About Jewish co-inhabitants in Frenz
There were the first Jewish residents in Frenz as early as 1671.
On 13 January 1788, the Jews of the Unterherrschaft Frenz had received permission to build a synagogue from Balduin Franz Carl Freiherr von Merode-Houffalize, who was Lord of Frenz at the time.
Whether the house in Unterstraße where Seligmann Meyer (known to everyone only as „Rabbi Seligmann“) lived with his wife Henriette Goldmann and their children Nanni and Otto was actually the „synagogue“ for which this building permit was granted could not be clarified beyond doubt.
There is no doubt that there was a prayer room with a domed ceiling and a baptismal font on the first floor of this building.
After the death of Seligmann Meyer in 1906, the house was sold by his heirs. During the Second World War it was badly damaged, then rebuilt in its present form.
Towards the end of the 18th century, the Jewish population had a relatively high proportion of 11.26% of the local population.
In addition to this „synagogue“, there were other so-called „Jewish houses“ in Frenz:
a house in Oberstraße, in Hofstraße the house of Salomon Hermann and his wife Therese Wolff and their children Adele and Martha (He was only called „Jeeste Jüdd“ because he kept many goats), and the former house Thelen in Burgstraße, where the Jew Meyer Meyer had a grocery shop, which was run by the daughters Jettchen, Sophia and Adele (?) until about 1920.
At the end of Feldgasse, on the left in front of the RWE sewage treatment plant, is the Jewish memorial today.
The original Jewish cemetery, however, was located elsewhere. It was located on the so-called „Judenkirchhofsweg“, which led as a footpath past Haus Palant to Weisweiler.
The slope on which the cemetery complex was located was „removed“ during the construction of the „Reichsautobahn“ Aachen – Cologne (today A 4) in 1937/1938 in order to protect an oxbow of the Inde which was straightened during motorway construction.
According to a land register entry from 1924, the area at that time was 1572 square meters.