Wiesbaden is west of Frankfurt, near Mainz. Individual Jews lived in Wiesbaden as early as the 14th Century. The Jewish population reached its height in 1925 numbering over 3,000 (about 3% of the total population of the town), but by the start of the war, the population had decreased to about 1,200. There were five synagogues in Wiesbaden, each of which was attacked during Kristallnacht. The only synagogue destroyed totally was the Michelsberg Street synagogue, which is depicted in the postcard below. In 1942, about 950 Jews remained in the city. About one-half of these remaining Jews were deported to the German death camps, Majdanek/Sobibor in Eastern Poland (Lublin (Majdanek); and the other half was deported to Theresienstadt.
Encyclopedia Judaica, CD Rom Edition, Keter Publishing
http://www.memo38.de/root_IE/mainframe.htm
Thanks to Dorothee Lottmann-Kaeseler of Wiesbaden for information regarding the Jewish community in Wiesbaden.
Copyright © 1998-2009 Edward Victor