These small, blue cardboard binder, multi-page school booklets from 1931 contain the grade reports for Jewish pupils living in Kastellaun and Laufersweiler at that time.
The schooling of Jewish children in Laufersweiler took place exclusively in private households up to the beginning of the 19th Century when, around 1826, classrooms were gradually established in the synagogue building. Even though the Jewish community sought to establish its own public school, only one private school was ever approved by the Ministry and attended by up to 40 pupils at times, including those from neighbouring villages. This can be traced back to financial difficulties, as well as to recurring clashes within the Jewish community itself. The corresponding list of active elementary and religious teachers is relatively long because the position could oftentimes only be filled for a few years, or even months, before calls for new applications had to be advertised.
The Jewish school in Laufersweiler was ultimately closed for good at the beginning of the 20th Century due to a declining number of pupils. From then on, the Jewish pupils attended the evangelical school on the Kirchgasse until 1938, when Jewish children were excluded from school altogether. In a letter written in 2002, Paul Mayer describes several of the school-day memories he recalled from Laufersweiler: „But there was this other teacher. He made our sister stand naked on a table while all the children passed by, so they could see that Jews were not humans.“ Beginning in 1933, Jewish children were subject to severe discrimination and humiliation at the evangelical school.
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