Old Synagogue (Pforzheim)

South side of the Pforzheim synagogue with a three-pass window

The old synagogue in Pforzheim inside

The old synagogue was a synagogue at Zerrennerstraße 26/28 in Pforzheim . Instead of a building from 1812, it was inaugurated on December 27, 1892 and was destroyed in November 1938.

history

After the medieval expulsion of the Jews, a Jewish community again formed in Pforzheim in the early 18th century. In 1794 a prayer room in the Hasenmayer house on Barfüßergasse is mentioned, from 1813 the then 95 members held their services in a first synagogue at Metzgerstraße 27. This first synagogue was created by converting an old tithe barn. In 1832 there was a paid cantor and a Jewish school was set up in the synagogue. The burial of the Jews was initially in the association cemetery in Untergrombach , from 1846 the Jewish community in Pforzheim had its own cemetery on Eutinger Strasse, and from 1877 there was a Jewish cemetery as part of the new Pforzheim main cemetery . With the industrialization of Pforzheim and the growth of the city, the Jewish community also grew, so that in the late 19th century, under Cantor Elias Bloch, plans were made for a representative new synagogue. In 1889 the community acquired a building site on Zerrennerstrasse. The construction plans were drawn up by Ludwig Levy (1854–1907) from Karlsruhe. In addition to the new synagogue, a parish hall was built with administration, assembly and classrooms as well as the synagogue servant's official residence.

The construction on Zerrennerstraße cost the community around 200,000 Reichsmarks , the sum was paid for through the sale of the property in Metzgerstraße and through the services of the approximately 450 members of the community. The foundation stone was laid on June 3, 1891. The inauguration took place on December 27, 1892.

The first anti-Semitic attack on the synagogue occurred in December 1922 when several windows were broken. The synagogue council then offered a reward of 10,000 marks for catching the perpetrators. In 1926 the cemetery was also a target of vandalism.

In 1930, the synagogue was renovated, with the once lavish wall paintings being painted over with more restrained ornaments.

In the course of the November pogroms of 1938 , the synagogue was desecrated on the morning of November 10, 1938 and badly damaged by an explosive device. Then the Jewish community was forced to demolish the building at its own expense. The property was then sold to a manufacturer.

In 1967, a memorial stone was erected on Zerrennerstrasse to commemorate the synagogue, and in 1989 the corner of Goethestrasse and Zerrennerstrasse was renamed Platz der Synagoge .

architecture

The building, which has a large, bulky-looking drum dome , was built in the Moorish style according to plans by Ludwig Levy . The building was erected in a west-east direction.

In the east of the building there was a semicircular apse in which the Torah shrine ( Aron-haKodesch ) was housed. On the west side, where the wide entrance wing was attached, there were tower attachments on the side wings of the west facade with a Moorish cornice and horseshoe arches . However, the facade side in the west did not come into its own because it was located on a small side street.

Levy therefore designed the south side of the building as a representative facade with a large three-pass window with two-tone wedge stones in the shape of a horseshoe and various protruding parts of the building, which gave the entire structure a certain asymmetry .

The interior was equipped with an organ gallery in the west . The walls and the ceiling were decorated with many ornaments that were reminiscent of oriental tapestries .

literature

Gerhard Brändle: Jewish houses of worship in Pforzheim , Pforzheim 1990.
Alois Stolz: History of the City of Pforzheim , Pforzheim 1901, p. 538.
Hannelore Künzl: Islamic style elements in synagogue construction of the 19th and early 20th centuries . Publishing house Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main u. a. 1984, ISBN 3-8204-8034-X (Judaism and Environment, 9). P. 404ff.