History of the Jews in Luxembourg

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The Judaism in Luxembourg provides numbers around 1,200 members, ie 0.23% of the population (as at 1st January 2016), a religious minority represents It is after. Catholic Roman Church , the Protestant , the Orthodox Church and Islam the fifth largest religious community in Luxembourg . The Jews played in the history of Luxembourg has always been an important part; Today Luxembourg is the only country in Europe with more Jews than in 1933.

Beginnings of the Jewish presence in Luxembourg

The geographical location of Luxembourg was of great importance for the evolution of the Jewish community. Luxembourg is surrounded by France and Germany by two neighboring countries that played a decisive role in the history of Judaism.

The first Jews to immigrate to Europe settled in the Rhineland at the time of the Roman Empire . In the Middle Ages there were already renowned Jewish communities in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation , especially in the area of ​​the ShUM cities of Worms , Speyer and Mainz . The same was true of the Kingdom of France in the Metz and Troyes area . In the immediate vicinity of Luxembourg there were noteworthy Jewish communities in Trier , Thionville and Arel .

The first Jews in Arel settled in "Hütchengasse" ( Hetschegaass in Luxembourg ) in 1226 and 1309 . The first Jews settled in Luxembourg City around 1276 . The first document that proves the presence of Jews in the county of Luxembourg is from 1276; it names a Jew named "Henri von Luxemburg", who is said to have borrowed 53 Trier pounds from a man from Bartringen . In the middle of the 14th century, several families were already living in the Petrus Valley , where a Jewish cemetery was set up a little later . Documents that appeared around 1367 already mention the " Judengasse " and the "Judenpforte" in Luxembourg City.

The presence of Jews in other nearby towns at this time was also documented, including Neuerburg (1309), Echternach , Ließem (1332), La Roche-en-Ardenne (1333), and Damvillers (1945/1947) ), as well as in Bitburg (1334) and in Bastogne (1353).

The plague , which spread rapidly in Europe in the years 1348/1349, as well as other grievances in the population led many people to choose the Jews as a scapegoat and there were attacks by anti-Judaism . They were also accused of poisoning wells and ritual murder . Charles I of Luxembourg , King of the Holy German Empire, who was convinced of the innocence of the Jews, tried to prevent the situation from escalating. During the plague pogroms of 1349 Jews were murdered or expelled from the two cities of Luxembourg and Echternach. On July 24, 1349, he called on the residents of Luxembourg City to guarantee prosperity and property for the Jews until they were either condemned or acquitted: “There is no one on your body and good or bad, with words or work. ” To what extent Luxembourg was affected by the plague at this time is not exactly known. However, it is known that epidemics occurred in Barrois and Lorraine, among others . After returning in the meantime, they were expelled again in 1391 - but only for a short time; In 1405 some Jewish families were allowed to settle again. In the following years they were often victims of pogrom-like attacks that were always aimed at their belongings, for example in 1444 and 1478. The persecuted could only save their lives by fleeing Luxembourg. Jews settled in the city again in 1490/1492.

15th to 16th century

At the time when Luxembourg was part of the Burgundian Netherlands , the living conditions of the Jews deteriorated increasingly.

The city of Luxembourg, which at that time already had around 2500 inhabitants, attracted many Jews from the country with its progressive leather and fabric industry, despite the fact that there were no laws there that would have protected the Jews from persecution. The worst persecution took place in March 1478. Most of the Jews then left the city, so that in 1515 there were only eight Jewish households in the city of Luxembourg, 11 in the entire Grand Duchy.

In the following two years almost all Jews left the entire Duchy of Luxembourg; the reason for this sudden disappearance is not exactly known. The ducal archives document neither a pogrom nor a government decision that could explain the departure of the Jews. From the middle of the 16th century, isolated Jewish families still lived in the Duchy of Luxembourg, although Jews were banished from the Habsburg Netherlands by an edict from Charles V in 1527 . The rare mention of Jews in the Duchy of Luxembourg in the following decades mostly related to travelers.

After the French Revolution

After the French Revolution (1789), the emancipation of the Jews progressed gradually; on September 28, 1791 they were granted civil rights. In 1798, the previous duchy of Luxembourg was annexed to the French Republic as the Forêts Department, so that French laws and rights have applied to Jews since then.

A little later, on July 14, 1795, all the special taxes to which the Jews were obliged were abolished and absolute equality between Jews and Christians came about . In addition, from that date the Jews had the right to settle and become resident anywhere in the Spanish Netherlands.

The first census of Jews took place in the early 19th century. A law passed on September 8, 1808 stipulated that every family had to register with a family name , but many Jewish families did not yet have a family name at that time. The census recorded a community of 75 Jews, including 13 men, 15 women and 47 children.

