laundry born
Unfortunately, the age of the Wäscheborn cannot be precisely determined without archaeological investigations. In the realm of speculation lies the supposedly handed down knowledge of older Spangenbergers that the "left-wing married" Landgravine Margarethe von der Saale (1522-1566) is said to have washed her laundry there. Unfortunately, this can no longer be verified. So we limit ourselves to a special feature in the basin, namely a large stone on the western side with the symbolic representation of an initially unknown object of the great importance of cloth production in earlier centuries.
Mikveh, Jewish ritual bath
Mikveh is Hebrew and means "flow together" in German. A mikveh is an immersion bath that is used for ritual purification. Alongside the synagogue and cemetery, the mikveh was one of the permanent establishments of a Jewish community, including in Spangenberg At that time, this only applied to the strictly religious. The mikvah was also used for the ritual cleaning of the butcher's knives and new dishes. The plunge pool is on the mountain side, on the left from the entrance. The upper edge of the 0.92 m by 1.05 m large pool is almost 1 m above its bottom. The groundwater flows continuously and fills the pool steadily with water. In the 1820s, a boiler to heat the water was installed. In the old days was in Span genberg to pay half a percent of the bride's dowry and the bridegroom's assets to the synagogue's treasury upon marriage. Visiting the mikveh was free of charge in the years that followed. The interior wall painting was probably created around 1900.
text: dr Heinrich Nuhn, Rotenburg/Fulda for
Times Mirror e.V.
History and culture in Spangenberg