Weener Jewish Community
The Jewish community in Weener existed from the 17th century until April 7, 1942. According to the statute of July 31, 1921, the community included those Jews who lived in Weener , Weenermoor , St. Georgiwold , Kirchborgum , Holthusen, Smarlingen, Tichelwarf, Stapelmoor , Entrance hall , Vellage and Halt lived. The Jews in Weener made up a high percentage of the population in East Friesland, based on the number of inhabitants of the place, in 1925 the proportion was 3.5% of the total population of Weener. For the first time, Jews settled in the village towards the end of the Thirty Years' War , took part in local life and were members of various village associations. Ostracized and persecuted after 1933, many of them emigrated. At least 48 Jewish residents were murdered in the Holocaust . After the Second World War , only one returned Jew lived in Weener.
History of the Jewish community in Weener
From the 17th century to the German Empire
The first Jewish residents can be found in Weener around 1645. In the period that followed, the community grew rapidly. During this time, the services took place in a restaurant on Westerstrasse.
Until 1670 the Jews from Bunde , Weener , Jemgum and Stapelmoor shared the cemetery of the Emden community. In that year the representatives of the Rheiderland Jews then turned to Princess Christine Charlotte and asked to “agree with grace that we may buy our ends in the said area (Leerort) about half or all of Diemat Land at a fair price and be allowed to use the same for a church in front of our dead ” .
This request was answered positively by the princess after just one day, who instructed her officials in Leerort to support the Jews in their land purchase and to ensure that they were not disadvantaged. The Rheiderland Jews then bought a piece of land in Smarlingen between Weener and Holthusen and built a cemetery there, which was used until 1848. From 1850 the dead were buried in the cemetery on Graf-Ulrich-Straße, which is closer to the city. In 1928/29 the old cemetery was repaired.
Around 1828, planning began to build a synagogue . On July 3, 1828, the Jewish community in Weener was able to purchase a plot of land on Westerstrasse (1933–2008: Hindenburgstrasse) on which the synagogue was built at the turn of 1828/29. Shortly afterwards it became necessary to build a teacher's apartment. It was built in 1837 in the immediate vicinity of the synagogue on Westerstrasse. The Jewish school was built between the two buildings in 1853 and was used until 1924; the building itself has been preserved to this day.
In 1876 an Israelite Sick and Burial Brotherhood was founded in Weener to take care of the nursing and burial of the Jewish community. Other associations were the Israelite Women's Association, which looked after women and girls in need; from 1929 there was also the women's association to beautify the synagogue.
In 1887 the teacher's apartment had to be demolished and replaced by a new building in the same location. In addition to the teacher's apartment, the building also contained the Jewish ritual bath and the community room .
In 1896 the Jewish community in Weener created another cemetery , which was even closer to the city on Graf-Edzard-Straße. This cemetery was still used after the end of Weener's Jewish community. The last funeral took place there in 1982, when the last Jewish resident of Weener, who returned to his hometown in 1957, was buried.
First World War and Weimar Republic
During the First World War , the Jewish community - like other associations and organizations - signed war bonds , for which they even went into debt. Three of the Jewish soldiers from Weener died in the war. They were honored with the other fallen soldiers from Weener on the war memorial. Three Jews received awards.
The number of members of the Jewish community remained constant at 204 people in the years of the First World War. During the Weimar Republic it fell to 152 people by 1925 due to a decline in the birth rate. The sharp decline in the birth rate also meant that the Jewish school was closed in 1924 when only four children were still attending the facility. These were taught in the Catholic school from 1925, but continued to receive their religious instruction within the Jewish community.
In 1928 the synagogue was renovated and returned to its intended use with a centenary celebration in which citizens of other faiths also took part. On this occasion, the Synagogue Association published a memorandum that provided information on the history of the community and community life.
Emigration and low birth rates caused the number of Weener's Jewish residents to fall further to 123 by 1933.
The first years of National Socialism, 1933–1937
After the National Socialists came to power in 1933, the age of persecution began for the Jews in Weener. Two months after the “ seizure of power ” on March 28, 1933, the NSDAP party leadership ordered the boycott of Jewish businesses , “in response to the boycott and atrocity incited by Jews at home and abroad”. On the same day, Anton Bleeker , the SA standard leader in Aurich (for Oldenburg-Ostfriesland from July 1934), issued a ban on slaughter in all East Frisian slaughterhouses and ordered the burning of all slaughter knives. The SA von Weener then confiscated the butcher's knives in the apartment of the kosher butcher, synagogue servant and cantor Simon Cossen, as well as the circumcision knives stored by Preacher Boley . The knives were then burned in public and the remains sunk in the railway dock.
On April 1, the population of Weener was informed about the boycott calls in a long article in the Rheiderland-Zeitung , in which it was stated that from Saturday, April 1, 1933, at 10 a.m., no one should buy anything in Jewish shops. In an advertisement with the Nazi emblem that was placed on the same day, it was stated that
- no longer buy a German in Jewish shops or from Jewish travelers,
- no German farmer should neither sell nor buy anything from a Jewish cattle or fur trader,
- if these orders are violated, they will be expelled from the ranks of the German national movement and the person concerned will then also be boycotted.
