ISBN: 3933374421 9783933374424

Category: Unavailable

Page count: 341

Analyzes relations between Christians and Jews in the 18 villages of southern Baden with large Jewish populations ("Judendörfer") in the context of economic and political changes. Despite opposition in the 1860s to Jewish emancipation, both populations realized the importance of working together; Christian peasants and Jewish traders depended on each other, a dependency sometimes creating intimacy and sometimes resentment. Peasants saw Jews as unable and unwilling to do "real" (i.e. physical) work, and after emancipation as insolent. Antisemitic agitators and propaganda coming from northern Germany found fertile ground in the south; in the 1890s there were incidents of violence. Many joined the Nazi Party even before 1933, when it displaced the old leadership that had worked for coexistence. But despite Nazi efforts to prevent contact with Jews, peasants remained loyal to Jewish cattle-dealers until 1938. Describes the persecution of Jews and the "Kristallnacht" pogrom. In October 1940 all the Jews of Baden were deported to Gurs; the survivors were deported in 1942 to extermination camps.