The periodic outbreaks of plague that struck Europe from the fourteenth through the eighteenth centuries presented a two-fold danger to Jewish communities. In addition to sharing in the direct suffering inflicted by the disease on all Europeans, plague outbreaks sparked intensified attacks on Jews, with many European Christians laying the blame for their misery on this vulnerable segment of the population. Thus, when plague struck her community, not only did Glückel and her family worry about the health of their friends and loved ones, they also anticipated and feared a renewal of this pattern of persecution. As you read Glückel’s account, think about what it says about the unique dangers that early modern Jews faced. How did being Jewish shape Glückel and her community’s response to the outbreak of plague?

While I lay in childbed with my daughter Mata, whispers spread that the plague, God shield us! was abroad in Hamburg. Presently it reached a point that three or four Jewish houses, too, were stricken; nearly all the inmates died and the houses stood almost vacant. It was a time of bitter suffering and desolation, when God have pity on them, it went hard with the dead. And most of the Jews fled to Altona.

We had by us some thousands of Reichsthalers in pledges, covering among others small loans from twenty to thirty, and up to one hundred thalers; for in the money-lending business, small loans of ten Reichsthalers or even five shillings cannot be refused. Now the plague had swept through the city, and we were constantly beset by customers. Even if we knew they were already infected we must deal with them, at least to the extent of returning them their redeemed pledges; and had we fled to Altona, they would have followed on our heels. So we resolved to take our children and go to Hameln, where my father-in-law lived.

We left Hamburg the day after Yom Kippur, and the day before the Feast of Booths we arrived in Hanover, where we put up at the home of my brother-in-law Abraham Hameln. Since the feast was so near at hand, we decided to remain there for the week’s holy days.

I had by me my daughter Zipporah, now four years old, my two-year-old son Nathan, and my daughter Mata, a baby of close on eight weeks.

My brother-in-law Loeb Hannover prayed us to spend the first days of the festival in his house, where lay the synagogue. The second morning, while my husband was upstairs at services, I was still in my bedroom, dressing my daughter Zipporah. As I was drawing on her clothes, I saw that when I touched her she winced, and I asked her, “What be the matter, child?” “Mother dear,” she said, “something hurts me under the arm.” I looked and found that the child had a sore near her armpit. My husband, too, was bothered with a sore, which a barber in Hanover had covered with a bit of plaster. So I said to my maid whom I had with me, “Go to my husband — he is upstairs in the synagogue — and ask him who the barber was and where he lives. Then take the child to him, and have him lay on a plaster.” In all this I dreamed of nothing wrong.

The maid went upstairs, sought out my husband, and spoke with him. You must know that to reach the men’s synagogue, one had to pass through the women’s section. As the maid left the men’s section, my sisters-in-law Yenta, Sulka and Esther, who were sitting among the women, stopped her and asked, “What were you doing in the men’s synagogue?” Whereupon the maid answered in all innocence, “Our little girl has a sore under her arm, so I asked my master, who likewise had a sore, which barber had been tending him, and I will take the child there as well.”

The women fell at once into a mad fright, not merely because they were natural weaklings in such matters, but coming from Hamburg we lay under grave suspicion. They quickly put their heads together, considering what to do.

It happened that a stranger, an old Polish woman who sat among them, overheard the talk and remarked their fright. So she said to them, “Be not alarmed, ’tis nothing, I’ll warrant. I have had to do with such things a score of times, and if you wish, I’ll go belowstairs and have a look at the girl, and I’ll tell you if there is any danger and what’s to be done.” The women were satisfied and begged her look the child over forthwith, so that, God forbid! they run no risks.

I knew nothing of all this, and when the beldam [old woman] came to me and said, “Where be the little child?” I replied, “Why do you ask?” “Why,” she said, “I am a healer and I want to doctor the child, and she will be cured in a twinkle.” I suspected nothing and led forth the child. She looked her over, and fled from her at once.

She darted up the stairs and cried at the top of her voice, “Away, away — run and flee who can — the pest is in your house, the girl is down with the plague!” You can well imagine the terror and screaming of the women, above all among such chicken-livers.

Men, women and all, deep in their holy day prayers, fled wildly from the synagogue. They seized my child and the maid, thrust them out of doors, and none dared shelter them. I need not tell you of our distress.

I wept and screamed in the same breath. I begged the people, for God’s sake, “Think what you do,” I said, “nothing is wrong with the child; surely you see, God be praised! the child is hale and well. She had a running pimple on her head; before I left Hamburg I treated it with salve, and now it has gone to a little sore under her arm. If anyone were really stricken, God forbid! There’d be a dozen signs to show for it. But look — the child plays in the grass and eats a buttered roll as nicely as you please.”

But it was all to no avail. “If it is known,” they said, “if His Highness the Duke hears that the like has fallen upon his capital-seat, woe and woe unto us!” And the beldam thrust herself before me, and told me to my face that she’d give her neck if the child were not tainted.

What was to be done? I besought them, “In all mercy let me stay with my child. Where the child stays, there will I. Only let me go to her!” But they would not hear of it.

Presently my brothers-in-law Abraham, Leffman and Loeb took counsel with their wives and bethought themselves what to do: where to put the maid and child and how to keep the whole matter secret from the authorities, for we all would have lain in mortal danger had the noise of it come to the Duke.

