Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Amstetten

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The Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Amstetten in Lower Austria comprised the districts of Amstetten and Scheibbs, the judicial district Persenbeug belonging to the district Pöggstall, the judicial districts Mank and Ybbs belonging to the district Melk as well as the statutory town Waidhofen an der Ybbs and existed between 1861 and 1938.

Kemmelbach

The first Jewish community arose in Kemmelbach in the middle of the 19th century . In 1861 the Lower Austrian Lieutenancy approved the statutes of the "Israelitische Cultus-Gemeinde in Kemmelbach", which had been founded on the basis of association law.

In the municipality of Neumarkt an der Ybbs , which belonged to Kemmelbach, 73 Jews lived in 1855 , which corresponded to 11 percent of the total population. Kemmelbach had a prayer house, a Jewish elementary school, a rabbi , a slaughterer , a cantor and a teacher. The Jewish cemetery in Griesheim already existed before 1867.

The prayer house was closed on December 2, 1857, and the Jewish elementary school existed until 1866.

At the beginning of the 1880s, the cultural community was relocated from Kemmelbach to Ybbs an der Donau .

Ybbs on the Danube

The "Cultusgemeinde Ybbs" bought a piece of land in 1889, founded the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Ybbs on January 1st, 1892, in accordance with the Israelite Law of 1890, and built the Jewish cemetery Ybbs on the Danube in 1894 , with a cemetery wall and ceremonial hall. Due to the limited resources of the municipality, their seat changed to the place of residence of the municipality leader.

Amstetten

Former Jewish prayer room (bay window) in Scheibbs

A prayer room was inaugurated on August 18, 1896, the birthday of Emperor Franz Joseph I , in the presence of the mayor, the district captain, and representatives of the Jewish Community of Vienna and the Jewish Community of Sankt Pölten . The prayer room later moved to Ardaggerstrasse and stayed here until 1938.

In 1897 the IKG Ybbs changed its name to IKG Amstetten.

The religious community tried to build its own synagogue and bought a piece of land for this purpose on May 9, 1910. However, there was no construction. The establishment of a separate cemetery was also discussed.

Around 1912 there were other rooms in Scheibbs , Purgstall an der Erlauf and Mank , and possibly in Kemmelbach. In 1937 these rooms no longer appear.

From 1922 the community no longer had its own rabbi for financial reasons. Initially, the rabbi of the IKG Sankt Pölten took over his duties provisionally, from 1933 the rabbi of the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Linz followed just as provisionally . Between 1935 and 1938 , Doctor Moses Landau , who lived in Vienna , held this office on a provisional basis. He only came to Amstetten when he was needed.

Immediately after the German Wehrmacht invaded Austria and the annexation to the Third Reich , the Jewish residents were demonstratively abused, harassed and humiliated in public, to the delight of the majority of the residents. Later, a phase that appeared to be quieter from the outside came, but the various Nazi agencies continued to harass the Jewish residents and rob them - covered by Nazi laws. The next open outbreak of violence against Jews and Jewish businesses and institutions took place during the Reichspogromnacht .

The expulsion of the Jews from this region came to an end on May 27, 1940, when Joseph Löwenherz , the then head of the IKG Vienna , announced that the Jews who had previously lived in Amstetten and the surrounding area were to be relocated to Vienna.

At the turn of the year 1939/40 the IKG Amstetten still existed on paper. It was dissolved and incorporated into the IKG Vienna on August 1, 1940.

In 1999, the municipality of Amstetten erected a memorial to remind people of the expulsion of Amstetten's Jews in the school park near the city center. The erection of the memorial was preceded by a controversial political discourse in the Amstetten municipal council. According to plans by Norbert Mahringer , glass cylinders with a diameter of a good 20 centimeters are set into the earth on a circle of five meters in diameter in a circular, wild-growing patch of lawn six meters in diameter. On the beveled end pieces that are exposed - twelve in number, which protrude twelve centimeters above the surface of the earth - the names of the eleven displaced families or families. Registered persons; the nameless glass cylinder stands for the inexpressibility of what is happening.

At the inauguration ceremony in autumn 1999, among others, the then Amstetten Mayor Herbert Katzengruber ( SPÖ ) and representatives of the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Wien (the then general secretary of the IKG Vienna, Dr. Avshalom Hodik, its chief cantor Shmuel Barzilai and Dr. Michael Schüller as representatives of the political ATID parliamentary group in the IKG).

literature

  • Walter Baumgartner, Robert Streibel: Jews in Lower Austria. "Aryanization" and provisions in the cities of Amstetten, Baden, Hollabrunn, Horn, Korneuburg, Krems, Neunkirchen, St. Pölten, Stockerau, Tulln, Waidhofen ad Thaya and Wiener Neustadt. (= Deprivation of assets during the Nazi era as well as provisions and compensation since 1945 in Austria. Volume 18). Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-486-56782-9 (D), ISBN 3-7029-0494-8 (A).
  • Christoph Lind: The last Jew has left the temple - Jews in Lower Austria 1938–1945. Verlag Mandelbaum, Vienna 2004, ISBN 3-85476-141-4 .
  • Johannes Kammerstätter: Our Jewish compatriots and their portable fatherland. Papercomm-Verlag, Wieselburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-9503322-0-9 .

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