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Thueringerwald. When would the first Ashkenazi Jews arrive? For the sake of this discussion, I will
ignore what is said in the novel1632 and focus on the Jewish and larger worlds of the period. One thing is
clear, and that is that the winter of 1631-32, with the passage of the war down the Main valley to
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Frankfurt, would have let loose a flood of refugees; it also seems clear that some part of this flood would
have been likely to end up in Grantville, since by that time, it would be fairly well known that Grantville
treated refugees well and was genuinely serious about nondiscrimination. Here, though, I am not
interested in the time of the arrival of the peak of this flood, but rather, the arrival of the first scattered
Ashkenazic refugees.
Consider what the Jews of the lower Main valley knew in the spring of 1631. Taxes were extremely high
everywhere in German lands, with the Jew-taxes even higher. Trade was at a standstill, inflation was out
of control, and most of the Jewish community had recent memory of war, starvation or disease. There
was excellent reason to leave. Lands under French rule to the east were relatively stable and home to an
established Jewish community, but they were not anxious to accept poor Jewish refugees. Amsterdam
was in a state of near perpetual war fending off the Spanish, but it was a haven to Jews. Some Jews were
certainly traveling to these lands to the north and west.
Poland was another interesting destination. With the withdrawal of Gustavus Adolphus, Poland was
largely at peace. The system of Jewish self-government was functional, so that, although there were Jew
taxes, they were administered in a relatively fair manner. As a result, in early 1631, Poland would have
looked very attractive.
For a Jew from Frankfurt or Aschaffenburg contemplating the journey to Poland, there would be several
obvious routes. By Passover, everyone in Frankfurt would have heard that Gustavus was on the move
west of Berlin and that the Imperial army was besieging Magdeburg. Travelers would therefore avoid the
route north of the Franconian highlands and the Thueringerwald. The middle route, up the Fränkische
Saale river would be direct, requiring crossing through the Thueringerwald, but putting the travelers on
the road to Leipsig, while a southern route via Prague would be longer but probably safer.
The middle route would be likely to attract at least some Jewish travelers in the spring of 1631, with
some travelers from as far south as Würzburg likely to come this way. The economic appeal of travel
through the hills of the Spessart and Thueringerwald might have been significant, since both were centers
of mining and industry. The entry of new traffic along this route would stop as soon as news of the fall of
Magdeburg arrived, since at that point, the Imperial troops moved south and travel across the southern
Saxon plains would have become far too dangerous.
Fast travelers from the lower Main valley, those on horseback or able to afford carriages, would likely
manage about 20 to 30 miles a day. If we assume they travel to the east in the week after Passover, they
would have passed the Ring of Fire before it happened. Once past, the news of the Ring of Fire would
catch up with them only slowly, and if they did hear the news, they would be unlikely to turn back. With
good transportation, they would be in a position to flee any soldiers they encountered, so they would
likely make it to Poland and would be unlikely to arrive in Grantville.
Slow travelers from Frankfurt and fast travelers leaving later are another story. If we assume travelers on
foot or with slow carts for their baggage, they will make from ten to twenty miles a day. Travel would be
even slower if they are subsisting off the land within the limits imposed on Jews by Christian law, for
example by buying rags and scrap metal to sell to the paper mills and iron foundries along the way.
That from one to three such slow-moving groups would pass through the upper Fränkische Salle valley
at about the time of the Ring of Fire, hearing rumor both of the fall of Magdeburg and of the Ring of Fire
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