jewish life was able to flourish.

This volume traces the history of that presence: its taking root at the end of the seventeenth century, its demographic and economic peak around 1794, the extraordinary center of erudition it constituted at the dawn of the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah), then its gradual decline in the nineteenth century, and finally its destruction during the Kristallnacht of 1938. In keeping with the very nature of the historiography of a small community, the narrative blends what the archive firmly establishes with what tradition transmits; each chapter endeavors to honestly indicate which is which.

Sandersleben is a place of ancient settlement. According to the historical gazetteer of localities, the first mention dates back to 1046, with urban formation near a castle of the princes of Anhalt after 1300, the granting of town status in 1340, and the attestation of a council in 1386 [Stadtbücher / Geschichtliches Ortsverzeichnis]. The same source specifies that the town held a limited lower jurisdiction over part of its houses, and passed in 1603 to Anhalt-Dessau [Stadtbücher].

A regional chronicle proposes a detailed etymology and prehistory: according to its name, Sandersleben would have arisen during an advance of the Angles and the Warnes in the 4th century, first as an isolated farm, probably a seigneurial estate, and numerous archaeological remains attest to an uninterrupted settlement of the Wipper valley since the Neolithic [Arnstein-Harz]. This same notice recalls that the locality, having become a medieval village, was first mentioned in 1046 in a charter of King Henry III under the authority of the Wettin, and that a document of 1293 attests relatively late to the existence of a church in Sandersleben [Arnstein-Harz].

The town's position was decisive for its economic destiny. Situated on the Wipper, Sandersleben became a junction of the state railway lines Berlin–Nordhausen and Halle–Clausthal-Zellerfeld [Deutsche Schutzgebiete], the network being opened in 1871 according to the railway documentation [Wikipedia, Sandersleben station]. Industrial development followed this integration: with the construction of the sugar factory in 1850 and the Ludwigshütte in 1861/62, industrialization began [Arnstein-Harz]. On the administrative level, the trajectory was winding: belonging for a time to the principality of Anhalt-Dessau, the place was incorporated as early as 1863 into the district of Bernburg in the principality of Anhalt, which became the Free State of Anhalt in 1918; the second territorial reform of the GDR in 1952 attached it to the district of Hettstedt in the Halle region [Tenhumberg Reinhard]. The same source adds that Sandersleben was subsequently attached to the district of Mansfelder Land, integrated in 2007 into the district of Mansfeld-Südharz, and that after a long legal dispute the town was again able, from 30 June 2007, to bear the addition « Anhalt » [Tenhumberg Reinhard].

The Jewish presence in Sandersleben was established in the last quarter of the seventeenth century. The Jewish community of Sandersleben, growing continuously since 1693, soon had its own synagogue, a school, and a cemetery [Arnstein-Harz]. The Evangelical Church of Anhalt likewise places the founding of the community in the mid-seventeenth century [Landeskirche Anhalts].

This community experienced remarkable growth in relation to the size of the town. In 1794, its share of the population reached more than 10% [Arnstein-Harz], a figure confirmed by the Wikipedia entry: the Jews, who already made up ten percent of Sandersleben's population in 1794, received—in addition to a cemetery and their own school—a synagogue in 1829/30 thanks to ducal assistance [Wikipedia]. According to the documentation distributed by the regional church, eminent Jewish scholars were active in Sandersleben; over the course of the nineteenth century, the number—which had once exceeded 180 members—declined [Landeskirche Anhalts]. The portal of Jewish communities confirms this peak: the Israelite community counted, over the course of its existence, the greatest number of its members, with the Jewish share of Sandersleben's population then representing more than 10% [jüdische-gemeinden.de / Alicke].

The town's prosperity, to which Jewish merchants actively contributed, earned it an evocative nickname. Sandersleben was at the time an important trading post, popularly nicknamed "Klein-Leipzig" (little Leipzig) [Arnstein-Harz], an echo of the great fair metropolis nearby, where Jewish merchants were themselves attested in large numbers as early as around 1600 at the Leipzig fairs, despite the restrictions imposed by the magistrate [jüdische-gemeinden.de, Leipzig].

This is where the historical originality of Sandersleben lies: this small town in Anhalt was, at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a true crucible of Jewish scholars and reformers, several of whom counted among the figures of the Haskalah and Reform Judaism.