In support of the boycott, the SA had put up large banners on all the streets leading into the center of Weener, on which it was written: "Germans, do not buy from Jews". Furthermore, the SA group Weener went through the town accompanied by music and then held a protest rally on the square in front of the “Memmingaburg”. Several speeches were made here, in which those present were asked to show political unity, as had already been demonstrated in Weener on March 5th, the day of the Reichstag election . The actions should be disciplined, because no Jew should be stifled. Nevertheless, it should be made clear to the Jews what it was about. The reaction of the Jewish population to the calls for boycott varied greatly. It ranged from the secret continued operation of the shops via the backyards or the sale at night to the curiosity that the Jewish butcher Amos Moritz de Vries placed an advertisement in the local newspaper on Monday, April 3, 1933: "Rind- and veal, strictly real service and always equally good. "
The boycott was officially ended on April 5, as the agitation has now completely ceased.
Nevertheless, the discrimination continued through propaganda, ordinances and laws. From 1935 a part of the cattle market in Weener was “reserved” for the Jewish traders, but access to this was monitored in such a way that no trader took advantage of it. This worsened the economic situation of the owners. In the same year, on July 20, the Ostfriesische Tageszeitung published the appeal “ People's comrades , do not buy in the following Jewish shops” and listed all Jewish shops still in existence in the towns of East Frisia. For Weener, 23 Jewish shops were named, two thirds of them were in the cattle trade, six as butchers.
In 1935, Amos Moritz de Vries, who had already campaigned against the boycott of Jewish businesses in 1933, complained to the Reich Minister of Economics . A notice had been placed in the striker's box, which was set up on his property , which read: “Anyone who still buys from a Jew will be made public.” In his complaint, de Vries pointed to a press article stating that he was a victim Boycott of Jewish businesses is inadmissible. This complaint was approved by the Reich Ministry of Economics and the notice had to be removed. However, De Vries was immediately arrested and taken to the Esterwegen concentration camp , where he “confessed” under torture to knocking the box over and giving false testimony to the Reich Ministry of Economics. After interventions by his wife, many friends and old comrades in the war, he was released from the concentration camp and fled to the United States via the Netherlands and Great Britain . His wife and three children were later murdered by the National Socialists.
"Reichspogromnacht" 1938
On the night of November 9-10, 1938, riots against the Jews, ordered by the Reich leadership of the National Socialists, took place in Weener, which were later referred to as "Reichskristallnacht", "Reichspogromnacht" or November pogroms 1938 . Erich Drescher , Mayor of the city of Leer , was called at home by the Oldenburg Gauleitung and briefly informed about the planned actions. Together with his nephew, who happened to be visiting, he was brought to the town hall by his driver, where he had a conversation with Standartenführer Friedrich Meyer, which served to coordinate the areas of responsibility. Both were informed of the events that night, probably independently of one another.
After the conversation, Meyer went to Weener to coordinate the actions. The local police sergeant J. Verlaat had previously been informed by telephone from the SA standard in Leer that the synagogue would be set on fire. Sturmbannführer Lahmeyer was awakened and instructed by Standartenführer Friedrich Meyer, whereupon he called the local SA members together and ordered the delivery of gasoline by telephone at a gas station on Hindenburgstrasse (since 2009: Westerstrasse). This was then taken to the synagogue and set on fire at 4:30 a.m. The alarmed fire brigade limited itself, at the behest of the SA, to preventing the flames from spreading to surrounding houses. The synagogue then burned down to the ground.
At the same time, SA troops were preparing for the arrest of all Jews from Weener and gathered on the roll call square in front of the "Memmingaburg". There they received their orders to arrest the Jews and to confiscate valuables. Shortly afterwards, the SA troops broke into the homes of the Jews and took the residents to the local police prison. When this was no longer sufficient, the Jews were locked up in the administrative office of the employment office. Around noon of the following day, the women were released and the men were transported by truck to Leer to the city cattle yard. From there they were transferred to Oldenburg, along with around 200 other Jewish East Frisians. There they were rounded up in a barracks. About a thousand Jewish East Frisians, Oldenburgs and Bremen residents were then taken by train to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp north of Berlin. They remained in the camps until December 1938 or early 1939. Little by little they were released.
The local newspaper reported on November 10, 1938 under the heading “Messages and Notes” about the actions: “Demonstrations against the Jews. As a result of the cowardly Jewish murder in Paris, there were demonstrations against the Jews here too in the early hours of the morning ”. The assassination attempt by Herschel Grynszpan on November 7th on the Nazi party secretary Ernst Eduard vom Rath , who died of his injuries on November 9th, served as a pretext for the pogroms.
