Tracing National Socialism in Ellwangen
10. Feb 2022
The years of National Socialism are one of the main topics in History Year 9. The inhuman Nazi ideology was not only followed by many people in bigger towns and cities, but also in little towns like Ellwangen.
What did happen in Ellwangen back then? And what happened to the little Jewish community in Ellwangen? What is left of the years of National Socialism in Ellwangen today?
After having worked on these topics for some weeks, we went on a walk through the town of Ellwangen on January 31, 2022 to look at some of the historical sites in reality.
We started our tour in front of the old Peutinger Gymnasium, which was also attended by Jewish pupils until 1938. Then we passed the house Isaak Hess once lived in, walked down the former “Adolf-Hitler-Straße“ (today’s Marienstraße) and stopped next to one of the former “Bethaus“ near Marienstraße. After that we passed the “Isaak-Hess-Gasse“, another former “Bethaus“ in the “Klösterle“ (a part of today’s Marienpflege) and the Eugen-Bolz memorial in the Schöne Graben to reach the Jewish cemetery at the former outskirts of Ellwangen. There we looked at the gravestones in detail, tried to decipher the writings and discussed again what we have found out about National Socialism so far.