Rees Jewish Community

The Rees Jewish community in the Lower Rhine city of Rees existed from the 18th century, but Jewish life has been documented in the city since 1346. As in many other places, the Rees Jewish community was destroyed by the atrocities committed by the National Socialists before and during World War II. After 1945, the Jewish community has not yet been rebuilt. Few Jews lived in a district of Rees until the 1970s.

history

Old Jewish cemetery on the city wall

Entrance to the old Jewish cemetery in Rees

14th century to 1933

There has been Jewish life in Rees since the 14th century at the latest. In 1346 the Jewish citizen Solomon, called "Vynes von Rees", was mentioned in a document. Even after the plague pogrom of 1349, a few Jews are said to have stayed in the city; Since they were only allowed to exercise a few professions, they worked here mainly as traders and moneylenders. In 1431 a man named Samuel von Arnheim received a letter of protection from the Counts and Dukes of Kleve-Mark .

The magistrate of the city of Rees decided in 1549 not to tolerate any Jews in the city; the Jews were expelled on March 8, 1549.

“... Uff Gunsdagh, March 8th, 1549, the mayor, Scheffen, Rhadt and jury concluded that no Jews would be tolerated in the city / and since some of them should evacuate the city / would let themselves be found in it, after a warning should sit down in prison until Rhadt and the jury explain how to proceed against them. ... "(from the expulsion order 1549)

In 1583 the Jews were again expelled from the city by the city council “in the event of the greatest disgrace and breaches (fines)”. Only a few Jewish citizens were granted a right of residence. Few Jewish families lived in Rees until the beginning of the 19th century.

In 1653 a man named Zaudisch Herz became the accountant of the Klevian Jews. After his death his son Isaak Zaudi took over his office. Around 1660 two families of Jewish faith lived in Rees.

Around 1700 the Rees Jews bought a plot of land on the approx. Eight meter wide city wall (at the "White Tower") to build a flood-free Jewish cemetery in Rees . This cemetery was expanded in the 1780s. The burial site also served as the final resting place for deceased Jews from Haldern , Isselburg and Millingen . Around 1870 the cemetery had to be closed due to full occupancy. A total of around 160 burials are said to have taken place in the cemetery. In 1872 a second Jewish cemetery was built on Weseler Strasse.

In the years 1750/1760 there were no Jewish families in Rees. In 1812 there were only about six to twelve families of the Herz, Cohen, Mandel, Marcus, Spier and Wolff families. Few families lived in Rees at the beginning of the 19th century. In 1812 there were only six (maybe twelve) families. Their names are well known: Herz, Cohen, Mandel, Marcus, Spier and Wolff.

The 126 Jewish citizens living in Rees were given their fixed civil names in 1846. In 1847 the statutes for the Rees synagogue community were compiled. In 1854 the Rees synagogue community was constituted (there were around 150 believers in 1850) with the cities and towns of Emmerich, Isselburg, Haldern, Elten, Hasselt and Millingen. Since the cemetery on the city wall was occupied, a second Jewish cemetery was built on Weseler Strasse in 1872.

In 1911 a fire destroyed the synagogue building in the upper town, but it was rebuilt a short time later. In 1925 there were 41 Jews living in the city; the Jewish community consisted of 59 believers in total.

1933 to 1945 - persecution of Jews and extermination of the Jewish community

At the time of seizure of power of Adolf Hitler in 1933, 55 Jews lived in the city. Their family names were: Sander, Plaat, Straus, Wolff, Lilienfeld, Isaac, Bernhard, Marcus, Cussel and Gompertz . The synagogue community had 66 members at that time. In 1937 there were only 35 Jews left in Rees.

In November 1938 the building with synagogue room in Oberstadt 16 was destroyed by the National Socialists. Cult objects were thrown on the street, the family living in the house were expelled from the house and the father of the family was arrested in the town hall.

On November 10, 1938, only about 10 people of Jewish faith lived in Rees. In 1941 the building in Oberstadt 16 became the property of the city of Rees and remained in their possession after 1945. In 1941 and 1942 the Sander and Isaac families were deported to concentration camps . From December 1941 until the end of the National Socialist era, no more Jews lived in Rees.

The synagogue community lost 38 of its 66 members due to the Holocaust .

