House Schwarzer Hirsch

Width at front: c. 3.5 metres

The Schwarzer Hirsch was built around 1584 on a plot which belonged to the Wolf. The house sign may be derived from the name of the first occupant, Hersch from Bingen. With its frontal width of c. 3.5 metres the Schwarzer Hirsch was one of the smaller houses in the Judengasse, but it was significantly wider than its neighbours to the north, which were extremely narrow. In 1694 there were two families living in the house and running a hot food stall. The occupants were generally very poor, and one family was explicitly noted as being very poor in the visitation list for 1703. One occupant was a rabbi. On 23 January 1711 Gumprecht Mainz became a delayed victim of the Judengasse fire that had raged just a week before: when he came to clear out his cellar, the ceiling collapsed and killed him. At the end of the 18th century a poor member of the Schnapper-Winig family lived in the house, in the 19th century the occupants were members of the Geiger family, a prominent family of rabbis. The house was destroyed in the fire of 1711 but soon rebuilt. In 1879 the city took it over for demolition.