On the morning after Kristallnacht local residents watch as the Ober Ramstadt synagogue is destroyed by fire. The local fire department prevented the fire from spreading to a nearby home, but did not try to limit the damage to the synagogue.

On the morning after Kristallnacht local residents watch as the Ober Ramstadt synagogue is destroyed by fire. The local fire department prevented the fire from spreading to a nearby home, but did not try to limit the damage to the synagogue.

The youth who took the series of photographs of the burning synagogue in Ober-Ramstadt, Georg Schmidt, came from a family that opposed the Nazis. The film was confiscated by police from Schmidt's home the same day the photos were taken, and developed immediately. The prints and negatives were stored in the city hall until a policeman in the service of the American occupation found them and removed them. The son-in-law of the policeman found them in a toolbox and donated them to the city archive.