The portal of Jewish communities offers a striking overview of this intellectual breeding ground. The renowned Talmudic master Joachim Heinemann (1747-1828) — nicknamed Rabbi Meinster — maintained a private Jewish school with a boarding facility in Sandersleben; his son Jeremias Heinemann (1778-1855) was later a member of the "Royal Westphalian Consistory of the Israelites" in Kassel [jüdische-gemeinden.de / Alicke]. The same source continues: another son, Rabbi Carl Heinemann, brought the Jewish reform movement in Sweden to prominence, while Joseph Wolf (1762-1826), born in Dessau, was the founder of the Talmudic school of Sandersleben [jüdische-gemeinden.de / Alicke]. Carl Heinemann's itinerary is corroborated by a reference catalogue: Heinemann, Carl, doctor, born in 1802 in Sandersleben, Anhalt, died in 1868 in Göteborg, Sweden [Rabbinerhandbuch, Steinheim-Institut].

The role of Joseph Wolf in the history of modern Jewish press and preaching deserves to be emphasized. He was co-editor of the first Jewish journal in the German language, and it is said that it was he who delivered the first sermon in German [jüdische-gemeinden.de / Alicke] — a detail reported with the caution of a tradition ("it is said"). Finally, the community gave rise to two major educators of the Dessau Jewish school: the two teachers Moses Philippson (1775-1814) and Gotthold Salomon (1784-1862), who taught at the Dessau Jewish school, were natives of Sandersleben [jüdische-gemeinden.de / Alicke]. Gotthold Salomon was to become one of the most famous Reform preachers of nineteenth-century Germany, and the Philippson lineage would produce Ludwig Philippson, future great architect of liberal Judaism.

The history of Sandersleben's communal buildings reads like the material chronicle of a faith. According to the portal of Jewish communities, a synagogue must have been built around 1745; the building having been declared dilapidated by the authorities, the community held its services in private premises, and in December 1830 the Jewish community of Sandersleben was able to inaugurate its new building at the corner of Kanalstraße and Kiethof [jüdische-gemeinden.de / Alicke]. That same source highlights the princely support and the Reform orientation: the sovereign, Duke Leopold Friedrich of Anhalt-Dessau (1794-1871), contributed substantially to the financing of the construction through a donation of 800 thalers, and at the inauguration ceremony German and Jewish songs rang out — a sign that the community adhered to the Reform rite [jüdische-gemeinden.de / Alicke]. Wikipedia confirms the dating and the ducal origin of the support: the synagogue was received in 1829/30 with ducal assistance [Wikipedia].

As for the places of burial, the sources distinguish between an old and a new cemetery. Around 1730, an old Jewish burial site already existed in the town, near the Bergstraße; the renowned Rabbi Meinster was also buried there, the last interment took place in 1865, and the burial ground was leveled in 1940 [Landesverband Jüdischer Gemeinden]. For the new cemetery, the same source specifies: in 1852, the Duke of Anhalt made available half an acre of field for the establishment of a new Jewish cemetery, located on the edge of the town, also on the Bergstraße, which was desecrated in 1923/24 [Landesverband Jüdischer Gemeinden].

This new cemetery constitutes today the sole tangible trace of this history. The sole authentic testimony of the Jewish history of Sandersleben is today the roughly 400 m² plot of the (new) Jewish cemetery on the Bergstraße, surrounded by a wall, with its approximately 50 graves [jüdische-gemeinden.de / Alicke]. Wikipedia confirms the persistence of this vestige: in 2012, the Jewish cemetery still counted 50 graves [Wikipedia].

It should be noted that Sandersleben was also part of a broader regional network: the neighboring community of Eisleben federated several localities, and according to the documentation of the Eisleben synagogue, the community brought together Eisleben, Hettstedt, Gerbstedt, Sangerhausen, Schraplau, and Sandersleben [Synagoge Eisleben], a testimony to the ties woven between the Jewish towns of the Mansfeld and Anhalt regions.

The community reached its peak around 1794, followed by a long decline. Industrialization and the lure of the great cities drew an increasingly mobile Jewish population toward Halle, Magdeburg, or Leipzig; thus, over the course of the nineteenth century, the number of members, which had once exceeded 180, dwindled [Landeskirche Anhalts]. The closure of the old cemetery, whose last burial took place in 1865, already marks this contraction [Landesverband Jüdischer Gemeinden]. The desecration of the new cemetery in 1923/24 foreshadowed, as early as the interwar years, the rise of a hostility that would soon be unleashed [Landesverband Jüdischer Gemeinden].

