Samson School
| Samson School | |
|---|---|
| type of school | Free school |
| founding | 1786 |
| closure | 1928 |
| place | Wolfenbüttel |
| country | Lower Saxony |
| Country | Germany |
| Coordinates | 52 ° 10 '52 " N , 10 ° 32' 9" E |
The Samson School in Wolfenbüttel was a nationally important Jewish free school that dates back to 1786 and existed until 1928. Since 1881 it had the status of a non-denominational simultaneous school in which Christian students were also taught. The most famous graduate was the founder of the science of Judaism, Leopold Zunz .
history
Forerunners
In 1786, the Wolfenbüttel court banker Philipp Samson founded a Talmud Torah free school ( Beth-hamidrasch ) from his father 's endowment capital of 20,000 Reichstaler at Harzstrasse 12 , which he chaired himself. This initially Orthodox religious school was located in the vicinity of the synagogue established by Samson in 1781 . In 1796 the widow of his brother Herz Samson founded another educational institution in Wolfenbüttel, which in 1807 became the Samson free school. Eight-year-old Leopold Zunz attended school from 1803 to 1809 and describes the inadequate conditions before 1807 in his memoirs:
There were no school laws, no protocol, in a sense no pedagogy. On Friday afternoon we fished the beans and peas; in our games and brawls we were left to our own devices. [...] There was no reading or anything like that; nobody cared about us either.
Founded in 1807
In 1807 Samuel Meyer Ehrenberg , who had attended the institution as a student between 1789 and 1794, became the director of the Samson School. The Ehrenberg, which was shaped by the Jewish Enlightenment, redesigned the school in line with Reform Judaism based on the Jacobson School in Seesen . Ehrenberg's aim was to prepare for attending grammar school or for activities in trade and craft. The Jewish confirmation was introduced as early as 1807 , since 1827 for girls. The sudden change in the educational program is described by a classmate of Leopold Zunz:
We have literally passed from one medieval period to a new one on "one" day. Everything that I had lacked until then, parents, love, instruction, educational resources, was suddenly given to me.
In 1840 it was converted into a three-class citizen school. Ehrenberg remained the head of the school until 1846. His son Philipp Ehrenberg (1811–1883) took over the office until 1871 . The Samson School was given the status of a six-class secondary school in 1888, which has been able to issue "one-year certificates" since 1892. Christian students have also been taught since 1881. On September 3, 1896, a two-story new building was inaugurated on Neuer Weg. The "Secular Foundation", established in 1886 by members of the Samson family and former students, supported outgoing students during their subsequent apprenticeship in crafts, arts and crafts, agriculture and horticulture.
The majority of the students came from outside. The school had 201 graduates between 1807 and 1843; in the period from 1844 to 1886 there were 452 students.
Closing in 1928 and subsequent use of the building
After the end of the First World War , the school system was changed. The school could not follow this change and the number of students was constantly falling. The school closed in 1928 due to economic problems. Hildegard Feidel-Mertz sees deeper reasons, however: “In 1928 the long-established Samson School in Wolfenbüttel failed to become a modern Jewish rural education home based on the model of Wickersdorf or the Odenwald School , because the Jewish bourgeoisie preferred their children to them from the start sent liberal rural education centers, which were distinguished by tolerance and open-mindedness. "
After all of Samson's property had been expropriated during the Nazi era, the SA used the building as a barracks. After the end of World War II, the building was used as a hospital. In 1988 the listed building was acquired by the Braunschweig Chamber of Crafts from the Federal Property Office and converted into a boarding school for vocational training. The Chamber of Crafts occupied the Samson School with apprentices from its vocational training center on Hamburger Straße in Braunschweig and the Federal College for the Confectionery Trade in Wolfenbüttel, the latter being located directly on the property of the Samson School. The chamber also occupied the house with master students and seminar participants from the federal technical school. After the occupancy rate of the pastry school with apprentices and master students sank significantly, it had to be abandoned in 2005 and the building of the pastry school was acquired by the Wolfenbüttler hospital. The boarding school in the Samson School had thus lost its right to exist and was also closed. In 2007 the city of Wolfenbüttel acquired the Samson School.
School operation
After receiving the ducal approval, Philipp Samson was able to open the school on June 4, 1786. He took over the school management himself. At that time there were 10 students who were divided into two classes according to age. Participation in school, clothing and food were free. School operations began at 8 a.m. with a morning prayer with Philipp Samson. Two teachers gave lessons without a curriculum, mostly from the Bible or the Talmud , and a few hours were provided for German and arithmetic. There were no games, variety or leisure time entertainment. The school leavers were considered to be “morally stable”, but were little prepared for a career.
After the death of Philipp Samson, the Samson family continued to run the school. Samuel Meyer Ehrenberg was put in charge of the school management, a former student. He knew the shortcomings from his own experience and initiated changes. He divided the lessons into two stages according to a fixed timetable, religious lessons were restricted in favor of grammar , calligraphy and correct pronunciation. So that students could then continue their education at Wolfenbüttel high schools, Greek, Latin and mathematics were also taught for gifted students. Christian teachers were also hired for this. The number of students increased and not only free students were taught, but also paying students. The lessons took place in several stages; the buildings were no longer sufficient. On the instructions of the Braunschweig State Ministry, the school was converted into a multi-level secondary school.