1945 until today

The Isaac family lived on Kirchplatz 14

After the Second World War, there was initially no or only a few confrontations with the National Socialist era . It was not until around 1980 that various efforts to deal with this dark epoch of the city became apparent. In Rees, Jewish community life was wiped out. Two brothers of the Jewish faith lived in the Rees-Haldern district since 1948: Moritz and Erich Plaat. Moritz Plaat died in 1970. Erich Plaat was buried in 1979 in the new Jewish cemetery.

The building of the former synagogue is still owned by the city and serves as a residential building. A simple plaque on Oberstadt 16 reminds of the synagogue. The inscription reads:

“The synagogue of the former Jewish community of Rees has stood here since around 1840. It was destroyed in a bomb attack on Rees in February 1945. "

In 1997 the city placed the old Jewish cemetery under monument protection.

Since 2009 around 35 so-called " stumbling blocks " have been remembering former Jewish residents of the city . In Koenraad-Bosman Museum "Jewish traditions" finds are since 2014 in the area shown, which could be saved from destruction; including a Torah fragment and some prayer books.

In memory of the persecution and murder of the Jewish fellow citizens of Rees and of the victims of the forced labor camp in Rees-Groin , a memorial ceremony takes place annually on November 9th at the memorial at the Reeser Stadtgarten.

Rees Synagogue

Oberstadt 16 - This house was the community center of the Rees Jewish community from 1840 to 1938. The Jewish Sander family lived there last

The first Jewish prayer house existed in the Wasserstraße as early as the 17th century . In 1680 this house of prayer was a Rhein - flood destroyed religious objects and the house was washed away by the floods.

In 1840 a synagogue room was set up for the approx. 130 people in the community with a school, teacher's apartment and mikveh in Oberstadt 16. The synagogue room, which could seat around 75 people, was on the upper floor of the building. The one-class Jewish elementary school and the teacher's apartment were on the ground floor of the building, as well as a mikveh in the back.

During the pogrom night of 1938 the synagogue was looted by the National Socialists and the apartment on the ground floor of the Jewish family living there was also made uninhabitable. In 1941 the synagogue building became the property of the city of Rees and was not returned after 1945. During the Second World War the house was used as a warehouse. A synagogue congregation no longer exists in Rees since 1938. After the war, there were still some Jewish citizens living in the city, but they died before 1980. The secluded building is still owned by the city today and serves as a residential building for three tenants. A simple plaque commemorates the former synagogue. The inscription reads:

“The synagogue of the former Jewish community of Rees has stood here since around 1840. It was destroyed in a bomb attack on Rees in February 1945. "

Rees Synagogue District

In 1847 the statutes for the Rees synagogue community were compiled. According to the Prussian Jewish law , the Rees synagogue district with its seat in Rees was created in 1847 . In addition to the Jewish community in Rees, the Jews in Elten , Emmerich , Haldern , Hasselt and Isselburg also belonged to this Prussian synagogue district . In 1850 the Rees congregation consisted of around 150 believers.

In 1854 the Rees synagogue community was constituted with the cities and towns of Emmerich , Isselburg, Haldern, Elten , Hasselt and Millingen.

In 1911 a fire destroyed the synagogue building in the upper town, but it was rebuilt a short time later. In 1925 there were 41 Jews in Rees; the Jewish community consisted of 59 believers.

In 1932/1933 Isidor Wolff (1st chairman, 1877-1937), Hermann Cussel (2nd chairman, 1897-1965) and Isidor Isaac (3rd chairman, 1860-1943; murdered in Theresienstadt ) formed the board of the synagogue community, while Meier Levisohn (1862-1935) was the religious director, teacher and cantor of the community.

Rees Jewish elementary school - cantors and teachers

Since the Jewish community in Rees had grown to 130 people in 1840, the community board decided to set up a one-class Jewish elementary school for the pupils of the Rees synagogue community in the community center in Upper Town 16 . The four teachers, who were also cantors of the synagogue community, were Abraham Hermanns (from 1840 to 1866), Isidor Gutmann (from 1866 to 1874), Levi Cohen (from 1874 to 1900) and Meier Levisohn (from 1900 to 1935). In August 1900 the teacher Levi Cohen celebrated his 50th anniversary with the service. After a festive service in the synagogue, the public celebration with numerous well-wishers took place in the Fischer restaurant (Dresen) on the Rhine.

The Jewish school was closed in the early 1920s; The reasons for the closure are not known. Since then, the students have attended the Protestant elementary school on the market. From 1937 they were banned from attending school there and the children were sent to the Jewish school in Bocholt .

