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Jewish Life in Nazi Germany under the Nuremberg Laws
The scarce pieces included in this section come from Speyer, Leipzig, Manheim and Landau. They all show evidence of Jewish communities under increasing economic and social pressure due to the hardships inflicted by the Nuremberg Laws. A special issue of a community newsletter celebrating Jewish Mannheim in 1936 contains a wealth of information about the community, including disturbing statistics relating to the fall in births and rise in deaths. In that same year, a newsletter from Landau features an article discussing the current situation at a time when Jewish firms and Jewish investments were all under boycott. A rare issue of the Leipzig community newsletter from February 1937 betrays, through its notices and announcements, the harsh financial conditions facing the community, particularly through the winter months. A festschrift from Speyer, also from 1937, celebrates 100 years of the Jewish synagogue (later destroyed) as well as Jewish life in that city. The celebration ends on a sad note as the editor laments the dispersion of community members as the result of Nazi terror, and he hopes that former members will use the commemoration of the synagogue to connect spiritually through space and time. The commemorative work foreshadows the subsequent destruction of Speyer Jewry.