Until the 1930s, Jewish citizens lived side by side with the Christian population in the villages on the Sieg. Together they were for example active in associations or celebrated the anniversary of the synagogue in Rosbach together. When the National Socialists won the elections in January 1933 and took power, Jews were increasingly marginalized, excluded from social life and robbed of their livelihoods. Those who were unable to emigrate or go underground suffered the fate of deportation and death in the extermination camps.
On September 17, 2011, the first 22 “Stolpersteine” in Windeck – in the districts of Dattenfeld, Rosbach and Niederalsen – were laid by the artist Gunter Demnig. They commemorate those people from Windeck who were killed because of their Jewish faith. On the occasion of the laying, one participant said that it was “still incomprehensible to this day why a village community kept silent when people from their midst were defamed and finally deported”. The initiator of the laying is the “Zeitzeugenforum Windeck” of the Arbeiterwohlfahrt Ortsverein Windeck e.V. On three different occasions 66 “Stolpersteine” have been laid in the districts of Dattenfeld, Dreisel, Gerressen, Gutmannseichen, Herchen, Kohlberg, Niederalsen and Rosbach, meanwhile also for victims of Nazi medical crimes .
Left: The Stumbling blocks laid for Willi Seligmann’s family in 2011 in Rosbach, Kirchstrasse 4, source: Siegburg district archive
Right: Artist Gunter Demnig laying Stolpersteine in Rosbach on September 17, 2011, source: Siegburg district archive
Timeline Rosbach/Sieg
- ↑ Awarding of the Obermayer Award to Horst Moog – January 22, 2018
- ↓ Inauguration of the “Landjuden an der Sieg” memorial in Windeck-Rosbach – August 28, 1994