This town at 49°34' N 9°42' E in the Main-Tauber district is situated on the river Tauber, 7 km SE of Tauberbischofsheim and 30 km SW of Würzburg. Most of the roughly 300 houses date to between the 1500s and mid-1800s. Known for the 500+ year-old Königshöfer Messe, an annual festival that attracts 150,000 people over ten days, Lauda station is at a junction of the Franconia Railway and the Tauber Valley Railway. 12 districts.
Jüdischer Friedhof Unterbalbach history and photographs:
The cemetery dates from the mid-16th century where Jews captured by the Teutonic Knights lived in Unterbalbach. On 22 February 1590, the German Master Archduke Maximilian revoked protection of Jews in Mergentheim, Markelsheim, Igersheim, and Unterbalbach and the right on the burial ground at Unterbalbach for an annual payment of 16 florins to the Trapponei Mergentheimbut they continued to bury their dead. In the following 450 years Jews from a wide range of nearby places used the cemetery until creating their own. From 1880 to 1940 the Jewish communities of Mergentheim , Edelfingen , Wachbach , Igersheim , Angel Türn , Markelsheim and Königshofen. Some burials after 1940 are unmarked.
(Lauda-Koenigshofen) 97922 incorporating UNTERBALBACH Baden-Württemberg (Gerz, Peters).
LOCATION OF CEMETERY: Lauda-Königshofen - Detail).
IN USE: First mentioned in 1590; records date from 1798 to 1940.
NUMBER OF GRAVESTONES: 1,358.
DOCUMENTATION:
- 1987 photographs of all gravestones with mapping of graves by Zentralarchiv.
- 2003 complete cemetery documentation including above photographs by the Office for Historic Monuments (Landesdenkmalamt, ed. S. Michal Antmann and Martina Strehlen).
- 1995 photographs of all gravestones by Ladenburg.
- Numerous photographs of individual gravestones and general cemetery views in Alemannia Judaica.
- Photographic overview of cemetery by Theobald 1984, page 100.
- History by Löwenstein 1895, pages 275-276.
- History by Hundsnurscher/Taddey 1968, pages 276 and 277.
- History by Fechenbach 1972, pages 14, 17, 18, 27 and 28.
- History by Oberhollenzer 1982.
- Detailed reports of various events relating to this cemetery are reproduced in Alemannia Judaica.
- On 22 February 1590 Archduke Maximilian granted the Jews of Mergentheim, Markelsheim, Igersheim and Unterbalbach the right to continue to bury their dead above the village of Unterbalbach for an annual payment of 16 Gulden to the Monastery of Mergentheim.
- This cemetery was used during the following 450 years initially by Jewish communities from within a wide area, including Mergentheim, Igersheim, Markelsheim, Weikersheim, Laudenbach, Niederstetten, Mulfingen, Hollenbach and Hohebach, some of whom later acquired their own burial grounds. However, between the years 1880 and 1940 the Jewish communities of Mergentheim, Edelfingen, Wachbach, Igersheim, Angeltürn, Markelsheim and Königshofen continued to use the Unterbalbach cemetery.
- A former cemetery supervisor, Johann Schönleber, reported that a Jewish pilot, whose aircraft was shot down over Frankfurt during the last years of WW2, was buried in the Unterbalbach cemetery.
- The (so far) last burial took place in 1967, that of an urn containing the ashes of a former Unterbalbach Jewish citizen, flown from the USA, where many of these refugees had found a second home.