The Samson family decided to build a modern school building. The classrooms were on the ground floor of the new building, the work and common rooms, library, dining room and auditorium on the first floor. The second floor was built for the bedrooms and washrooms and for a separate hospital ward. The teachers' rooms were distributed over the floors so that permanent supervision was possible. There was also a school gym.
In 1984 the Braunschweig Chamber of Crafts acquired the building and converted it for their own purposes. Practical lessons for butcher shop assistants and apprentice printers were held in one or two-week courses based on state-approved framework curricula. The participants could also be accommodated in the training building. At the same time, it was used as a guest house for the neighboring federal college for the confectionery trade and the vocational training center of the Chamber of Crafts.
Well-known former teachers and students
The teachers were Jakob Freudenthal from 1863 , Samuel Spier from 1864 and Rabbi Emanuel Schreiber from 1874 .
The Samson student Leopold Zunz, who was born in Detmold , founded the science of Judaism . Zunz's childhood friend Isaak Markus Jost became a Jewish historian. Emil Berliner , who came from Hanover , emigrated to the USA in 1870 and invented the gramophone and record in 1887. Werner Scholem , born in Berlin, was sent by his father to the Samson School for two years in 1908. Scholem became a member of the Reichstag for the KPD in the Weimar Republic , he was arrested in 1933 and murdered by the National Socialists in 1940.
From 1920 to 1924 Hugo Rosenthal worked as a middle school teacher at the Samson School.
Around 1928 Fridolin Friedmann spent part of his legal clerkship at the Samson School.
literature
- Reinhard Bein : Eternal House Jewish Cemeteries in the City and Country of Braunschweig , Döring, Braunschweig 2004, ISBN 3-925268-24-3 .
- Meike Berg: Jewish Schools in Lower Saxony Tradition - Emancipation - Assimilation. The Jacobson School in Seesen (1801–1922). The Samson School in Wolfenbüttel (1807–1928) , Böhlau. Cologne, Weimar, Vienna, 2003, ISBN 3-412-05703-7 (= contributions to historical educational research , volume 28, also dissertation at the University of Hildesheim ).
- Herbert Obenaus (Ed.): Historical manual of the Jewish communities in Lower Saxony and Bremen. Volume II , pp. 1573–1583, Wallstein, Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3-89244-753-5 .
- The Samsons School [!] In Wolfenbüttel . in: Allgemeine Zeitung des Judenthums 23 (1859), no. 23, pp. 336–339.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hans-Jürgen Derda: In the spirit of emancipation. Leopold Zunz - founder of the science of Judaism. In: Braunschweigisches Landesmuseum, information and reports 3–4 / 1996, pp. 27–28
- ↑ Hans-Jürgen Derda: In the spirit of emancipation. Leopold Zunz - founder of the science of Judaism. In: Braunschweigisches Landesmuseum, information and reports 3–4 / 1996, p. 28
- ↑ Dr. Paul Zimmermann (Ed.): Braunschweigische Chronik für d. J. 1896. In: Braunschweigisches Magazin . Nro. January 1, 1897. Page 7. In: Braunschweigisches Magazin. Third volume. Born in 1897. Braunschweig. 1897. page 7.
- ↑ Simone Lässig: Jewish Paths into the Bourgeoisie: Cultural Capital and Social Ascent in the 19th Century , 2004, p. 173
- ↑ Hildegard Feidel-Mertz: “With an eye for the whole”. The social pedagogue Gertrud Ferien (1890 - 1943) , in: Inge Hansen-Schaberg and Christian Ritzi (eds.): Paths of pedagogues before and after 1933 , Schneider Verlag Hohengehren GmbH, Baltmannsweiler, 2004, ISBN 3-89676-768-2 , P. 24
- ↑ Ernst A. Boas: The Wolfenbütteler Samson School . S. 38. In: Heimatbuch für den Landkreis Wolfenbüttel 1992, ed. v. Wolfenbüttel district.
- ^ "The block on the leg of the craftsman", Braunschweiger Zeitung of January 20, 2006
- ↑ Ernst A. Boas: The Wolfenbütteler Samson School . Pp. 35-38. In: Heimatbuch für die Landkreis Wolfenbüttel 1992, ed. v. Wolfenbüttel district.
- ↑ Thomas Felleckner: formation and development of training centers. Historical report , Chamber of Crafts Braunschweig-Lüneburg-Stade (ed.), Lüneburg 2013, p. 31 ( online edition, PDF, 3531 kB ( memento of the original from August 14, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note. , accessed on August 13, 2017)
- ↑ See Ralf Hoffrogge, Werner Scholem - a political biography (1895–1940), Konstanz 2014, pp. 30–35.
