48° 08′ 50″ N 07° 29′ 18″ E. http://www.grussenheim.fr is the town's web site. Grussenheim is a village on the north border of the department of the Haut-Rhin about fifteen kilometers from Colmar. The village counts 768 inhabitants on March 8th, 1999. More than 80% of the working population work outside of the village. Traces of human occupation go back to the prehistory. In Roman times, a very tiny town was established along the Roman way "Heidenstraessel" and an important villa on the west of the village was where they discovered a mosaic. The village is named for the first time in 737 CE. From 770 CE, the abbey of Ebersmunster owned the property in the village. From 1361 to the French Revolution of 1789, the family of Rathsamhausen managed the village. The village developed thanks to a rich agriculture. From 1605, a fair took place. By 1850, a tradition of pottery gave birth to the annual market, every May 1st: Hafalamarik (the market in pots). At the beginning of the 20th century, more than third of the population was Jewish. But in June 1940, the Germans occupied the village and caused the exodus of the Jewish community. Battles of the pocket of Colmar were felt in the village, liberated on January 29th, 1945. The first synagogue dated from the last quarter of the 18th century. It was sold in 1866 and demolished. The new synagogue, constructed in 1850, was destroyed in 1940 on orders of the Germans. As long as the community was numerous and flourishing, Jewish life of the village meant all submitted to religious laws and traditional. Quietly, they led a clean life as the previous generations had always lived. Shabbat was the queen, but visits to inns especially to Schlomès also had their place. With deafening noise, they played dominoes, card games excluded for religious reasons. Fights between young peoples sometimes followed this inoffensive entertainment, fights that resembled a bit the "wrestling", so popular at present. They lived a typical village life. On the eve of Passover, students gathered wood to light ' "Hômetzfeier" in the courtyard of Jeddehof. They burned hômetz found the day before, and reddened iron saucepans brought by the housewives to kosher them for Passover. It was innocent and free entertainment. Thus, all of the holidays passed with traditional observation. Everything seemed natural but with the reduction of the population, technical progress, and the materialism of our age, religious feeling weakened. http://judaisme.sdv.fr/synagog/hautrhin/g-p/grussenh.htm has more information in French. [January 2008] http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/Grussenheim/gru001.html has history from the Yizkor book. [January 2008]
CEMETERY: This cemetery also served Reichshoffen. Grussenheim had signed a purchase agreement for a burying ground to enlarge the Jewish graveyard of Mackenheim, where the Community of Grussenheim buried its dead until 1810. 600 graves at least currently. [January 2008]