Aurich Jewish community
The Jewish community in Aurich ( East Frisia ) existed for a period of around 400 years from its beginnings in 1657 to its end on March 1, 1940. Aurich was the seat of the regional rabbi until the beginning of the 19th century. The community was considered to be strict and conservative. With the other East Frisians they spoke East Frisian Platt , interspersed with vocabulary from Aurich Jewish German.
History of the Jewish community in Aurich
1635 to 1744
Jews in Aurich are first mentioned in 1635 in the person of the so-called court Jew Calman Abraham. His family formed the core of the Aurich Jewish community. An earlier Jewish settlement of the city has not yet been proven. The Jewish community goes back to the year 1657, when some Jewish family members moved to Aurich and the required number of ten male worshipers for a minyan was reached.
Just one year later, in 1658, the early community and especially the court Jew Calman Abrahams found themselves exposed to ritual murder charges. Judith, who came from Altona and worked in the house of the court Jew, was the first Jew in Aurich to be baptized in the town church at Easter in the presence of Prince Enno Ludwig ; since then she has been called Christina. In the same year she raised the charge of ritual murder against the Aurich Jews. An investigation brought about by the prince's court Jew against Christina proved that the allegations were untenable. However, this early example of baiting Jews was unique in East Frisia.
The court Jew in East Friesland had two functions: on the one hand, he was responsible for supplying the count's court with goods and luxury goods, and on the other hand, he was the highest representative of the Jews of East Friesland as a land rabbi and parnas (Jewish community leader). He was responsible for collecting protection money and other taxes from the Jews. During the times of the Counts and Princes of East Friesland (1464–1744), Jewish families had to pay between one and five Reichstaler to the count's treasury. Furthermore, a goose or a capon had to be handed in. The country rabbi and Parnas, who was responsible for collecting the taxes, as well as the school clerk and his father, who were considered too poor, were exempt from the taxes.
A Jewish prayer book used by the Jewish community for holidays, the Machsor , which appeared in Venice around 1600, indicates a connection between the Aurich Jews and the Jews in Italy. Business connections between the Aurich court Jewish family and the Frankfurt banker and correspondent family Beer-Oppenheim zum Einhorn have been documented since 1659 , and one son of this family married a daughter from the house of the court Jew. A little later he moved to Aurich. In 1686 he succeeded his father-in-law as a court Jew and, in addition to his duties, also took over the coin lease .
The general letter of conduct issued by Count Ulrich II in 1645 allowed the Jews of East Frisia to live according to their own "Jewish order". In 1670 Princess Christine Charlotte had a general escort letter written in which the Jews were allowed to hold church services in their homes or in their own synagogues . Up until the construction of the synagogue on Hohen Wall in 1810, it took place in an extension to the court Jew's private house on Langen Strasse. Furthermore, the Jews were allowed to bury their dead according to Jewish custom. For this purpose, the Aurich Jewish community used the cemetery of the Jewish community in the neighboring city of Norden until around 1764/65 .
1744 to 1806
In 1744, after the Cirksena died out, East Frisia fell to Prussia and the office of court Jew ceased to exist. On October 12, 1764, “the Aurich Jews, since they had their dead buried in the north beforehand”, asked the Royal War and Domain Chamber for “permission to create a cemetery near the city of Aurich”. After permission was granted, the Jewish cemetery was laid out on Emder Strasse in 1764/65 . This remained in use until the end of the community in 1940 and is still in good condition today. The post of land rabbi was given to his son Isaak Beer in 1777 after the death of the last count's land rabbi by the Prussian King Friedrich II . This met with bitter resistance from the country's Jewish population. Beer retired in 1808, when sovereignty over East Friesland lay with the Dutch royal court, and died in Aurich in 1826. Although the Prussian government wanted to reduce the Jewish population, the community in Aurich grew. Shortly before the Dutch occupation in the course of the peace of Tilsit in 1806, the community had a total of 173 people. In 1753, shortly after Prussia came to power, there were only 99 people.
