Jews and World War II
Jewish families began living in Ludwigsburg during the 19th century and in 1884, a synagogue was built on Solitudestraße, which was later destroyed by storm troopers during the pogrom of November 1938. In 1988, the perimeter of the structure was marked out in plaster on the site. A 1959 memorial and newer memorial plaques commemorate the Jewish Holocaust victims and extol human rights.
In 1940, the Nazi propaganda film, Jud Süß, was filmed in Ludwigsburg. Based on the historical figure, Joseph Süß Oppenheimer, who was executed in Stuttgart in 1738; Oppenheimer lived in Ludwigsburg. During World War II, the city suffered moderate damage compared to other German cities. There were 1500 deaths. It was the home of the prisoner-of-war camp Stalag V-A from October 1939 till April 1945. After the war, there was a large displaced persons camp which housed several thousand mainly Polish displaced persons until about 1948. After 1945 until the middle of 1946, there was also an allied internment camp for war criminals in Ludwigsburg and the U.S. Army maintained a barracks on the edge of town, large enough to have its own American high school. The land was returned to Germany in 1994.
On 27 September 2008, the first 12 Stolpersteine were laid in Ludwigsburg. They are part of a project by artist Gunter Demnig to memorialize individuals who perished under Nazi persecution. Demnig was back in Ludwigsburg on 7 October 2009 to install more Stolpersteine.
Read more about this topic: Ludwigsburg
Famous quotes containing the words jews and, jews, world and/or war:
“For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles...”
—Bible: New Testament, 1 Corinthians 1:22-3.
“For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles...”
—Bible: New Testament, 1 Corinthians 1:22-3.
“A part, a large part, of travelling is an engagement of the ego v. the world.... The world is hydra headed, as old as the rocks and as changing as the sea, enmeshed inextricably in its ways. The ego wants to arrive at places safely and on time.”
—Sybille Bedford (b. 1911)
“I realized how for all of us who came of age in the late sixties and early seventies the war was a defining experience. You went or you didn’t, but the fact of it and the decisions it forced us to make marked us for the rest of our lives, just as the depression and World War II had marked my parents.”
—Linda Grant (b. 1949)