Jewish community of Rostock

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The Jewish community in Rostock has a history that goes back to the founding of the Mecklenburg Hanseatic city of Rostock . After being destroyed several times, it shows a lively community life again today. The community is a member of the regional association of Jewish communities in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania .

history

First church

Shortly after the city was founded, in the middle of the 13th century, the first Jews settled in Rostock. They engaged in trade and financial affairs; a loan to the city is documented for 1270. In 1279 the community was granted a burial site, whereupon a Jewish cemetery was laid out northwest of the city in front of the Kröpeliner Tor . There is no evidence of a synagogue for this period. In the 14th century, at the time of the “ Black Death ”, Jews in Rostock were driven out of the city due to the rumor that they were poisoning wells .

Second church

The German Imperium

The synagogue at Augustenstrasse 101

In 1868 the first Jews came to Rostock again and after the founding of the German Empire in 1871 they also received a settlement permit. The church grew rapidly and by the beginning of the 20th century there were already over 300 parishioners. The community set up a cemetery and built the synagogue at Augustenstrasse 101 in 1902. The members of the community integrated themselves into German social life, were active in trade and industry, but also in education, and joined the Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Citizens Belief in. During the First World War , 60 parishioners fought on the front lines, most of whom died there.

Weimar Republic

With the establishment of the Weimar Republic and the adoption of the Weimar Constitution and the principles of freedom of belief and conscience laid down therein, as well as the abolition of the state church in 1919, the restrictions and hindrances to their activities also ceased for the Jewish citizens. Many Jews took an active part in social life, including many doctors, lawyers, university teachers and artists. A lively community life developed around the spiritual center, the synagogue, with Sunday school, aid organizations and groups and associations for all age groups. The Jewish community flourished.

National Socialism

Fire in the synagogue in November 1938
Ruins of the Rostock synagogue, around spring 1939

From 1933 the Jews had to live and suffer under the state-decreed anti-Semitism that was accepted by many citizens . The start of the “ Jewish boycott ” took place in Rostock on March 30, 1933 with the posting of SA people in front of Jewish shops and continued on the following day with a large rally on the Reiferbahn. The boycott of a total of 57 Rostock shops, medical practices and law firms was enforced with intimidation and violence. With the passing of the Nuremberg Laws , the state provided the legal basis for this. The Reich Citizenship Law stipulated that no Jew was allowed to hold a public office. The Jewish civil servants, who had been spared dismissal since the introduction of the Professional Civil Service Act , had to quit their duties on December 31, 1935. In addition, Jews lost the right to vote in politics, and in 1938 their license was withdrawn from Jewish doctors and lawyers.

In 1938 the persecution of the Jews reached a new dimension. Measures such as increased tax claims and deletion from the commercial register forced Jewish business owners to give up their companies. The displacement of Jewish companies came to an end in mid-1939. In Rostock a total of 37 Jews were arrested as part of the deportation on October 28, 1938 and deported to Poland in the “ Poland Action ”. In the course of unleashed by the Nazis November pogrom , the synagogue burned down on 10 November 1938 in the August street. The arson attack was immediately followed by a wave of violence. SA and SS troops occupied houses, apartments and shops, destroyed furnishings and tyrannized Jewish citizens. 64 Jews arrested by the Gestapo were sent to Altstrelitz Prison, where they were exposed to more difficult conditions. The head of the Jewish community, Arnold Bernhard, supported the emigration of the remaining Jews with the proceeds from the forced sale of the synagogue property.

Most of the Jews left the city and tried to flee abroad, some had committed suicide, such as the dentist Prof. Hans Moral . 70 community members did not manage to leave the city until the beginning of the Second World War . They were deported to concentration camps from 1942 to 1944 and almost all of them perished there. With that, the church ceased to exist.

Third parish

Post-war period and GDR

Monument in the Jewish cemetery

After the end of the war, most of the few Holocaust survivors decided to emigrate to Palestine to build a new Jewish state. They had lost the confidence in governments and their fellow citizens to start again. Around 23,000 parishioners were registered in post-war Germany, and around 15,000 Jews lived in Germany.

After the establishment of the Federal Republic and the GDR in 1949 and the beginning of the Cold War , the overwhelming number of Jews lived on the territory of the Federal Republic, in 1950 around 22,431. A functioning community system could quickly develop here, and in 1950 the Central Council of Jews in Germany was founded . The Federal Government was able to shape its reparation policy through the establishment of diplomatic relations, good trade relations and reparation payments to Israel .

Those Jews who consciously sought the center of their lives in the GDR were mostly socialists, communists and atheists , some of whom held high positions in the GDR, such as Markus Wolf , Hermann Axen and Albert Norden, or who were successful as artists, such as Anna Seghers or Lea Grundig . There was no Jewish community life. A certain anti-Semitism, which was also strongly represented in the always idealized Soviet Union, also prevailed in the GDR. This increased sharply when, after the Six Day War, Israel was portrayed as a “Zionist aggressor” against the Arab states. At the end of the GDR, only 630 Jews were registered in communities in the entire GDR, there were no Jewish schools or training opportunities. A rabbi from Budapest came to the festivities .

