Obermayer German Jewish History Award

Josef Motschmann

Staffelstein, Bavaria

Josef Motschmann’s first home was, in many ways, responsible for the direction of his later life. Born in 1952 in Altenkunstadt, of Catholic parents and grandparents, the Motschmanns’ home was on the Judenhof, part of a once-bustling Jewish neighborhood. As a curious child, Josef Motschmann soon realized that his questions about the Jews met with silence. As a questioning young adult, he decided to research the history of the Jews of Altenkunstadt and the surrounding region of Upper Franconia as a way of making a strong moral statement. 

Early in his research, Mr. Motschmann discovered that the 1837 population included 400 Jews, 380 Catholics and 22 Protestants. Clearly the Jews were not a small minority but a vital segment of the community. Mr. Motschmann, a theology teacher by profession, began to lecture and publish detailed and scholarly works to document the lives of the Jews in the Upper Main Valley. In 1983 his lecture, The Life of Suffering by Jews from the Upper Main, 1933-1945, was published in book form. It attracted great interest and led to additional works. Among them are a history of the 1735 Horb synagogue (now reconstructed in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem), a guidebook for excursions to former Jewish communities in Bavaria, as well as a book detailing the history of these communities. In preparation for his charming 1988 book, On the Life of the Jews in a Franconian Village, Mr. Motschmann spent eight years studying archival material and visiting survivors, former neighbors, and employees of Jewish families from Altenkunstadt. Through his writings, Josef Motschmann has made sure that the Jewish communities of Upper Franconia will not be forgotten. 

On November 9, 1988, fives decades after Kristallnacht, the wedding stone of the simple but beautiful Baroque Altenkunstadt synagogue dating from 1726 was replaced. This was followed by a major restoration project initiated by Mr. Motschmann. The women’s section houses a permanent exhibition depicting the history of the Jews in the Upper Main Valley, including important Judaica, photographs, and some of the priceless possessions owned by Jews who lost their lives in the Holocaust. Today, the synagogue is used as a meeting place where the memory of Jewish culture is kept alive. Events include lectures and art exhibits ranging from slides of Marc Chagall’s work to drawings by the children of Theresienstadt, as well as a yearly memorial service marking Kristallnacht. 

In 1999, along with Siegfried Rudolph, Mr. Motschmann published a book which includes extraordinary photographs of the Burgkunstadt cemetery where the Jews of the area were buried, beginning in 1620. The layout of the cemetery is graphically depicted, and all readable gravestones are listed and names are indexed. Josef Motschmann is not only responsible for the restoration of the cemetery and its upkeep, but he organizes an annual ceremony that is a particularly moving and symbolic memorial. Even though there are no Jews in the area, the event attracts hundreds of attendees who share Mr. Motschmann’s commitment to commemorating an important and vital culture that once thrived in Germany.