1806 to 1866
After the battle of Jena and Auerstedt (1806) East Friesland was incorporated into the Kingdom of Holland and thus into the French sphere of influence. In 1810, East Frisia came directly to the French Empire as the department of Ems-Oriental (Osterems). For the Jews this meant a significant improvement in their situation. In two decrees of June 4, 1808 and January 23, 1811 they were granted civil rights and full equality.
During this time, a very good relationship between the Jewish and Christian population can be assumed, which can be measured, among other things, by the willingness of the Aurichians to donate when the Jewish community planned to build its own synagogue in 1810. Even in the Dutch period, the Aurich community began building the synagogue , which was built according to plans by the architect Bernhard Meyer and consecrated on September 13, 1811. Despite these improvements, the Jews, too, found foreign rule oppressive and took part in the wars of liberation against Napoleon.
After the defeat of Napoleon and the collapse of his empire, East Frisia came under Prussian rule again from 1813 to 1815. As a result, the Prussian Jewish edict of March 11, 1812 also came into force in East Frisia. Jews, until then regarded as “servants of Jews” in the Prussian state, were now fully entitled citizens, provided they were prepared to accept permanent family names and submit to military service. After the Congress of Vienna (1814/15), Prussia had to cede East Frisia to the Kingdom of Hanover . Due to the lack of instructions from the new rulers, the legal situation for Jews was now extremely confused. In this area, the government in particular initially acted according to Prussian law, taking into account the Edict of the Jews. In 1829, the Aurich Landdrostei in Hanover advocated a Jewish-friendly interpretation, but received instructions to the contrary. In 1819 the guilds were reintroduced, which largely excluded Jews from the craft. In contrast to the rest of the Kingdom of Hanover, the protective Jewish status was not reintroduced in East Frisia. Since 1824 the “Oberlandespolizeiliche permit” has taken its place. Without this, Jews in Aurich could no longer settle down and marry. Jews were also prohibited from voting and assuming municipal offices. Permission to branch could only be to a son - and then only to a single son - are transmitted when the father had given up his business or had died. Like the Prussians before, the Hanoverians also tried to reduce the number of Jews in East Frisia - but did not achieve any success in Aurich.
From 1841 to 1846, Samson Raphael Hirsch , who was living in Emden at the time, was the regional rabbi of Emden and was therefore also responsible for the Jewish community of Aurich.
1866 to 1919
After the annexation of the Kingdom of Hanover by Prussia in 1866, Aurich became Prussian again and the Jewish edict was applied again. By 1870, new laws finally brought civil rights for Jews in East Frisia as well. The last (legal) discrimination was reduced by the end of the First World War .
Anti-Semitic remarks and actions were rare until the early 1930s. On the contrary, a very good relationship between the Jewish and Christian populations can be assumed for the 19th century. As recently as 1924, the mayor Karl Anklam attested the Aurich Jews and the citizens of other denominations a "unity of feeling". The integration of the Jews into the social life of the city also took place slowly. From 1846 Jews belonged to the Aurich shooting club. During the revolution of 1848 Jews also took part in the Aurich vigilante group. In December of the same year, FS Seckels was elected as the first Jew in Aurich's city council as a city councilor. Only around the turn of the century did a few anti-Semitic acts occur:
- At Christmas 1892, flyers with the inscription “Christian housewives! Buy your Christian gifts only in Christian shops ”.
- In 1913 efforts began to pronounce a ban on slaughter.
The Jews in the communities of Großefehn , Sandhorst and Kirchdorf also belonged to the Jewish community in Aurich . Around 1890 there were Jews living in the Aurich Office in the villages of Aurich-Oldendorf (1), Ostgroßefehn (7), Westgroßefehn (6), Jheringsfehn (4) and Strackholt (1).
In 1911 the synagogue was renovated and returned to its intended use on September 15th with a celebration of its centenary, in which Aurich's other faiths also took part. During the First World War, Jews from Aurich also went to the front for the German Reich.
