Memorial stone for the victims of the Berlin burning of the Jews

The memorial stone for the victims of the Berlin burning of Jews in 1510 is in the Berlin district of Mitte next to the house at Mollstrasse 11.

Mollstrasse memorial stone

Plaque on the Mollstrasse memorial stone

The memorial stone

The memorial stone was erected in October 1988 on the occasion of the upcoming 50th anniversary of the November pogrom in a green area next to the house at Mollstrasse 11. The client was the magistrate of Berlin in coordination with the Jewish community .

It consists of a granite stele with two writing tablets. The upper writing tablet contains a Hebrew inscription which, translated into German, reads:

“The holy bones of the members of our first congregation in Berlin rest here. They were murdered as martyrs and burned on 12 Aw 5270 . This memorial plaque was put up by Meir, the son of Abraham Salomonski in 1935. "

The Rabbi Martin Salomonski let this plaque in 1935, the year of the Nuremberg Laws , at the synagogue of the Jewish old people's home Lietzmann at the corner of Landwehrstraße attach. The street was called Gerlachstraße from 1939 and was closed in 1970. Today there is the playground of the kindergarten Berolinastraße 7a, 200 meters southwest of the memorial stone. In 1941/42 the old people's home served as a collection camp for deportations to Theresienstadt , Riga or directly to the extermination camps . After severe war damage, the ruins of the building were demolished in the early 1960s. The tablet that was recovered was given to the Jewish community.

On the lower bronze plaque, which was only made in 1988 after the memorial stone was erected, it says:

“In 1510 38 Berlin Jews were burned for alleged desecration of the host . Your bones are buried here. "

The last sentence is misleading here, however, as the current location is not identical to that of the synagogue of the old people's home to which the text refers. The victims were not only from Berlin, but also from other cities in the Mark.

Although the memorial stone is a testimony to the early and recent history of Berlin, it is not a listed building .

Announcement of the verdict in front of the Berlin Marienkirche (from the "Sumarius" from 1511)

Funeral pyre at the gates of Berlin (from the "Sumarius" from 1511)

Historical background

→ Main article : Berlin host desecration trial

At the beginning of 1510 a gilded monstrance and two consecrated hosts were stolen from the church of the Havelland village of Knoblauch . The thief, the Christian tinkerer Paul Fromm from Bernau , declared under the torture that he had sold one of the hosts to a Jew in Spandau . This triggered a series of accusations, persecutions and arrests of Jews in many cities in the Brandenburg region . Around 100 of those arrested, including the most respected of the communities, were taken to the royal seat of Berlin for further investigation and brought before a court there. After the verdict was pronounced on July 19, 1510 on the Neuer Markt in front of the Marienkirche , 38 Jews were burned on a multi-story pyre at the place of execution in front of the Georgentor , the Berlin Rabenstein on the later Judengasse , at least two others who had been baptized in the meantime, beheaded. The thieving tinker was also executed.

Whether and where the remains of the victims were buried is not documented, but it was common to bury them on a Schindanger near the Rabenstein, i. H. near the later synagogue of the old people's home. The frequent assumption that there was also an early Jewish burial site cannot be substantiated by earlier sources or by archaeological finds.

As a result of what happened, the Jews were driven out of the march. This had the advantage for the sovereign and also for the citizens that debts with Jewish merchants or bankers did not have to be paid off. Jews were not able to resettle in Berlin until 1539.

swell

• Gregor Günther (?): Warhrachtig Sumarius the judicial hendel ... (PDF; 4.6 MB); Johann Hanau, Frankfurt (Oder) 1511, in the holdings of the library of the Association for the History of Berlin.
• Hermann Trebelius : Pirae Marchiticae de perfidia Judaeorum Berlini crematorum. Johann Hanau, Frankfurt (Oder) around 1511.

Web links

Commons : Memorial stone for the victims of the Berlin burning of the Jews  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

literature

• Friedrich Holtze : The criminal case against the Brandenburg Jews in 1510. In: Writings of the Association for the History of Berlin. Booklet XXI, Berlin 1884.
• Aron Ackermann: History of the Jews in Brandenburg ... p. 32 ff; Lamm, Berlin 1906.
• Nicola Galliner et al .: Guide through Jewish Berlin. Nicolai, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-87584-165-4 .
• Ingo Materna et al .: History of Berlin from its beginnings to 1945. Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-320-00829-3 .
• Ingo Materna, Wolfgang Ribbe (ed.): Brandenburg history. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-05-002508-5 .
• Andreas Nachama , Julius H. Schoeps, Hermann Simon (eds.): Jews in Berlin. Henschel, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89487-336-1 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See memorial plaque with Hebrew letters in new surroundings . In: Neues Deutschland from October 14, 1988. PDF
2. ↑ See: Nicola Galliner u. a .: Guide through Jewish Berlin , page 288.
3. ^ But see: Felix Escher: Brandenburg in the age of denominationalism. In: Ingo Materna, Wolfgang Ribbe (Hrsg.): Brandenburgische Geschichte , page 252 ff. Here the number of those burned is given as 39, the number of those beheaded as 2.
4. ↑ Around today's house of health, Karl-Marx-Allee 3. According to other sources - see Felix Escher: Brandenburg in the age of denominationalism. In: Ingo Materna, Wolfgang Ribbe (Hrsg.): Brandenburgische Geschichte , footnote 94 - but in front of the Marienkirche or at a place of execution at today's Strausberger Platz .
5. ^ Siegfried Moses: On the history of the Jewish cemetery and burial system in the Jewish community in Berlin ( PDF ); Community Gazette of the Jewish Community of Berlin, 11/1913

Coordinates: 52 ° 31 '24 "  N , 13 ° 25' 24"  E