This site is used everywhere around Rheinland Pfalz to promote tourism. While the Jewish communities in those towns may have been of great importance for the European Jews the main story that sticks in your mind after your visit is the horrible and repeated persecutions those communities had to suffer. Even the buildings you see now are all reconstructions after destructions in different periods what makes you feel embarrassed as a European of christian background and you cannot help but be reminded of the Third Reich. The fact is that there was horrible Antisemitism in the 19th C. (just remember Dreyfuss as one example) and that today synagogues in most European countries need protection from military or paramilitary staff.

Therefore the age of the buildings varies greatly and some parts are reconstructions from the 20th century since the Nazis didn't spare any jewish sites. My first and best visit was in Speyer. After visiting the magnificent cathedral and the wonderful Trinity church I went to the Jewish museum: I remember a small exhibition, the ruined but still impressive remains of the synagogue and mainly the wonderful mikweh, the best preserved I have visited. It leads you quite deep to the small pool and is embellished with romanesque arches. This is for me the best element of the this WHS. 

The visit to Worms was last year and more difficult. I was amazed how badly organized and signed the site was considering the big hopes and efforts they made to get the WH title. The cemetery Heiliger Sand was on Google maps open every day but sunday. When I went there there was a sign that it was only open with a tour. This tour was only once a day and the interest in it so great that it was fully booked for days. If it is such a success why don't say make more then one tour a day?

When I went to the Jewish Museum I was to stupid to find it: The synagogue was closed and the sign said: "Use the entrance on Synagogenplatz". I assumed I was standing on synagogue square since I stood in front of the building. I couldn't find the square on GM either and there was no map how to find it. So I went around the building but no sign but finally I found behind the block a sign for the museum. Heureka! The museum is well done and well worth a visit. Afterwards I returned to the front of the synagogue and there was still the same sign to use the entrance on Synagogenplatz but I had still no idea where that was. I searched on and found the Mikweh which was closed: danger of collapse! I wondered why it wasn't renovated before the application. I also found a side entrance to the synagogue without any signs. I had passed them before and assumed they were locked. Finally I tried the main entrance despite the sign to use another entrance and surprisingly it was open. There was no information at all about the building. The lady who watched over the place told me that I could also enter the side entrance which gave access to a small room with a long table and a seat at the end, elevated like a throne. Also no information here. 

On my last visit to Mainz I was unlucky that the rules for Corona changed suddenly and I had to had home immediately. I went back to Mainz this summer to catch up but it was hard to find information about opening times for the cemetery. I went there during the day and hoped it would be open. It was full with big signs about world heritage and tourism and there was even a sign: access at one's risk. But it was locked and there was no information about opening times or tours. I met an elderly gentlemen sneaking around the fence like me and taking pictures. He was as clueless as I and asked me if I had any idea how you might enter the cemetery but unfortunately I couldn't help him. We talked a bit and he asked me if I knew the Jewish cemetery in Frankfurt which he found impressive. I decided to put that on my list of thing to do when I pass through Frankfort the next time. 

The discrepancy between the big promotion of the place and the bad tourist management is rather sad for a country like Germany and I wonder why UNESCO wasn't bothered by this. In the end I saw the two museums in Worms and Speyer and the Worms synagogue but at both cemeteries I could only peer though the fence. But I will count this site nonetheless as visited and make a new effort only when I have another reason to go back to Worms and Mainz. For a history nerd this could be a worthwhile site but you have to be tough to enjoy it the way it is handled at the moment.

If you are interested in the topic beyond the included sites there is an excellent museum in nearby Frankfurt, the "Museum Judengasse", that would even make a good addition to this WHS: Frankfurt had a Jewish population from an early time and good times of a certain tolerance alternated with several progroms. There is a good detailed account of this on Wikipedia. In the 15th century the council decided to force the Jews to settle in a certain stretch of land outside the old ramparts, creating thus the first European ghetto. This was surprising news for me. This small quarter had a wall and gates and was locked at night and on Sundays. The ghetto was one of the last in Europe and it was only after Napoleon the city council was forced to open it up, but only for an extra fee payable by the Jewish community. It is really hard to believe how the christian majority treated their Jewish neighbours here as in many places!

As they were now free to choose there place to live most Jews moved away but a new synagogue was build at the place of the old Judengasse synagogue.  Most buildings were torn down and the small houses and streets were replaced by a new quarter. When the city built a new building in the nineteen eighties the uncovered the foundations of several houses of the old quartet, one even including a mikweh and a museum was build in the  basement of a big administrative building. It is not a big museum but I found this museum very well done and spent easily more then an hour there. They do a good job and give you an idea of how people lived there and what they had to live with. One family there was called Rothschild and created even under those oppressed circumstances a quite successful business!