Synagogue (empty)

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Synagogue on Heisfelder Strasse (1885–1938)

The synagogue in Leer at Heisfelder Straße 44 was used by the Jewish community in Leer from its construction in 1885 until it was destroyed in 1938. During the November pogroms in 1938 , local National Socialists set the building on fire. In the months that followed, the Jewish community disbanded. The last Jews left the city in 1940.

history

The first evidence of Jewish life in Leer comes from the year 1611. The Jewish community goes back to the year 1650, when the required number of ten male worshipers for a minyan was reached.

The first synagogue

First house of prayer in Kirchstrasse (third building on the right). Postcard around 1900

Initially, services were held in a building on Kirchstrasse, which was known as the three crowns around 1690 . The prayer room was in the half of the building facing the Kaaksbrunnen . The other half was a Jew's apartment. The part of the building used as a synagogue (then called the Jewish school ) was separated into two parts by a grid. In the front part was the women's room, while the rear area was reserved for men. The furnishings such as bedside desks, candlesticks and the like were also located there. This house was last referred to as a Jewish place of prayer in 1763. Later it was bought by Ch. G. Theune, who had it converted into a warehouse.

The second synagogue

In 1766 Meyer Isaacs bought the property at Dreckstraße 2 in Leer (today: Norderstraße) "for the whole community". The property was transferred to him for ten years. In the front part stood his house, in the rear part a synagogue, which differed greatly from the old building in size and shape . The Leeraner Jews were expressly commissioned to “buy another building to the synagogue in a remote street” within ten years, “because there is no isolated place in the whole area other than where the synagogue is now.” Ultimately, the community was able to do that The building continued to be used as a synagogue until 1794.

The third synagogue

In 1793 the community began planning the construction of their first synagogue. The decisive factor for this was a donation from the Katz family, with whose help the community acquired a piece of land on the horse market street in the same year. There the master carpenter Isaak Woortmann built a 33 foot (one foot in Prussia , to which East Friesland belonged since 1744, about 30.9725 centimeters) long, 25 feet wide and 20 feet high building.

The building, which was completed in March 1794, had a total of six large and two small windows as well as two additional small windows on the upper passage and a round window in the east gable. All were provided with a stone arch, coarse glass, and iron. The floor and ceiling were covered with wood. The women's gallery was on the east side. The synagogue, which was completed in 1794, had 64 male and 29 female seats on benches, most of which the community took over from the old synagogue. Apart from one place each in the men's and women's sections of the synagogue, they belonged to the property of the Leer-based money changer H. Jos. Were changers, the community.

The furnishings included six scrolls of the law ( Torah ) (one in community and the rest in private ownership), six curtains, two large chandeliers, two smaller hanging candelabra, 32 small fixed candlesticks and 12 tin candlesticks, a silver (...) box silver cup, a large chair for pruning, a wooden box and three pointing sticks ( jad ) that were privately owned.

Next to the synagogue was a community-owned residential building with the women's bath in the basement. In 1843 the community had the synagogue renovated. The state of construction is described as good in 1849, the furnishings of the men's part as functional, but that of the women's area as in need of improvement.

The fourth synagogue

The synagogue on Heisfelder Strasse around 1900.

In the 1870s, the condition of the synagogue seems to have deteriorated, so that the community meeting decided on March 29, 1880 to build a new one. Representatives of the community presented this request to the city's magistrate on April 5, 1880, stating that the previous synagogue on Pferdedemarktstrasse “... was dilapidated and in no way met the requirements that the community places on a place of worship. A provisional loan of 50,000 marks has already been granted ... ".

The planning then dragged on. In September 1883 the land rabbi announced that he had no ritual objections to the execution of the present construction plans. The municipality board asked the city's magistrate and the Aurich Landdrostei for a building permit and permission to borrow the necessary building funds in the amount of 36,000 marks. On November 23, the building permit was finally granted.

The new synagogue was then built on a piece of land on Heisfelder Strasse, which was then sparsely developed. After a year and a half of construction, the community inaugurated the new synagogue on May 28, 1885 with a large festival program. In addition to a festive service, a synagogue celebration, a dinner, a concert and a festival ball took place. In addition to Land Rabbi Peter Buchholz, the mayor of Leer, Julius Wilhelm Engelbrecht Pustau, three members of the mayor's college and other representatives of the city of Leer, high officials and guests of all denominations took part in the celebrations. The Emden Liedertafel provided the musical framework. The Leerander advertising paper reported very benevolently about the opening and expressly praised the attractive interior. It recommended all of its readers to pay a visit to the synagogue. This enhanced the cityscape enormously. One of the most impressive synagogues in north-west Germany now stood at the northern entrance to the city. After the completion of the new building on Heisfelder Strasse, the community sold the old synagogue building to the peat merchant Michel Hans, who had it converted into a residential building, which was demolished in 1982.

In 1910 the community opened their newly built Jewish school on today's Ubbo-Emmius-Straße, which has been preserved to this day.

Building description

The Leeran synagogue was based on plans by Hermann Schatteburg. The architect from Langenbielau (today: Bielawa ) in Silesia designed a neo-Romanesque central building in the form of a Greek cross . In detail, the building clearly showed Moorish style elements. The high dome over the crossing shaped the cityscape from 1885 to 1938. There were two bid boards above their main entrance.

