Jewish sites in Erfurt are now UNESCO World Heritage Sites

Congratulations! On September 17, 2023, the World Heritage Committee decided: Erfurt will be inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The meeting in the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh was broadcast live in the town hall festival hall. The city hosted a public viewing event there

Neglect, oblivion and disinterest are not nice, but they don’t always have to be bad. In Erfurt, they led to the preservation of important medieval Jewish sites. Sites so important that the municipal synagogue, the Jewish ritual bath and a medieval secular house have now been awarded the World Heritage title. It is the 52nd in Germany and the fifth for Thuringia. The Bauhaus in Weimar has been a World Heritage Site since 1996, Classical Weimar since 1998, Wartburg Castle was added in 1999 and Hainich National Park in 2011.

The three medieval buildings in Erfurt, which have recently been added to the World Heritage List, are among the oldest evidence of Jewish life in Europe. The synagogue, with components dating from the late 11th century and others from 1270, is even considered the oldest surviving synagogue in Europe. The ritual bath near the river was built at the beginning of the 12th century. The pool of the baths was filled in after the expulsion of the Jews from the city in 1452 and the complex was used as a cellar. In the Stone House, a private house built around 1200 in the old town, the paintings on the ceiling beams have been preserved from the time of construction. This makes them the oldest of their kind in a secular house north of the Alps. They do not refer to their Jewish owners. Proof that the house was inhabited by a Jewish family could be established on the basis of tax lists.

For Erfurt, the UNESCO decision marked the end of years of discoveries, surprises, restorations and preparations. The Jewish sites in Erfurt had long been forgotten. The synagogue had been used as a warehouse since a progrom in 1349, and later as a restaurant. In 1988, Rosita Peterseim, an employee of the heritage office, climbed through a window of the men’s room and discovered parts of the synagogue. Old sources had led her to the restaurant. The city later bought the building and secured it. Today it is a museum dedicated to the history of Judaism in Erfurt. The “Erfurt Treasure”, which was found in the cellar of a neighboring house, is also on display. The treasure consists of 30 kilograms of gold and silver. In addition to coins and ingots, it included more than 600 pieces of Jewish goldsmith jewelry and a particularly magnificent Jewish wedding ring. The treasure was probably buried by its owners shortly before the Progrom in 1349 – and was only rediscovered 650 years later.

The history of the new Erfurt World Heritage Site is full of such accidental discoveries. The ritual bath was also discovered during construction work. In 2007, a wall collapsed along the River Gera. Before the site was redesigned, archaeologist Karin Sczech investigated the area. She was particularly attentive to the fact that the municipal documents spoke of a ritual bath near the river – and found corbels and sandstone blocks from the mikvah. This, as it is described today in Erfurt, made it clear that the entire infrastructure of the medieval Jewish community had been preserved in the city. The synagogue and ritual bath can already be visited, while the “Stone House” still needs to be restored. A World Heritage Center is also to be built. Erfurt’s Jewish sites are the second Jewish cultural property in Germany to be declared a World Heritage Site. In 2021, the title was already awarded to the Shum sites in Mainz, Worms and Speyer.