Overview

• Conservator Claire Decomps traced the four Torawimpel to Unterfranken by deciphering inscriptions and name lists during her review of the Paris Museum for Art and History of Judaism’s collection.
• The embroidered fabric bands, used to wrap Torah scrolls, were crafted from infants’ circumcision diapers and gifted to Würzburg and Kitzingen synagogues by families of children born between 1915 and 1928.
• Looted in the aftermath of the 1938 Reichspogromnacht, the binders were recovered by Allied forces and eventually transferred to the Paris Museum for Art and History of Judaism in 1998.
• Josef Schuster, president of Germany’s Central Council of Jews, accepted the binders in a June 5 ceremony in Paris, calling their repatriation a “moment of silent justice.”
• The ritual bands will be exhibited at the Shalom Europa Museum in Würzburg to symbolize the perseverance and renewal of Jewish life in the region.