Wickrathberg

The village belonged to the manor of Wickrath in the Middle Ages and early modern times.

An important Jewish community existed in Wickrathberg since before 1704. There was a synagogue, a school and a Jewish cemetery in neighboring Wanlo. The Wickrathberg synagogue was destroyed during the Kristallnacht in November 1938. Only a memorial plaque remains in the pavement of Berger Dorfstraße. In the following years, the Jewish citizens were arrested and deported to concentration camps. By 1942, the 250-year-old Wickrathberg Jewish community had ceased to exist.^[2]

In 1945, after the end of the Second World War, the American army built a large temporary prisoner of war camp in the triangle between Güdderath, Hochneukirch and Wickrathberg, one of the so-called "Rheinwiesenlager". It held between 120,000 and 150,000 German prisoners of war from April to September 1945 in the open air.^[3]

• Hilde Sherman (1923–2011), Jewish woman who survived the Holocaust.
• Wolfgang Lüderitz (1926–2012), composer.