A Jewish Communal Bakery in the Hefengasse
Station 16
Before construction of the Town Hall Bridge (Rathausbrücke), the “Mühlhof”, a plot of land with a mill which was documented in 1248, was located next to the Merchants‘ Bridge (Krämerbrücke). During archaeological excavations as part of the creation of the new building at Hefengasse 1 (the restaurant Cognito), an incredibly large oven was discovered in close proximity. With an external diameter of 6.90m, it was much too large for a private bakery and even professional medieval ovens of this size are not known to date.
According to archaeological dating, the oven was built in the 12th/13th century, but more recent areas of utilisation, which would have been expected based on written sources about the property, have unfortunately not been preserved. An entry in the Erfurt Book of Jews (Judenbuch) provides evidence of the „Jewish bakery“ on the property in 1407 by means of an indirect reference: “The two houses of Simon von Köln and his wife Kela opposite the Jewish bakery”. It is known that the locations of bakeries remain unchanged over a period of centuries. This is probably due to the great expense required for a fireproof oven. The location directly adjacent to a mill was naturally ideal. There are several examples of this combination in Erfurt.
