August Gottschalk House

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August Gottschalk House
Esens Ostfriesland msu-0209.jpg
Data
place Esens
Art
History museum, memorial
opening August 29, 1990
operator
Ecumenical working group Jews and Christians in Esens
management
Anke Kuczinski
Website
ISIL DE-MUS-474817

The August-Gottschalk-Haus is a museum and memorial to the recent history of the East Frisian Jews in Esens . It is housed in the former schoolhouse of the local Jewish community , right next to the remains of the synagogue that was destroyed by Esensian SA men in the night of the pogrom on November 10, 1938 .

August Gottschalk

The memorial is named after the last religious official and teacher of the Jewish community in Esens, August Gottschalk (born October 28, 1870 in Niederheid , Geilenkirchen district, died June 1, 1927 in Esens), who played a key role in the planning and construction of the Building and lived here until his death.

The ritual bath ( mikvah ) , which was rediscovered during renovation work, is a specialty in north-west Germany and into the Netherlands . The museum is supported by the Ecumenical Working Group on Jews and Christians in Esens .

history

In 1819, the Jewish community acquired a small building on the corner of Schmiedestrasse and Neustädter Strasse, which from then on served as a school. In 1827 the community finally bought two old houses on the west side of Burgstrasse and had them demolished. A synagogue and a school with an apartment for the synagogue servant, completed in 1827, were then built on the site . In 1899 it was canceled due to its dilapidation. In its place, today's August-Gottschalk-Haus was built, in which the parish hall, an apartment for the Jewish religious official, a classroom and the ritual bath were housed. Congregational meetings should also take place in this building. On average, around 10 to 15 children of several years attended the Jewish elementary school , where they received lessons together in the only classroom. The classroom was separated from the other rooms and reached through a separate entrance through the anteroom. In 1927 the community gave up the school after the death of the last Jewish teacher, August Gottschalk, and rented the building. Unlike the neighboring synagogue, the building was not destroyed during the Reichspogromnacht from November 9th to 10th, 1938. After an order came into force that Jews were to be concentrated in certain houses, the parish hall served as a " Jewish house " for the remaining Jews from 1938–1940 , who were forced to sell their houses and properties. Those of them who could no longer emigrate were deported to the East and murdered in extermination camps there . The former Jewish community building was sold to a private person after 1940 and continued to be used as a residential building.

In 1985 the city of Esens bought the former Jewish school house in order to demolish it according to a long-standing development plan and to create parking spaces in its place. Through a private initiative of the Ecumenical Working Group Jews and Christians in Esens e. V. , managed to save the house and to set up a memorial and exhibition on the recent history of the Esensian Jews. In the course of the renovation work on the house, the completely preserved mikveh of the Jewish community was discovered. On August 29, 1990, the memorial was opened to the public as the August Gottschalk House .

exhibition

The August-Gottschalk-Haus has six exhibition rooms. The upper floor houses a seminar room, the library, the warehouse and another exhibition room on political issues . The core of the permanent exhibition is the documentation “The End of the Jews in East Frisia” compiled in 1988 by members of the “History of the Jews in East Friesland” working group at the East Frisian Landscape in Aurich on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Reichspogromnacht. On August 29, 1990, the working group opened the memorial, which also includes the mikveh, which was rediscovered during the restoration of the building. After 20 years, the museum was given a new concept in 2010 under the title “Living Museum”. Some rooms are restored to their original form, for example as a classroom or kitchen. The permanent exhibition has also been redesigned. It provides information on the topics of exclusion, persecution and extermination. The fates of three East Frisian Jews are shown as an example. According to research from Esenser secondary school students, more than 1,400 East Frisians are among the victims of the Shoah . The Lower Saxony Ministry of Science, Volksbank Esens, Sparkasse LeerWittmund, the Diocese of Osnabrück and the Monastery Chamber of Hanover supported the redesign, which cost a total of 32,000 euros.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Homepage of the August Gottschalk House , accessed on May 27, 2013.
  2. ↑ Installations illustrate exclusion. Retrieved January 9, 2019 (German).

Web links

Coordinates: 53 ° 38 ′ 45.9 ″  N , 7 ° 36 ′ 49.5 ″  E