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or Würzburg or outside Bavaria in Frankfurt. Moreover, only the eldest son could inherit the rights conferred by registration under the Matrikel system. Thus, younger sons desirous of creating an independent home and business contributed to the number of emigrants. Bavaria is believed to have lost some 11,000 of the younger and more enterprising men between 1830 and 1855, including several members of the Kohnstamm family, who went abroad, mainly to North America.

The population table below shows the former substantial proportion of Jews living in Niederwerrn illustrates the movement away from the middle of the nineteenth century, which is typical for villages in Franconia. The last two Kohnstamms to spend their lives in Niederwerrn were Hirsh Haimann (KB.416) and Victor (KB.418), who died there in 1895 and 1882, respectively. Today's population of Niederwerrn, which since 1978 includes the neighbouring village of Oberwerrn, is over 8,000, but includes no Jews.

The former community's synagogue was built in 1786 to replace a smaller previous one ani renovated in 1885 and 1913. Its interior was badly damaged at the time of Kristallnacht on 9 November 1938. Its Torah rolls and other ritual equipment were set on fire and destroyed. However, the local fire brigade assisted in extinguishing the fire in order to prevent its spread to neighbouring houses. The building, displaying a memorial plaque to the former Jewish community, is still standing and has since been used as a cinema and a factory storage hall. It is now being, renovated and will in future accommodate the local public library.

The community also owned a substantial school building, put up in 1829 and rebuilt in 1878. In 1850 the school had 54 pupils, a number which reduced steadily till none were left in the 1930s. The building, included a ritual bath (Mikvah) and provided accommodation for the schoolmaster, who was also the local cantor. In 1939 the community was required to sell both the synagogue an community building at far below their true value. Both now belong to the village, the latter, extended with an annex, serving as the town hall. Here, too, a memorial plaque indicates the building's form use as a Jewish school.

There are also still a number of houses in which Kohnstamm families used to live. On some of them grooves can be seen in the door frames, which held mezuzzahs in the days of long ago.

The Niederwerrn community used to bur their dead at nearby Euerbach. That village, too, was part of the barons of Münster's domains. The record of the sale of the land in 1672 by its proprietor, one Adam Ulrich von Steinau, for the use in perpetuity for the burial of the dead of the Jewish communities of the surrounding villages, can be found in the Münster archives at Würzburg. It confirms that already at that early date a sufficient number of Jews lived in the area to warrant this purchase. Like most Jewish cemeteries in Germany the Euerbach cemetery was desecrated during the Nazi period and the gravestones overturned. They were re-erected in random order after the war, but some Kohnstamm memorials can still be identified. However, the one of the earliest ancestor of the family is not among them.

Table of the Population of Niederwerrn

	c1800	1867	1900	1913	1925	1933	1942	1999
Total number of inhabitants	646	678	740	773	853	1057	1706	8458#
Number of Jews included	237	207	140	90	51	45	9*	0
Percentage of Jews	36.7	30.5	18.9	11.6	6.0	4.3	0.5	0

* deported during 1942 # including Oberwerrn

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