Old Synagogue (Strasbourg)

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Side view (around 1898)
Interior view to the east (around 1900)
Interior view to the west (around 1898)
Memorial stone on the site of the Old Synagogue, 2010

The Old Synagogue was the main synagogue of the Jewish community in Strasbourg from 1898 to 1940 . The building was located on Quai Kléber (until 1918: Kleberstaden) between Rue de Sébastopol and Rue du Marais Vert .

The sacred building was built from 1895 to 1898 according to plans by Ludwig Levy in the neo-Romanesque style. The executive architect was Adolf Singrün from Rastatt . The groundbreaking ceremony took place in June 1895 and the foundation stone was laid on April 9, 1896. Construction work was completed on November 27, 1897, and the inauguration ceremony took place on September 8, 1898. 70% of the costs, over 800,000 marks , were borne by the Jewish community.

The massive crossing tower (54 m high) resting on an octagonal floor plan was the main focus of the Jewish church, which was built on the model of the Rhenish imperial cathedrals (especially Worms ). Other features were the huge rose windows on the west facade and the facade on Kleberstaden ( quai Kléber ), where the main entrance was also located. Alexander Linnemann created all of the glass windows for the synagogue .

The church could accommodate a total of 1,639 seated people, including 1,479 in the two-storey main nave (46 m long, 19 m wide), 40 in the choir and a further 100 in the adjoining prayer room for weekdays. The synagogue was equipped with a Walcker organ in 1898 , which, due to its deteriorated condition, was replaced in 1925 with an organ from Roethinger (Strasbourg). Nothing of the Roethinger organ has survived since its destruction in 1940, but parts of the Walcker organ were built into the organ of the Mauritius Church by Edmond-Alexandre Roethinger in 1942 . The grand inauguration of the magnificent Roethinger organ took place on August 25, 1925 with a large concert by Émile Rupp and colleagues from Strasbourg and Paris. Rupp had been organist at the synagogue since 1914 and in a report dated March 7, 1923 suggested the installation of the new organ.

After the Wehrmacht during the French campaign and the Alsace had occupied, was the Old Synagogue from Baden Hitler Youth - command , which had joined some Alsatian, set on fire after the Nazi government before the evacuation (or plunder ) of the furniture causes would have. According to the police report of October 2, 1940, the date of the arson attack was given as the night of September 30 to October 1, 1940, but a Strasbourg fire chief reported a fire that had already taken place on September 12. In 1941 the remains of the synagogue were demolished and the ground leveled. On October 3, 1976, the first memorial for the synagogue was inaugurated on the site. On November 24, 1994 (50th anniversary of the liberation of Strasbourg), a larger plaque was added to the memorial; the inauguration took place in the presence of the then Prime Minister , Édouard Balladur . The next day, line A of the Strasbourg tram opened and with it the Ancienne Synagogue - Les Halles stop on Quai Kléber . On the larger plaque is the inscription:

«ICI S'ÉLEVAIT DEPUIS 1898 LA SYNAGOGUE DE STRASBOURG
INCENDIÉE ET RASÉE PAR LES NAZIS LE 12 SEPTEMBRE 1940»

"The synagogue of Strasbourg has been here since 1898.
It was set on fire by the Nazis on September 12, 1940 and demolished"

Shortly before Passover 2013, it became known that a stone hand-washing basin from the synagogue had adorned a Strasbourg front garden for decades. The originally preserved component was handed over to the Strasbourg cultural community, which will temporarily set it up in the community cemetery in Cronenbourg . A sculpture of a lion ( signed by the sculptor ), also a fragment of the destroyed synagogue, has been kept by the Consistoire israélite du Bas-Rhin for years .

At the beginning of March 2019, the memorial at the former location of the synagogue was damaged by knocking the memorial stone with the inscription from its base. At first, an anti-Semitic act was suspected, but later the judiciary announced that the stone had been accidentally rammed by a driver while reversing.

literature

Web links

Commons : Old Synagogue (Strasbourg)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ↑ The Roethinger Organ ( Memento from June 2, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (French, accessed on September 16, 2013)
  2. ↑ "Report to the City Commissioner" , printed on judaisme.sdv.fr
  3. ^ Thierry Roos: Témoignage Gerald Jung. In: Contemporary witness report by Gaston Jung (* 1932), recorded by Thierry Roos. October 22, 2018, accessed October 23, 2018 (French).
  4. ^ A b France anti-Semitism: Strasbourg Jewish memorial vandalized. BBC News, March 2, 2019, accessed March 2, 2019 .
  5. ↑ La fontaine n'est pas une fable ... (French, accessed on September 17, 2013)
  6. ↑ Site of Strasbourg synagogue destroyed by Nazis vandalized , The Guardian , March 2, 2019, with photos
  7. ^ AFP: France: Justice circles: Damage to synagogue memorial stone in Strasbourg was an accident . In: The time . March 7, 2019, ISSN  0044-2070 ( zeit.de [accessed March 8, 2019]).

Coordinates: 48 ° 35 ′ 7.2 "  N , 7 ° 44 ′ 31.6"  E