At length they settled on a plan. The maid and child, clothed in old rags, were to go to the neighbouring village, not a Sabbath’s day journey from Hanover. The name of the village was Peinholz. There they were to betake themselves to a peasant’s house, and say that the Jews of Hanover had refused to shelter them over the holy days, being already overrun with poor, and had even refused them entry to the city. They must ask to pass the holy days in the village and offer to pay for the trouble. We know (they were to add) that the Hanover folk will send us food and drink, for surely they would not leave us in want during the holy festival.

Then they began negotiating with an old man, a Polack; who was staying over in Hanover, as well as with the Polish beldam whom I mentioned, to accompany the maid and child and see how matters fared. But neither of them would stir unless they were paid thirty thalers on the spot, to run so dire a risk. Whereupon my brothers-in-law Abraham, Leffman and Loeb held another consultation, and summoned the melamad [school-teacher], who was likewise a great Talmud scholar, to judge whether it be lawful to break the holy day by the payment of money. In the end they all agreed the money might be paid, since human life lay at stake.

So in the midst of the holy festival we were forced to send away our beloved child and allowed the thought that, God forbid! she be tainted. I will let every father and mother judge what this required of us.

My blessed husband stood in a corner and wept and prayed to God, and I in the other corner. And, of a surety, God hearkened to us for the sake of my husband’s merits. I do not believe that a heavier sacrifice was required of our father Abraham when he made to offer up his own son. For our father Abraham acted at the biddings and for the love of the Lord, and thereby tasted joy even in his grief. But the decree fell so upon us, hemmed in by strangers, that it nigh pierced our hearts. Yet what could be done? We must needs bear all in patience. “Man is bound to give thanks for the evil, just as he gives thanks for the good.”

I turned the maid’s clothes inside out, and wrapped my child’s things in a little bundle. I slung the bundle on the back of the maid like a beggar, and the child, too, I dressed in tatters. And in this fashion my good maid and my beloved child, and the old man and the beldam, set out for the village. You may know how we loaded the child with farewell blessings, and the hundreds of tears we shed. The child herself was happy and merry as only a child can be. But we and those of our own in Hanover wept and prayed to God, and passed the holy feast-day steeped in woe.

The child and her companions meanwhile reached the village and were well received by a peasant, since they had money in purse — something one can always put to use. The peasant asked them, “Since this is your feast-day, why don’t you abide with the Jews?” They answered, “Hanover is overrun with poor and we were not allowed to enter the city, but we know full well the Hanover Jews will send us food for over the festival.”

As for us, we returned to synagogue, but the prayers were through. At that time Judah Berlin, who had already done business with us, lived still unmarried in Hanover. Living there, too, was a young Polish Jew named Michael, who taught the children and who was likewise a sort of half-servant in the house, according to the German custom when folks had in a Talmud student to teach their children. (Later he took a wife in Hildesheim where he is now parnas and lives in wealth and honour.)

Anyway, as people were leaving synagogue, my brother-in-law Loeb had us called to dinner, for, as I said, he had invited us to stay with him, the day before the festival. But my husband said, “Before we eat, I must fetch food to the child and her companions.” “In truth,” said the others, “you are right. We will not eat until they too have something.” The village, I repeat, was nearby, as close as Altona to Hamburg.

So food was gathered together, everyone giving something from his own pot. The question now arose, who will take them the food? And everyone proved afraid. Then Judah Berlin spoke up, “I will take it,” and Michael said, “I will go with you.” My blessed husband, who loved the child dearly, accompanied them. But the Hanoverians would not trust him, for they thought, if my husband goes he will not restrain himself from approaching the child. So my brother-in-law Leffman went along too; and they all went together and took the food with them.

Meanwhile the maid and child, and their companions, for hunger and nothing else to do, were walking in a field. When the child saw my husband, she was filled with joy, and childlike, wanted to run at once to her father. Whereupon my brother-in-law Leffman cried out, they should hold in the child and let the old man come fetch the food. Of a fact, they must needs bind my husband with a rope, to keep him from running to his child, for he saw that she was hale and well and yet he could not go to her; whereat he and the child wept.

So they placed the food and drink on the grass, and the maid and her companions fetched it away; and my husband and his friends moved off together. This continued until the eighth day of the festival. The old man and the beldam were provided with plaster and ointment and everything wherewith to heal the sore. Indeed, they healed it nicely, and the child was hale and well and pranced about the field like a young deer.

We now said to the Hanover folk, “How far will your folly lead you? The child, you can see, is healthy as can be and the danger is over and gone — let then the child return!” So they took counsel again, and decided not to let the child and her companions come back before Simhat Torah, the ninth day of the feast. There was naught for us to do but abide by it.

On Simhat Torah, Michael went out and brought the child and her companions back to Hanover. Who never saw the joy of my husband and myself and everyone present — we needs must wept for joy and everyone wanted to eat the child alive! For she was as lovely and irresistible a mite as ever you saw. And for a long while after she was commonly called the Virgin of Peinholz.

Source: Marvin Lowenthal, trans., The Memoirs of Glückel of Hameln (New York: Harper and Bros., 1932), pp. 47–56.

Questions to Consider