Jewish community of Lingen

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A Jewish community in Lingen existed in Lingen from 1869 to around 1940 .

history

Jews had lived in Lingen since 1693 at the latest . However, only one Jewish family lived in the city in the 18th century. It wasn't until the 19th century that the community began to grow. In 1842 there were 13 Jews in four families in Lingen; in 1900 there were already 112. The Lingen Jews were active as cattle dealers and butchers, as dealers of raw materials, peddlers and textile retailers. They did not appear politically.

In 1869 the Lingen synagogue community was founded; until then, the Lingen Jews had attended the service in Freren . In 1878 the community built a synagogue and a school building on Gertrudenweg . However, mostly only religious instruction was given there; Incidentally, the Jewish children attended the evangelical community school in Lingen. The cemetery for the Jews in the Lower County of Lingen had been in Lingen since 1734, next to the Christian old cemetery . The Jews of Freren were also buried there until 1926. The youngest tombstone is from 1976.

Decline and destruction of the community

In the first years of the 20th century some Jewish families moved away from Lingen; In 1924 71 Jews were still living in Lingen. In June 1933, just over four months after the seizure of power of the Nazis , there were only 40th

During the Reichspogromnacht from November 9th to 10th, 1938, SA people destroyed the Lingen synagogue and demolished and plundered the last Jewish shop. Only the schoolhouse, which was very close to a bakery, remained. Two thirds of Lingen's Jews emigrated between 1933 and 1939, mostly to Belgium and the Netherlands , so that in 1939 only 17 Jews lived in Lingen. In 1940 synagogue director Jakob Wolff sold the school to the baker Kemper and the synagogue property to another resident.

Until 1941 two Jews from Lingen were able to emigrate to the USA . The others died - like most of those who emigrated to Belgium and the Netherlands - in the Holocaust . Only one young woman survived World War II .

After the Second World War

Lingen Memorial Jewish School Memorial Stone
Lingen Memorial Jewish school Synagogenplatz with school
Lingen Memorial Jewish School information board

After the end of the Nazi regime, only a few Jews returned to Lingen. Many had been murdered, and most of those rescued in exile never wanted to return to Germany. The former Jewish school served as a horse stable for years.

In a large book on the history of Lingen, which was published on the 1000th anniversary of the city in 1975, the history and fate of the Jewish community were ignored. In a shocking letter to the editor , Ruth Hanauer, the last Holocaust survivor living in Lingen at the time, drew attention to this omission.

On November 15, 1977, the city erected a memorial stone near the former synagogue; the square was later called Synagogenplatz . In 1985 several former Jewish citizens of Lingen visited their old homeland at the invitation of the city. At her suggestion, a memorial stone with the family names of the persecuted and murdered Jews was also placed on Synagogenplatz . In 1989 the adjacent Gertrudenweg was renamed Synagogenstraße . Two survivors of the Holocaust, Ruth Foster-Heilbronn and Bernard Grünberg, received honorary citizenship of the city of Lingen in 1993 .

In 1988 the Jewish school was listed as a historical monument . After extensive renovation by the city, it was inaugurated as a memorial site in November 1998. A permanent exhibition reminds of the fate of the Jewish families in Lingen.

In 2014 a fountain was built at the site of the former synagogue, framed by a box hedge in the shape of the Star of David, which is also intended to remind of the stumbling blocks laid in Lingen .

literature

  • Ludwig Remling: Lingen. In: Herbert Obenaus (Ed. In collaboration with David Bankier and Daniel Fraenkel): Historical manual of the Jewish communities in Lower Saxony and Bremen . Volume 1 and 2 (1668 pp.), Göttingen 2005, pp. 993-1001
  • Jewish cemeteries in Emsland. Ed .: District Emsland. Meppen 1991, 48 p., Therein: Aschendorf, Bakerde, Freren, Haren, Haselünne, Lathen, Lingen, Meppen, Sögel
  • Gertrud Anne Scherger: "The Jewish cemetery in Lingen." A documentation, Lingen 2009, 140 p., ISBN 978-3-9805696-5-1
  • Gertrud Anne Scherger: “Persecuted and murdered.” Contribution to the history of persecution of the Jews from the Lingen area. Lingen 1998, 122 pages, ISBN 3-932959-02-7

Web links