In Rostock, after the end of the war, some Jews were placed in leading positions by the Soviet occupation and did crucial work in the years of need, such as the pediatrician Hedwig von Goetzen or the manufacturer Leo Glaser , who helped set up the LDPD and was appointed head of the tax office first head of the health department Heinrich Strauss. They all lost their belongings in the war years and were not allowed to work for years. Among them was the 1981 honorary citizen of Rostock appointed Ernst Hilzheimer . He was a member of the city's denazification commission , which worked closely with the anti-fascist forces. Part of Paulsstraße bore his name from 1986 to 1991. However, many of Rostock's Jewish origins were not religious, so that a community was not founded here. It was not until 1948 that a Jewish community was founded in Schwerin for the entire state of Mecklenburg, in which around 100 believers, including Rostock, came together. The Rostock parishioners looked after the cemetery in Lindenpark, which was recultivated by the city in 1945. A long struggle with the city over the plot of land in Augustenstrasse on which the synagogue stood ended with no results because the community had no money to buy. The city had a house built on it. A memorial stele was only erected at this point in 1988. When many community members moved to West Germany or died, community life came to a standstill in the 1970s.

Development since 1989

Memorial stone at the location of the synagogue in Augustenstrasse

With the reunification and the introduction of democratic structures, the city of Rostock also committed itself to promoting the resurgence of a Jewish community. The contact with the Israeli historian Yaakov Zur , who began in 1988 in connection with research on the history of the Jews in Rostock and was intensified after the fall of the Wall, contributed to the positive development . Yaakov Zur was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Rostock and an honorary citizen of the city for his services to reconciliation with the Jewish people . In 1990 the Association for Jewish History and Culture in Rostock eV was founded. At Schillerplatz, a meeting place was set up in his former villa through a gift from the son of the former mayor of Rostock, Max Samuel. The state community of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania was founded in the Max-Samuel-Haus on November 15, 1992, the first chairman was Arkadi Litvan. After just one year, 34 parishioners were counted. The many Jewish immigrants from Russia who came to the country from 1990 onwards were also looked after from here. The municipality received a binding legal basis through the state treaty concluded on June 14, 1996 with the state government of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania under Prime Minister Berndt Seite . The number of community members grew steadily, so that on April 24, 1994, a separate Rostock community was founded. The regional association became a member of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, whose chairman at the time, Ignatz Bubis, achieved a great deal for the communities in the country. Another milestone in the history of the Rostock community was the contract that was signed between the city of Rostock under its mayor Arno Pöker and the chairman of the community, Leonid Bogdan, on November 8, 1998, in which the city provided support in setting up a Jewish A kindergarten and cemetery and the construction of a synagogue.

Church today

The Jewish community in Rostock was able to set up a center of their faith in Rostock by leasing a house in Augustenstrasse through the city. There is a synagogue room with a Torah scroll that came to Rostock from Aachen , space for community work, such as religious instruction and Sunday school for children and charitable work. The community life is diverse with offers for all age groups. Taking care of Jewish immigrants is still of particular importance. With the establishment of the Shamaim cultural center , the community's cultural work was planned and varied. Here the interaction of the Jewish with the German and Russian culture is cultivated. It is also the seat of the Mechaje Jewish Theater. A community library provides literature on Jewish life and beliefs and a Jewish newspaper is published. In Rostock there is a Jewish sports club Makkabi Rostock eV The highest body in the community is the assembly of representatives, which is elected every three years and elects the board and the revision committee. The main burden of the community work is carried by volunteer community members.

The community works with many social organizations; These include the Foundation Meeting Center for Jewish History and Culture , the Friends and Supporters of the Max-Samuel-Haus , the German-Israeli Society , the Association of Those Persecuted by the Nazi Regime - Association of Antifascists and the Evangelical and Catholic Churches. Commemorative events are organized on November 9, the anniversary of the Reichspogromnacht , or on May 8, the anniversary of the end of the war.

After the number of parishioners increased sharply until 2007, it has decreased slightly since then:

  • 1994 - 103 parishioners
  • 1997 - 228 parishioners
  • 2000 - 389 parishioners
  • 2004 - 613 parishioners
  • 2007 - 711 parishioners
  • 2008 - 697 parishioners
  • 2009 - 684 parishioners
  • 2010 - 680 parishioners
  • 2011 - 671 parishioners
  • 2012 - 674 parishioners
  • 2013 - 615 parishioners
  • 2014 - 617 parishioners
  • 2016 - 582 parishioners
  • 2018 - 566 parishioners

literature

  • Arkady Tsfasman: Jews in Rostock , Rostock Jewish Community, 2005

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A. Tsfasman, Juden in Rostock , p. 72
  2. ^ A. Tsfasman, Juden in Rostock , p. 73
  3. ↑ Central Council of Jews in Germany

Web links