The final episode was brutal. The new synagogue of Sandersleben, erected in 1829/30 with ducal assistance, was destroyed in 1938 by the National Socialists; by 1939 the Jewish community no longer existed [Arnstein-Harz]. Wikipedia specifies the course and outcome of events: under the National Socialist regime, Sandersleben was given a rural training home for women; during the Kristallnacht of 1938, the synagogue was set ablaze and then razed, and after the departure of the town's last Jewish family in 1939, Sandersleben too was deemed "judenrein" [Wikipedia]. The fate of the funerary structures accompanied this annihilation: in 1940, the former burial ground was leveled [Landesverband Jüdischer Gemeinden].

The end of the war struck the town itself: on April 11, 1945, a bombing of the locality took place, claiming 39 victims [Wikipedia]. A documentary source preserves the trace of these dark years: at the outbreak of the Second World War, various enterprises and institutions of the locality compiled a "war chronicle" documenting certain events [Wikipedia], a precious material for the historians who today examine the microhistory of persecution.

Although physically vanished, the Jewish community of Sandersleben has, in recent years, been the focus of active memory work. On 9 November 2023, on the occasion of the commemoration of Kristallnacht, the town made a powerful gesture. According to the Evangelical Church of Anhalt, on 9 November at 3 p.m., a new memorial site was inaugurated on the site of the former Sandersleben synagogue, with the unveiling of a commemorative stone [Landeskirche Anhalts].

What is striking about this event is its civic and educational dimension, bringing together generations and institutions. Among the participants were students from the Humboldt Gymnasium in Hettstedt accompanied by their religion teacher Ines Voigt, the State Secretary for Culture of the State Chancellery of Saxony-Anhalt Sebastian Putz, the State Secretary at the Ministry of the Interior Klaus Zimmermann, the mayor of the administrative community of Arnstein Janet Klaus, as well as the mayor of the locality of Sandersleben Nina Stähle [Landeskirche Anhalts]. This commemoration was part of a broader regional effort, carried out jointly with the neighbouring town of Radegast, where a commemorative plaque was presented to the public to recall, in the park of the Radegast cemetery, the memory of the Jewish fellow citizens [Landeskirche Anhalts].

To this memorial effort is added the preservation of archives. German sources regularly refer to the authoritative synthesis by Klaus-Dieter Alicke on the history of Jewish communities in the German-speaking world [jüdische-gemeinden.de], while documentary holdings are preserved across the Atlantic: the Center for Jewish History catalogues archives of several Jewish communities gathered by Jacob Jacobson, among which Sandersleben is included [Center for Jewish History]. The municipal museum (Stadtmuseum Sandersleben) and the surviving photographs of the Jewish cemetery complete this apparatus of transmission [jüdische-gemeinden.de / Alicke].

The Jewish history of Sandersleben condenses, on the scale of a small Anhalt town, the complete arc of Jewish experience in modern Germany: a taking root in the late seventeenth century, a demographic and commercial rise that around 1794 made it a flourishing trading post nicknamed "Klein-Leipzig," and above all an intellectual influence disproportionate to its size. That this small town gave birth to or sheltered Joachim Heinemann, Joseph Wolf, founder of the Talmudic school and pioneer of the German-language Jewish press, Moses Philippson, and Gotthold Salomon, makes it a little-known but real hearth of the Haskalah and of nascent Reform Judaism.

The nineteenth century saw the slow ebb of this community, drained by the appeal of the metropolises, then the twentieth century its annihilation: synagogue burned and razed in 1938, the last family gone in 1939, cemeteries desecrated and leveled. Today there remains only the roughly 400 m² enclosure of the new cemetery on the Bergstraße and, since 2023, a commemorative stone on the site of the vanished synagogue. Between the archive — precise on dates, buildings, and figures — and memory — which transmits the remembrance of the scholars and the pride of a "little Leipzig" —, this volume has sought to make both voices heard, without ever confusing what is established with what is merely transmitted. Sandersleben thus remains a site of the German Jewish diaspora where, in the words of the sources, the sole authentic surviving testimony does not absolve us of the duty to recount all the rest.