The number of Jews rose relatively quickly, among other things because the Jews from the Luxembourg area had joined together with communities from Lorraine and Germany. In 1817 the first Jewish cemetery was inaugurated in the Causen district . At the beginning of the 19th century, there was also a need for a Jewish religious center in Luxembourg. In 1821 the Jewish community bought a house in the "Rue du Séminaire", which was sold to the city of Luxembourg as a national property at the time of the French Revolution. The first Luxembourg synagogue, which was officially inaugurated in 1823, was built in this house. This could accommodate about a hundred people and was initially under the direction of Pinhas Godchaux (1800–1871).

19th century to 1933

The second synagogue in Luxembourg (1894–1943)

The opening of the first synagogue in Luxembourg marked an important turning point in the history of the Jews in Luxembourg. Since Luxembourg's independence in 1839, the Luxembourg Jewish consistory had become an independent institution, whose members were elected by the ministry.

When the Franco-Prussian War broke out in 1870 and during the Prussian occupation of Lorraine and Alsace , many Jews moved to Luxembourg. Soon the synagogue, built in 1823, turned out to be too small. As early as 1876, preparations were made to build a new synagogue . The building including the site of the old synagogue was returned to the City of Luxembourg, in return the Jewish community received a new site between the avenue de la Porte Neuve and the rue Aldringen . The establishment was financed by Luxembourg and Belgian Jews and partly also by the Luxembourg state.

The building was planned by the German architect and professor Ludwig Levy . The Luxembourg state architect Charles Arendt finally realized the building, which was designed in neo-oriental style. The foundation stone was laid in July 1893 and the building was inaugurated on September 28, 1894. At that time Isaac Blumenstein was the rabbi of the Luxembourg Jewish community, and Louis Godchaux , a Luxembourg industrialist , was president of the consistory .

1933-1940

The number of Jews in Luxembourg rose from 1717 to 3144 between 1927 and 1935. After 1933, at the time of National Socialism , the Jewish community of Luxembourg began to grow rapidly as many Jews fled to Luxembourg from the Nazis in Germany. In the 1930s, Luxembourg became an important European asylum and transit country for Jews. The Luxembourg government resorted to a law of October 28, 1920, which enabled it to deport political refugees and anti-fascists across the border.

Before the invasion of Luxembourg by the German Wehrmacht on May 10, 1940, around 3700 Jews lived in Luxembourg.

1940-1945

Nazi march in front of the synagogue, around 1941/42

On May 20, 1940, ten days after the Wehrmacht invaded Luxembourg , the military administration in Luxembourg ordered the confiscation of all raw materials , edibles and precious metals that were in Jewish possession. On August 2, 1940 Gustav Simon was appointed head of civil administration (CdZ) in the CdZ area of ​​Luxembourg by Führer decree ; under his responsibility all further measures against the Jewish population were planned and carried out. Between August 8 and October 15, 1940, more than 2500 Jews, the majority of them non-Luxembourgers, fled illegally from Luxembourg abroad, most of them to the French zone libre , others to Switzerland , Cuba or in , among others the United States .

The Nuremberg Laws were also implemented in Luxembourg on September 5, 1940, with the same measures against Jews as in Germany. All Jews living in Luxembourg had to submit a statement of assertion. Anyone who owned a business was obliged to sell their business at any time. From October 1, 1940, the Jews were forced to hand over all of their money to the Nazis in bank accounts. Likewise, raids were carried out by the Gestapo, in which jewelry, bicycles, typewriters, cameras, radios and even warm clothing (in the winter of 1942) and soap were confiscated. The clothes were all sold to the Wehrmacht.

On October 22, 1940, the Ettelbrück synagogue was devastated. In May 1941 the synagogue was closed by the Gestapo, desecrated and then torn down, which lasted until autumn 1943. On June 3, 1941, the Escher Synagogue suffered the same fate, as did the monument on the Cinqfontaines peninsula (Fünfbrunnen). On February 7, 1941, a law was passed requiring all property of those who emigrated in 1940 or earlier to be confiscated. From April 18, 1941, this also applied to the Jews who were still living in Luxembourg. The confiscated was sold by the NSDAP. Part of the money was used to finance the Germanization policy in Luxembourg, the partisan of the NSDAP Moselland. In November 1941, all Jewish organizations were dissolved and over 35,000 Reichsmarks were confiscated.

In October 1941, a ban on emigration was imposed. At that time there were up to 700 Jews in Luxembourg. On 16 October 1941, the first left deportation of 334 Jews to Hollerich railway station , in the Lodz ghetto were deported. A provisional camp was set up in the center of the Jesuit fathers on the Cinqfontaines, where the Jews waited to be transported to the concentration camps. Between October 1941 and April 674 Jews from Cinqfontaines were in the Lublin ghetto and in the Theresienstadt concentration camp . The extermination camp was moved to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.

