Schlemihl

[Otto Sell]

Schlemihl: It's a jewish or jiddish word, no German, according to my
dictionary of "Rotwelsch" (German Scoundrel Lingo): someone with bad luck,
misfortune, calamity, disaster. Lots of jiddish and gypsy lingo in that
book. One can learn a lot about the deepgoing antisemitism in German: Jews
and Gypsies were ususally seen as thieves and swindlers in 18th and
19th-century Germany. Both minorities went to the KZs later.
Originally the words goes back to Moses 4,1,6: Schelumiel, identical with
Zimri ben Sa-lu (Talmud), who had been killed by a spear.

Otto