Jewish community of Neustadtgödens

Jewish communities in East Frisia before 1938

The Jewish community in Neustadtgödens existed for a period of around 300 years from its beginnings in the 17th century to its end on October 23, 1941.

History of the Jewish community in Neustadtgödens

In the religious peace of Augsburg in 1555 the sovereigns were granted the right that the ruler of a country specified the religion for all residents of the country (see also: Cuius regio, eius religio ). In East Friesland there was the peculiarity that here it was not determined by the count, but by the individual territorial lords, which religion was valid for the respective area. Owner of glory Gödens was the sex of Frydag. Franz Ico von Frydag (1606–1652), reformed himself, was married to the Catholic Margarethe Elisabeth von Westerholt and gave his descendants the choice of creed. In addition, he and his successors, as the owners of the glory of Godens, granted Lutherans, Reformed, Catholics, Mennonites and Jews a home in Neustadtgödens . The place itself was founded by the glory in 1544.

The Jewish cemetery in Neustadtgödens.

The first Jews settled in the glory of Gödens during the Thirty Years War : they were first mentioned in 1640 in the revenue register of glory. From 1660, the von Frydag family issued letters of protection for the Jews, which, however, had to be purchased for money (they had to pay a ducat and a goose per person and year as protection money to the glory).

Despite all the religious tolerance of the Lords of Frydag, it was also the case in Neustadtgödens that the guilds were only accessible to Christians. The only exception for decades was Sander Natans, who was accepted into the weavers' guild as a master in 1661. The other Jews earned their living as butchers, in the tea trade or in the used clothing trade. Most families, however, lived in rather modest circumstances.

On January 10, 1708, the Jewish families asked for the manorial permit to build a cemetery , until then they had had to bury their dead in the cemetery in Wittmund, which had been fully occupied since 1690. Now the East Frisian protection Jews were supposed to set up their own cemeteries in their places of residence based on a ruling order from Prince Christian Eberhard from 1690. At this request, Count Burchard Phillip von Frydag allowed the establishment of a synagogue and a cemetery in a letter of protection in 1708. For the cemetery, the rulers assigned the Jews a piece of land on the so-called Maanlande between Neustadtgödens and Gödens. From 1742 there was a temporary rabbi on site and in 1752 a synagogue in Neustadtgödens is mentioned for the first time, which is "on stately land".

In 1782 the windows of Jewish residents were thrown in a pogrom : the occasion was the Jewish Purim festival , as a result of which the Jewish population commemorated the chasing away of the anti-Jewish Haman with rattles and noise in the synagogue, but also on the way home. At that time, parts of the Christian population interpreted this to mean that the enemy of Jews must be the Christians: According to reports, no Christians from Neustadt took part in the pogrom, but the tumult was carried into the village from outside. Since the accusation of ridiculing Christians was completely unfounded, the Jewish families had to be paid compensation to repair their homes.

Synagogue in Neustadtgödens

In 1852 the community built a new prayer house in the style of a small city synagogue, which is still preserved today. Until 1902, this also served as a place of worship for the Jews from nearby Wilhelmshaven. In 1812 the Jewish community bought a residential building next to the synagogue, tore down the old building and set up a school in the new building.

In the middle of the 19th century, Jews made up a quarter of Neustadtgödens population. In 1903 the school moved to a residential building opposite, where teaching continued until 1922. Since the end of the 19th century, however, economic reasons resulted in an increased exodus of Jews (as well as non-Jewish sections of the population) from Neustadtgödens.

In the 1920s the community belonged to the Land Rabbinate District Emden . After 1933 the synagogue in Neustadtgödens was hardly used any more because the required number of ten male worshipers for a minyan was no longer achieved. On March 15, 1936, the last service was finally held in the synagogue; On June 27, 1938, the building was sold to a private person from Wilhelmshaven who set up a paint store there. In this way, the building was preserved and escaped the Reichspogromnacht on November 9, 1938.

On that day, the Jews who were still living there were arrested by the SA and brought to Oldenburg , where they were rounded up with other East Frisian Jews in a barracks. Approx. 1,000 Jewish East Frisians, Oldenburgs and Bremen residents were then deported by train to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp north of Berlin, where they remained imprisoned until December 1938 or early 1939. Little by little they were released.

In 1940 and 1941 they were arrested again by the SS and deported to the Auschwitz and Theresienstadt concentration camps. The sole survivor of the Holocaust returned to his hometown, where he died in 1974 and was buried in the Jewish cemetery.

The synagogue building served as a residential building after 1945 and as a fire station from 1962 to 1986. From 1986 to 1988 the municipality of Sande had the house restored with public funds. A gallery space for artist exhibitions was created on the ground floor. In 2002 the former synagogue was sold again and, in addition to being used as a residential building, the exhibition room is to be used for a toy collection. The plan has not yet been implemented by the new owner.

Community development

The Jewish community in Neustadtgödens made up 25% of the total population of the place in the middle of the 19th century, the highest proportion of Jews in East Friesland.

year Parishioners 1737 46 people 1749 63 people 1802 100 people 1867 186 people 1885 139 people 1905 85 people 1925 25 people 1933 June 16 12 people 1935 8 people 1940 3 persons

Memorials

The Jewish cemetery in Neustadtgödens

The Jewish cemetery in Neustadtgödens

• Neustadtgödens synagogue
• Jewish cemetery Neustadtgödens

See also

• History of the Jews in East Frisia
• East Frisia at the time of National Socialism

literature

• Herbert Reyer (arr.): The end of the Jews in East Frisia. Catalog for the exhibition of the East Frisian landscape on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Kristallnacht . Verlag Ostfriesische Landschaft, Aurich 1988, ISBN 3-925365-41-9
• Herbert Reyer, Martin Tielke (ed.): Frisia Judaica. Contributions to the history of the Jews in East Frisia . Aurich 1988, ISBN 3-925365-40-0 .
• Enno Hegenscheid, Achim Knöfel: The Jews in Neustadtgödens. The emergence of the synagogue community, its life and work, the rise and fall . Neustadtgödens 1988.
• Georg Murra-Regner, Andrea Döhrer: “So we have our ruin in mind.” The pogrom in Neustadtgödens on May 5, 1782. Dornum Synagogue Memorial, Dornum 2014.
• Werner Vahlenkamp: Neustadtgödens. In: Herbert Obenaus (Ed. In collaboration with David Bankier and Daniel Fraenkel): Historical manual of the Jewish communities in Lower Saxony and Bremen . Wallstein, Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3-89244-753-5 pp. 1099-1104.

Web links

• Neustadtgödens synagogue
• Jewish cemetery Neustadtgödens
• Denomination diversity in Neustadtgödens
• Jewish cemetery in Neustadtgödens (Friesland district)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Biographical lexicon for East Frisia : Frydag, von
2. ^ Alemannia-judaica.de: Synagogue and Jewish cemetery in Neustadtgödens

Coordinates: 53 ° 29 ′  N , 7 ° 59 ′  E