Only 36 Jews survived in Luxembourg. Of the 3,500 Jews who were resident or were staying in Luxembourg in 1939, 1,555 survived, mostly in emigration. Almost 2,000 were murdered - a third in the extermination camps, the others in concentration and labor camps. About 70% of the 3,500 Jews living / staying in the Grand Duchy were victims of the Nazi regime.

More than 5,000 Luxembourg citizens were charged with collaboration after the war; eight suspects were sentenced to death and around 2,000 were sentenced to prison terms.

After the Second World War

After the war, a new Israeli Consistoire was founded, with Edmond Marx as its president . This Consistoire has restructured Jewish life. The 3rd synagogue was opened in Luxembourg City on June 28, 1953, and another synagogue was opened in Esch an der Alzette on October 17, 1954 . In 1958 the Jewish memorial of the former Jewish community Medernach was rediscovered, which had been completely destroyed under the rule of National Socialism.

In the economy, and especially in the world, Jewish families have played an important role; B. the families Bonn, Cahen, Finkelstein, Hertz, Levy, Rosenstiel, Sternberg.

On July 10, 1998, the "Culte Israélite du Luxembourg" was recognized by the constitution.

To commemorate the Shoah in Luxembourg, a monument designed by Lucien Wercollier was inaugurated in Fünfbrunnen in July 1969 . The five granite blocks come from the former Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp in Alsace.

A memorial in memory of the victims of the Shoah was inaugurated on June 17, 2018 in Luxembourg City. The memorial commemorates the persecution, deportation and murder of local Jews and Jews who fled to Luxembourg during the National Socialist dictatorship . 75 years earlier, on June 17, 1943, the last deportation train with Jews had left Luxembourg.

Picture gallery

graveyards

There are a total of five Jewish burial sites in Luxembourg: the old cemetery in the Luxembourg district of Clausen and the new one in the Limpertsberg district, as well as the Jewish cemeteries in Esch-sur-Alzette, in Ettelbrück and in Grevenmacher.

Modern Jewish life

There is a kosher grocery store in Luxembourg, the Boulangerie Philip, which looks after around thirty families who pay attention to the kashrut . Services in the main synagogue follow modern Orthodox ritual and are conducted in French and Hebrew by Moroccan-born Joseph Sayagh, who is the first Sephardic rabbi in Luxembourg history. Chadash ( Hebrew חד״ש), a small reform church, was founded in 1998 by Betty Preston, an American immigrant. The synagogue has 35 adult members and 15 children, all of whom are expatriates . Chadash holds a monthly Shabbat service at the local Baha'i Center and Rosh Hashanah services at the Hilton Hotel . A rabbi comes from England every year to preside over the high holidays. There is no violent anti-Semitism in Luxembourg, but there is some xenophobia.

swell

literature

  • Paul Cerf, De l'épuration au Grand-Duché de Luxembourg après la seconde guerre mondiale , 1980, Imprimerie Saint-Paul, Luxembourg
  • Cerf, Paul: L'étoile juive au Luxembourg , 1986.
  • Cerf, Paul: Dégagez-moi cette racaille , 1995; Virwuert vum Serge Klarsfeld ; Éditions Saint Paul, Luxembourg, ISBN 2-87963-215-3
  • Cerf, Paul to Isi Finkelstein, Les Juifs d'Esch - Déi Escher Judden. 1999.
  • Serge Hoffmann, Luxembourg - Asylum and hospitality in a small country , 1996; Contribution to solidarity and help for Jews during the Nazi era ; Metropol Verlag, Berlin; ISBN 3-926893-43-5
  • Laurent Moyse, 2011: Du rejet à l'intégration - Histoire des Juifs du Luxembourg des origines à nos jours , Lëtzebuerg (Sankt-Paulus Verlag) ISBN 978-2-87963-810-2
  • Mil Lorang: Luxembourg in the shadow of the Shoah . Edited by MemoShoah Luxembourg. Editions Phi, Soleuvre 2019. ISBN 978-2-919791-18-7 .

Web links

Commons : Judaism in Luxembourg  - collection of images, videos and audio files

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sergio DellaPergola: World Jewish Population, 2016. In: Arnold Dashefsky, Ira M. Sheskin (Ed.): American Jewish Year Book 2016. Springer, 2017. ISBN 978-3-319-46121-2 (e-book: doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-319-46122-9 ). Pp. 274, 311-317. Limited preview in Google Books
  2. ^ A b Luxembourg Virtual Jewish History Tour , Jewish Virtual Library. Retrieved November 14, 2018.
  3. ↑ a b c Luxembourg . Retrieved November 14, 2018.
  4. ↑ code_administratif / VOL_1 / CULTES.pdf Constitution of Luxembourg
  5. ↑ Danielle Schumacher: Memorial dedicated to the victims of the Shoah , Luxemburger Wort , June 17, 2018. Accessed November 15, 2018.