Great Synagogue (Warsaw)
The Warsaw Great Synagogue on Tłomackie Street in the Śródmieście district of Warsaw was the largest synagogue in Warsaw . After it was destroyed by the National Socialists in 1943, there are several financial institutions on the site of the former synagogue. In the immediate vicinity of the house of God was the Judaic Main Library, the building of which today houses the Jewish Historical Institute .
history
In the beginning there was only one suburban Jewish community in the Warsaw suburb of Praga . Only privileged members of the Jewish Praga community were allowed to live in the city of Warsaw .
During the time of the Duchy of Warsaw under Napoleon, the Jewish community in Warsaw flourished, particularly with the settlement of German Jews. In 1802 a synagogue was built within the city walls. A later new building at the same location was designed based on the model of the Berlin synagogue on Oranienburger Strasse. The service in the synagogue on Danilowitz-Strasse was held in German. The Warsaw city synagogue community was divided into five synagogue districts in 1851, with the main synagogue at that time still in Wierzbowa Street.
In 1862, Jewish residents of Russian Poland were granted housing, property, and trade rights. Warsaw became a center for the resettlement of Polish Jews in the mid-1870s. The number of Jewish community members in Warsaw at that time was 90,000. After the pogroms in the Russian Empire in 1881 as a result of the assassination attempt on Tsar Alexander II , the Warsaw Jewish community granted the persecuted refuge, which increased the number of Jews and made up a third of the Warsaw city population.
From 1871 to 1926 the Jewish community in Warsaw was run by community leaders with a modern mindset who were culturally assimilated.
They initiated the integration of the Jewish suburban community, the Praga community , into the Jewish urban community. The synagogue, the cemetery and the mikveh of the former suburb were then restored.
A building committee was established to build a new large synagogue for the Warsaw Municipality. Due to differences of opinion between the assimilated, modern Orthodox community leaders and the first building contractor, Leandro Marconi (1834-1919) was commissioned to build the synagogue. The sacred building was built from 1875 to 1878 according to plans by Marconi from 1874.
The classical sacred building had a main and prayer room, the floor plan of which was an elongated rectangle and which had a high tower with a dome . The model was the Brussels Palace of Justice . The main and prayer room was 38 meters long and 28 meters wide and had the shape of a gallery basilica with a classical, coffered half-dome in the apse and Corinthian columns in the side aisles or galleries. The entrance to the apse was flanked on either side by two tall, massive, dark veined marble columns. The two pillars symbolized Jachin and Boaz , the two pillars that stood at the gate to the entrance of the temple in Jerusalem .
The synagogue had a square porch with a dome and a porch. The model for the vestibule was the Pantheon in Rome. The dome made the vestibule clearly visible from the street and identified it as a weekday synagogue. The model was the Berlin synagogue on Oranienburger Strasse.
The founders of both the Warsaw and Berlin city synagogues wanted domed buildings to show that the synagogues should not imitate Christian church buildings, but rather be similar to other public secular buildings, such as the Paris Opera and the Brussels Palace of Justice .
The governor-general of Poland was present at the inauguration of the sacred building on September 26, 1878 in Rosh Hashanah and personally opened the main portal of the synagogue. The construction costs amounted to 300,000 rubles and were raised by the assimilated Polish-speaking parishioners. In the 1920s, the rabbi of the Warsaw city synagogue Samuel Abraham Poznanski (* 1864 in Lubraniec , † 1921 in Warsaw) translated the Siddur into Polish for the parishioners who came to Shabbat in top hats .
At the end of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising on May 16, 1943, the synagogue was blown up by SS group leader Jürgen Stroop . He then telegraphed to SS-Obergruppenführer Krüger , the Cracow-based senior SS and Police Leader (HSSPF Ost) in the General Government :
“[...] The former Jewish residential area of Warsaw no longer exists. When the Warsaw synagogue was blown up, the major action ended at 8:15 pm [...] "
Later in captivity, he described the destruction from his point of view:
“[...] As a nice final chord of the large-scale action, I ordered the demolition of the Great Synagogue on Tolmackie Street. [...] I delayed the exciting moment a little longer. Finally I shouted: Heil Hitler! and pressed the button. The tremendous explosion tore the flames up to the clouds. A piercing bang followed, the colors were almost magical. An unforgettable allegory of the triumph over Judaism! The Warsaw Ghetto had ceased to exist [...] "
The floor plan of the synagogue was divided into the rectangular main hall and the square vestibule.
The prayer room had the shape of a gallery basilica with a classicist coffered half-dome in the apse and Corinthian columns in the side aisles and galleries.
Model of the synagogue in the Beit Hatefutsot Museum , Tel Aviv
literature
- Kazimier Moczarski: Conversations with the executioner. The life of the SS group leader and lieutenant general of the police Jürgen Stroop recorded in the Mokotów prison in Warsaw (= Fischer 3466). Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1982, ISBN 3-596-23466-2 , p. 217 ff.
- Marcos Silber: Tłomackie Synagogue. In: Dan Diner (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Jewish History and Culture (EJGK). Volume 6: Ta-Z. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2015, ISBN 978-3-476-02506-7 , pp. 113–116.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Quoted from Władysław Bartoszewski : “ They fought for human dignity ”, in: Die Zeit , April 22, 1983, No. 17.
- ↑ Quoted from Daniel Kroiellnik : “ A multi-layered memorial day ”, in: Jüdisches Leben in Bayern . Bulletin of the State Association of Israelite Religious Communities in Bavaria, December 2005.
Coordinates: 52 ° 14 ′ 40.5 ″ N , 21 ° 0 ′ 8.6 ″ E