Expulsion and murder 1938–1945
After the November pogroms, the Jewish community in Weener quickly dissolved. While there were still more than seventy Jews living in the village in December 1938, that number fell to fifty in the first quarter of 1939, and to 37 in September. The head of the community fled to the Netherlands on August 29, 1939. The Jewish community was no longer a corporation under public law , but was now entered in the Weeneraner register of associations as the “Jüdische Kultusvereinigung eV”. On April 7, 1942, the district administrator of the Leer district reported to the district president that the last Jewish inhabitant of Stapelmoor, who had belonged to the Jewish community of Weener, had emigrated. This enabled Weener to be declared “ free of Jews ”.
Of the 123 Jews who lived in Weener in 1933, twelve died there of natural causes, 24 emigrated to countries of exile overseas, 16 of them to South American countries. Three Jews who fled to the Netherlands also survived the Holocaust. At least 48 were killed in concentration camps or during deportations. The fate of the rest is unknown.
After the war
Of the Jewish residents, only Samuel Lazarus from Stapelmoor returned to his former apartment in 1957. He died in 1982 as the last Jewish resident of Weener and was buried in the cemetery on Graf-Edzard-Straße.
The cemeteries were transferred to the Jewish Trust Corporation in 1953 . In 1960 she handed this over to the regional association of Jewish communities in Lower Saxony . The cemeteries were repaired several times after the Nazi era . In the period that followed, it was partly taken care of by private individuals, partly by the Weener gymnastics and sports club or the Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation .
In 1990 the city erected a seven-armed menorah on the spot where the synagogue had previously stood, and a memorial plaque was placed on the former teacher's house in the same year.
Legal reappraisal of the time of National Socialism
The trials against those primarily responsible for the November 1938 pogroms in Weener were brought before a jury court in Aurich in 1949 . The charges were rioting , arson , deprivation of liberty and crimes against humanity . Eight defendants stood before the court. The former Sturmbannführer Lahmeyer was sentenced to one year and three months in prison for having passed the orders on. He did not have to serve this sentence, however, as his pre-trial and internment detention totaling three years and nine months was fully credited. The other defendants received terms of between one and four months in prison.
According to a newspaper report, the district court director found that none of the defendants had a reputation for fanaticism. "The action held by the SA was carried out here only in the strictest ordered framework, without it having been generally approved by the defendants."
Historical development
The Jewish community in Weener was always one of the largest in East Frisia in relation to the number of inhabitants. In 1925 it made up 3.5% of the total population of Weener.
| year | Parishioners |
|---|---|
| 1802 | 11 people |
| 1867 | 183 people |
| 1885 | 231 people |
| 1905 | 175 people |
| 1925 | 152 people |
| 1930 | 142 people |
| 1933 | 123 people |
| 1938 December | 70 people |
| 1939 1st quarter | 50 people |
| 1939 September | 37 people |
| 1942 April 7th | 0 people |
Memorials
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- Jewish cemetery in Smarlingen between Weener and Holthusen
- Jewish cemetery on Graf-Ulrich-Strasse
- Jewish cemetery on Graf-Edzard-Strasse
- Memorial stone for the burned down synagogue at Westerstraße 32
- Memorial plaque on the former teacher's house
- Stumbling blocks in Neuen Straße 15 (October 17, 2016), Kommerzienrat-Hesse-Straße 7 and Westerstraße 41 (October 21, 2017)
literature
- Herbert Reyer, Martin Tielke (ed.): Frisia Judaica. Contributions to the history of the Jews in East Frisia . 2., through Aufl., Verl. Ostfriesische Landschaft, Aurich 1988 (= treatises and lectures on the history of Ostfriesland, vol. 67), ISBN 3-925365-40-0 .
- 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 . Verl. Ostfriesische Landschaft, Aurich 1988 (= individual writings / Ostfriesische Landschaft, Vol. 30), ISBN 3-925365-41-9 .
- Shmuel Spector (Ed.): The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life before and during the Holocaust ; Volume 2. K-Sered . New York University Press, New York (NY, USA) 2001, ISBN 0-8147-9377-0 . (English; see p. 1436, Art. Weener )
- Daniel Fraenkel: Weener. 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. 1534-1544
Individual evidence
- ↑ Herbert Reyer, Martin Tielke (Ed.): Frisia Judaica. Contributions to the history of the Jews in East Frisia . Aurich 1988, ISBN 3-925365-40-0 , p. 83.
- ^ Völkischer Beobachter , Wednesday, March 29, 1933.
- ^ National Socialist German Workers' Party, party leadership, instruction of March 28, 1933.
- ↑ Online anti-Jewish measures in 1933 ( Memento from April 14, 2005 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Rheiderland newspaper of April 4, 1933.
- ↑ City of Leer (East Friesland): We want to smoke out the wolf in his gorge! The pogrom night in Lee
- ^ Rheiderland-Zeitung of November 10, 1938.
- ↑ Herbert Obenaus (Ed.), Historical Handbook of the Jewish Communities in Lower Saxony and Bremen ISBN 3-89244-753-5 , p. 1542.
- ↑ Herbert Obenaus (Ed.), Historical Handbook of the Jewish Communities in Lower Saxony and Bremen ISBN 3-89244-753-5 , p. 1543.
- ^ Nordwest-Zeitung , February 24, 1949.
Coordinates: 53 ° 10 ' N , 7 ° 21' 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
