Width at front:
Günzburg 2 metres
path to the rear buildings, c. 0.85 metres
Luchs c. 2.12 metres
Gemse c. 2.12 metres
Münze c. 1.80 metres
When the houses in the Judengasse were numbered in 1761 the three rear buildings Gemse, Luchs and Münze and the front building Stadt Günzburg were treated as a unit and given the house number 43. The rear building Gemse was the first of the four houses to be built around 1550. At that time it had a frontal width of c. six and a half metres, making it relatively large for the Judengasse. The house was built by Simon zur Gemse, who lived in the mid16th century. He migrated to Frankfurt from Günzburg on the Danube. Simon was a prominent merchant and was reputed to be a great scholar. One particularly important thing he did was to commission at his own expense a new edition of the Talmud by the famous Basle printer Ambrosius Frobenius.
After Simon's death in 1582 the house was remodelled several times between 1595 and 1608. It was considerably reduced in size in the process, as the plot was subdivided to accommodate the three other houses and the neighbouring Handschuh, which stood directly on the Judengasse. Some of Simon's descendants moved into the new front building. This house was named after the town of Günzburg from which Simon had come. Simon's descendants also took this name as their family name. In the great fire in the Judengasse in 1711 the Günzburg, Luchs, Gemse and Münze were destroyed and subsequently rebuilt. After the emancipation of the Jews the houses were taken over by the city in 1843 for later demolition.