Friedberg's old town quarter once housed a prosperous Jewish community that was totally wiped out during World War II. Many of Friedberg's Jews fled to Palestine and the United States before the Holocaust, but all remaining Jews were deported in 1942 to Treblinka. The Judenbad (Jewish bath) contains a memorial to the fallen Jewish soldiers who fought for their fatherland during World War I. Today, only the medieval Jewish ceremonial bath, old synagogue arson memorial, and memorial plaque at one of the city's secondary schools are reminders of this part of the city's past. Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, diamond mining entrepreneur and former owner of De Beers was born and raised in Friedberg.