Weimar Republic
At the beginning of the Weimar Republic , an employment structure can be established for the Jewish population that had crystallized since the 18th century. The vast majority of Jews were active in the slaughterhouse and cattle trade, as well as in the junk and manufactured goods trade. There were also two employed bankers, one of whom Heymann Seckels was also a member of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry , as well as individual craftsmen (one each a baker, a painter and a carpenter) and an optician. The employed women mostly worked as seamstresses and saleswomen. The majority of Jews lived in modest circumstances. Small and fur traders and some butchers were often on the verge of subsistence.
Since 1924 the National Socialists appeared in Aurich with anti-Semitic gatherings in rallies and Pastor Ludwig Münchmeyer from Borkum incited the audience with anti-Semitic hate speech. Other agitators from the working class or the trades found a good response, especially in the larger towns, due to their professional and social proximity to the proletariat. From 1928 onwards, anti-Semitic propaganda was spread primarily through the Protestant pastor Heinrich Meyer.
Mayor Karl Anklam tried to counter this. He was elected in 1924 and enjoyed good relations with the city's Jews. In 1927 he published an essay on the history of the Aurich Jewish community. In 1931 he intervened personally when the National Socialists distributed a leaflet in the run-up to Christmas with the request to only buy from Christians. That made him a target of Nazi propaganda himself . Anklam was defamed as a “Judenknecht” in the NSDAP press, and his house was smeared with slogans and swastikas several times. Nazi propaganda material was regularly slipped under his front door. In 1933 he was ousted from office.
1933 to 1938
After the National Socialists came to power in 1933, the Jews in East Friesland suffered repression by state organs. First they were registered and the Gestapo checked the political views of some. Associations, organizations and events were also under observation with the beginning of the National Socialist dictatorship . On March 28, 1933, Bleeke, the standard leader for East Frisia, issued a ban on slaughtering in all East Frisian slaughterhouses and ordered the slaughter knife to be burned. This led to the first major incident on March 31, 1933, when the synagogue was surrounded by armed SA men. They forced the slaughter knife to be surrendered and then burned in the marketplace. On May 30, 1933, the slaughter guild expelled its Jewish members. Since the guild was founded in 1911, they have always been represented on the board of directors and have made up most of the members (13 of 21).
If anti-Semitism remained a marginal phenomenon in East Friesland until 1933, it was now supported by the majority. The boycott calls by the National Socialists did not fail to achieve their goal. A citizen of Aurich - Wilhelm Kranz, the founder of the NSDAP local group - photographed the citizens who bought in Jewish shops in order to then pillory them in the KdF display cases. This worsened the economic situation of the owners of these businesses. One after the other had to be given up and was thus " Aryanized " the cold way . Many Jews left the city. By the November pogroms, around 55 people fled to the Netherlands, 26 to the USA, 21 to South America, nine to Palestine, four each to Belgium and France and two each to Australia and Sweden. The creeping " Aryanization " was also noticeable on the real estate market: while in 1933 there were 77 houses in Jewish ownership, in June 1939 there were only 28 houses.
The November pogroms of 1938
On the night of November 9th to 10th, 1938, riots against the Jews, ordered by the Reich leadership of the National Socialists, took place in Aurich, which were later referred to as "Reichskristallnacht" or November 1938 pogroms .
On the evening of November 9, 1938, the NSDAP held a ceremony to mark the anniversary of the Hitler-Ludendorff putsch . Immediately afterwards, the city's fire alarm systems were shut down and the fire brigade prepared for an "exercise". The SA cordoned off the synagogue grounds. Shortly afterwards the synagogue burned down. The fire brigade was called in to prevent the fire from spreading to “non-Jewish” property. Meanwhile, SA troops gathered in the market square. They were instructed to “arrest Jews regardless of age and gender” and intern them in the agricultural hall. There they had to march and hold military exercises while being beaten and humiliated. The property of the Jews was confiscated and transported away. The old people, women and children were released on the morning of November 10th, and the men were driven to Ellernfeld . There they had to do work before they were locked in the Aurich prison. Finally they were deported via Oldenburg to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp , from which they could only return after weeks.