Jewish communities in North Rhine-Westphalia

Due to the Shoah , only a few Jews live in Germany today (0.2% of the population). Because of the greater anonymity ( anti-Semitism after 1945), Jewish life is mainly located in the big cities. The number of Jewish community members in Germany is around 98,000 (2017)

There are Jewish synagogues within North Rhine-Westphalia mainly in the larger cities, currently in Paderborn , Bielefeld , Münster , Dortmund , Bochum , Gelsenkirchen , Essen , Duisburg , Krefeld , Bonn , Aachen , Cologne , Bonn , Düsseldorf and Wuppertal .

The Jewish community members on the Lower Rhine, to which Rees and the surrounding area belong, are the orthodox community in Duisburg-Mülheim-Oberhausen (Duisburg), the Liberal Jewish Community Ruhr Area "Perusch" Oberhausen or the communities from Krefeld (orthodox), Düsseldorf (orthodox and others). liberal) or Mönchengladbach. The number of Jews in these congregations was around 11,000 in 2017.

literature

General

Hermann Terlinden: The Jewish cemeteries in Rees , in: Calendar for the Klever Land 1977.
Dieter Roos: Jewish cemeteries in Rees , Ed. Reeser Geschichtsverein Ressa eV, Emmerich 1996.
Elfi Pracht-Jörns: Jewish cultural heritage in North Rhine-Westphalia. Part II: Düsseldorf district , JP Bachem Verlag, Cologne 2000, pp. 355–361.
The restitution of Jewish property in West Germany after the Second World War. A study of the experience of persecution, the rule of law and politics of the past 1945–1971. Dissertation University of Freiburg 2002, p. 114 ff .; Text online (PDF; 3.3 MB)
Monika Grübel / Georg Mölich: Jewish life in the Rhineland. From the Middle Ages to the Present , Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2005 (Verlag Böhlau).
Ursula Reuter: Jewish communities from the early 19th to the beginning of the 21st century . (= Historical Atlas of the Rhineland VIII.8.) Bonn 2007
Klaus-Dieter Alicke: Lexicon of the Jewish communities in the German-speaking area. Three volumes. Gütersloher Verlagshaus , Gütersloh 2008, ISBN 978-3-579-08035-2 .
Jewish elementary school Rees , in: Stadt Rees / Stadtarchiv (ed.): From the collegiate school to the school center - Forays through history -, Rees 2010, p. 145.
Stefanie Bleckmann: Jewish life worlds in the 19th century in rural areas under emancipatory aspects presented at the Rees synagogue community , specialist work in history, 2014.
Christiane E. Müller / Wolfgang Jung / (edit.), Jews in Wesel and on the Lower Rhine - a search for traces , ed. by the Jüdisch-Christian Freundeskreis Wesel eV in cooperation with the city of Wesel, 2014 (various articles, including by Bernhard Schäfer and Stefanie Bleckmann).
Michael Scholten: On the trail of Jewish life , in: rp-online from December 10, 2016.

The time of National Socialism

Bernhard Schäfer: They were also Reesers. In memory of the Rees Jewish community , in: Alois Puyn (Red.), Calendar for the Klever Land 1997 (47th year), Kleve 1996, pp. 133-136.

Bernhard Schäfer: It happened in the upper town. The Reichspogromnacht of 1938 in Rees , in: Alois Puyn (Red.), Calendar for the Klever Land on the year 1998 (48th year), Kleve 1997, pp. 86–90.

Michael Brocke: Fire put on your sanctuary - destroyed synagogues 1938 North Rhine-Westphalia , Ludwig Steinheim Institute, Kamp Verlag, Bochum 1999, p. 447/448.

List of stumbling blocks laid in Rees , available online at: List of stumbling blocks in Rees .

Maria Raudszus: The pogrom: What happened 80 years ago in Rees , in: NRZ from November 8, 2018 (interview with Bernd Schäfer).

Michael Scholten, In memory of the horror. Rees commemorates the pogrom night 80 years ago , in: RP of November 9, 2018.

The time after the Second World War

Bernd Finke: Rees / Haldern / Isselburg. Two who survived the Holocaust , in: rp-online.de of January 29, 2013.
Benno Nietzel: reparation for historical injustice [1] , in: article Dokupedia contemporary history, August 27, 2013