Jewish history of Wittstock / Dosse
Jews are said to have lived temporarily in Wittstock / Dosse as early as the late Middle Ages . From the second half of the 18th century, Jewish families settled permanently in the city. The Geheime Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Part I, contains entries for the years 1719–1726 regarding the rejection of Michael Israel Süßmann's request for transfer (note: legally guaranteed tolerance) to Wittstock, November 1719. - Issue of five blank letters for the Count von Spaar on the appointment of Jews in the media city of Greiffenberg / Uckermark; Request from Michael Israel Süssmann for a transfer to Wittstock against the killing of 50 ducats, April, Dec. 1720. - Transfer of Marcus Meyer to Wittstock, August - September 1726.
Around 1810 a Jewish cemetery was laid out in front of the Kyritzer Tor. The area was surrounded with a wall. The Jewish community is said to have reached its highest level around the middle of the 19th century. From 1857 there was a prayer room in the center of the city on St. Marienstrasse. The walls of the house synagogue were decorated with wall frescoes with blue floral ornaments. These paintings are among the last evidence of Jewish life in Wittstock. At the end of the 1920s, only eleven Jewish citizens lived here, which is why the prayer room was abandoned. At the beginning of the 1930s there were still three shops in Wittstock that were run by Jews; in 1938 only one was left. After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists in January 1933, the Jewish cemetery was desecrated. The last two Jewish families who lived in Wittstock, the Mendelsohn and the Rehfischs, were forced to flee. They were able to save themselves by means of a boat crossing that lasted between 3 and 4 weeks across the Suez Canal , Bombay , Colombo , Singapore and Hong Kong to Shanghai , the only place of refuge besides the Comoros that took in Jewish refugees. Five stumbling blocks in Wittstock have been remembering her since 2014 .
In 1952 a memorial stone was erected on the former cemetery area, which had been leveled. In 1958, numerous documents on the city's Jewish history were lost in a fire in the city archive.
The Jewish history in the village of Rossow , which has been part of the Wittstock commune since 2003, has not yet been processed .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Meta Kohnke, Bernd Braun et al .: Secret State Archives Prussian Cultural Heritage, Part I: Older Central Authorities until 1808/10 and Brandenburg-Prussian House Archives . De Gruyter, January 6, 2014, ISBN 978-3-11-097542-0 , p. 267.
- ↑ a b From the history of the Jewish communities in the German-speaking area Wittstock / Dosse (Brandenburg) , accessed on March 6, 2019