Germany Guide
Hesse
Museum Judengasse
Address: Battonn Strasse
Opening time: Tues & Thurs– Sun 10am–5pm, Wed 10am–8pm
Price: €2
The excellent Museum Judengasse is an outpost of the Jüdisches Museum built on the site of the cramped medieval ghetto. You can wander among the surviving foundations and cellars of the medieval houses which once stood here. In 1560, around a thousand of Frankfurt's 12,000 inhabitants were Jewish; by 1600 the community had grown to 2700. Shortly afterwards rioting citizens plundered Judengasse and expelled the Jews, but they were escorted back by imperial troops and afterwards the imperial crest was fixed to the ghetto gates as a sign of the Emperor's protection. The families who trace their roots to this street include the Rothschilds, whose name derived from a house called Rotes Schild.