Exodus, displacement and murder
As early as 1933, there are associations in Aurich that organized the relocation to Cyprus and Palestine . By 1935, many of the city's Jewish residents had already sold their property. By 1938, a quarter of the city's Jewish population had turned their backs and by 1939 Aurich had already lost almost half of its Jewish citizens. Since 1939 there have been no more traders or butchers on the city's “ Jewish lists ”. Whoever could had fled. Only the old and the poor remained. They were given March 1, 1940 as the last departure date. With that, the Aurich Jewish community ceased to exist. An estimated 200 of the 400 or so Jews in Aurich perished in the Holocaust , the rest are scattered all over the world. Not a single one has returned. However, an Aurich woman named van Lessen married a Jewish doctor from Bremen and converted to Judaism at the wedding. She lived in Bremen, she died in 1998 and was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Aurich.
Legal processing
In 1948 the incidents in connection with the pogroms of November 1938 were investigated by the Aurich jury. Of the four defendants, one was acquitted and the other three were sentenced to three years, one year and ten months in prison.
Community development
The Jewish community in Aurich was the second largest in East Frisia after that in Emden . The highest proportion of the total population was reached in 1925 with 7.4 percent, in absolute numbers the peak was reached in 1885 with 406 members.
| year | Parishioners |
|---|---|
| 1635 | 2 families |
| 1657 | 3 families |
| 1690 | 5 families |
| 1736 | 14 families |
| 1753 | 99 people |
| 1782 | 114 people |
| 1806 | 173 people |
| 1824 | 219 people |
| 1849 | 330 people |
| 1867 | 347 people |
| 1885 | 406 people |
| 1925 | 398 people |
| 1936 | 362 people |
| May 31, 1939 | 176 people |
| October 10, 1939 | 155 people |
Memorials
- Memorial stone for the burned down synagogue on the Hohen Wall.
- Memorial plaque in memory of the former Jewish school at the house of the Medical Association in Kirchstrasse.
- The city of Aurich has named a street after the last Jewish community leader, Abraham Wolff.
- The Aurich cinema was built on part of the site on which the bull hall stood. There the Aurich Jews were rounded up and abused during the Night of the Reichspogrom. A memorial wall in the cinema reminds of this.
See also
literature
- Ostfriesisches Kultur- und Bildungszentrum der Ostfriesische Landschaft (Ed.): From the history of the Aurich Jewish community 1592-1940 , volumes 1 and 2, 4th edition, Aurich 1982.
- Herbert Reyer: Aurich. In: Herbert Obenaus et al. (Ed.): Historical manual of the Jewish communities in Lower Saxony and Bremen . Wallstein, Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3-89244-753-5 ; Pp. 126-151.
- Herbert Reyer, Martin Tielke (ed.): Frisia Judaica. Contributions to the history of the Jews in East Friesland , Aurich 1988, ISBN 3-925365-40-0 .
- Verlag Ostfriesische Landschaft (Ed.): The end of the Jews in Ostfriesland , catalog for the exhibition of the Ostfriesische Landschaft on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Kristallnacht, Aurich 1988, ISBN 3-925365-41-9 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Aurich. January 8, 2019, accessed on January 18, 2019 (German).
- ^ Karl Anklam: The Jewish community in Aurich. In: Monthly for the history and science of Judaism . Vol. 71 (1927), No. 4, pp. 194-206.
- ^ Herbert Obenaus (Ed.): Historical manual of the Jewish communities in Lower Saxony and Bremen. ISBN 3-89244-753-5 , pp. 16, 19, 26.
- ^ Herbert Obenaus (Ed.): Historical manual of the Jewish communities in Lower Saxony and Bremen. ISBN 3-89244-753-5 , p. 26.
- ^ Herbert Obenaus (Ed.): Historical manual of the Jewish communities in Lower Saxony and Bremen. ISBN 3-89244-753-5 .
Coordinates: 53 ° 28 ′ 14 " N , 7 ° 28 ′ 46.8" E
Jewish community Aurich | Bunde Jewish Community | Jewish community of Dornum | Jewish community Emden | Jewish community in Esens | Jemgum Jewish Community | Jewish community Leer | Jewish community Neustadtgödens | Jewish community north | Jewish community Norderney | Weener Jewish Community | Wittmund Jewish community