The Leeran synagogue differed from the other buildings in the city by its Romanesque architectural style and the Moorish decorative elements. It soon became a sight. In 1902 Albert Stockvis from Bremerhaven describes the building in his “Guide through East Friesland, the North Sea Baths, Jever and the Surrounding Area”: “[...] Now we go to Wilhelmstraße, turn left and get to Heisfelderstraße, where we get to 1885 See a synagogue built by Gerdes in the Moorish style. Inside worth seeing. Noteworthy are six pairs of silver scrolls from the 17th and early 18th centuries, as well as embroidered, beautifully executed curtains and cloaks over scrolls from the same and more recent times. "

National Socialism and November Pogroms 1938

After the National Socialists came to power in 1933, the Jews in Leer suffered repression by state organs. On March 31, 1933, three weeks before the nationwide ban on slaughter, armed SA men surrounded the synagogue and forced the slaughterer's knives to be surrendered. They then burned them with two black, red and gold flags as identification symbols of the Weimar Republic they hated on the market square.

Despite the repression, a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the synagogue and the 25th anniversary of the Jewish school took place from July 21 to 23, 1935, attended by many foreign guests. In the course of the celebration, the teacher received large donations to expand the student library. Land rabbi Blum brought the congratulations of the regional association. In July 1939 the Jewish school had to close.

On the night of November 9th to 10th, 1938, the rioting against the Jews, ordered by the Reich leadership of the National Socialists, took place in Leer, which were later referred to as "Reichskristallnacht" or November Pogroms 1938 . The Gauleitung Oldenburg called the mayor of the city of Leer, Erich Drescher , at home and gave him general information about the planned actions. Together with his nephew, who happened to be visiting, he was brought to the town hall by his driver Heino Frank, where he had a meeting with the Standartenführer Friedrich Meyer and Sturmbannführer Vollmer, who was responsible for the district of Leer, which served to coordinate the areas of responsibility. Both were probably informed independently of the events that night.

After the conversation, Meyer went to Weener to pass on the order to destroy the synagogue there to the leader of the SA, Sturmbannführer Lahmeyer. Meanwhile, the SA gathered on the Uferplatz in Leer and marched on to the Lyceum on Gaswerkstrasse, today's Teletta-Groß-Gymnasium . There the men were divided into different groups to set fire to the synagogue and to “catch up” with the Jews. Likewise, the apartment of the cantor and cantor Joseph Wolff should be "fumigated". The synagogue on Heisfelder Strasse was set on fire around two o'clock in the morning with the aid of gasoline. According to Ms. Wolffs, the mayor himself set the curtains in front of the holy tablets on fire with a torch. The fire brigade present in Leer limited its activity under the eyes of Erich Drescher, as instructed, to the protection of neighboring houses (“This is not going to be extinguished, the thing has to go!” Drescher is said to have responded to the fire brigade's warning). Almost all Jews from the city and the district of Leer were rounded up and abused in the city cattle yard in Nesse. Women and men were separated from each other. The women stayed in the slaughterhouse, the men were locked in the pigsty. During the morning of November 10, the fire brigade extinguished most of the fire. Women, children and men unable to work were dismissed from the cattle yard, so that 56 men, along with around 200 other Jewish East Frisians, were transferred to Oldenburg. There they were rounded up in a barracks. Around 1,000 Jewish East Frisians, Oldenburgers and Bremers were then deported in a train to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp north of Berlin, where they remained in the camps until December 1938 or early 1939. Little by little, they were released on condition that they leave the country as soon as possible.

On behalf of the city of Leer, a transport company removed the fire ruins from November 20th to December 20th, 1938. The synagogue cellar with the immersion bath was preserved. It was supposed to be prepared as an air raid shelter, but this did not happen. In October 1939, the city of Leer purchased the property on which the synagogue once stood. At the beginning of 1939, teacher Hirschberg resumed work in the former Jewish school. After the synagogue was destroyed, the services took place there. However, the community quickly disbanded after the November pogroms. The last Jews left the city in the spring of 1940. Their trace is lost in the extermination camps.

After 1945

Memorial stone at the former location on Heisfelder Strasse

Legal processing

The trials against those primarily responsible for the November pogroms in 1938 in Leer were conducted from March 22 to April 1, 1950 under the direction of District Court Director Pfeffer in a hall of the town hall of Leer. 19 former SA men stood before the court. They were accused of "rioting, deprivation of liberty, violence, looting and crimes against humanity". 16 were acquitted, two were sentenced to nine months and one to eight months in prison. The former mayor Erich Drescher was interned by the Allies after the end of the war. The jury court in Aurich sentenced him to prison in 1951, which, however, as a result of medical reports ("limited responsibility") was set to 21 months in prison . As a result of the internment, the sentence was considered to have been settled. The city of Leer had his portrait removed from the public officials' gallery in 2000 after a lengthy dispute. For this purpose, this was renamed the Official Gallery of Honor .

Synagogue site and memorial

The synagogue site lay fallow in the 1960s until a workshop and a wash hall for the neighboring gas station were built there. On September 12, 1961, a memorial plaque was attached to the property to commemorate the pogrom night. In 1982 one of the two mandatory boards above the main entrance was found in an allotment garden. Its owner, an SS man involved in the pogrom, had used it as a step. She remained in this position until her husband's death in 1982. The plaque was brought to Israel in 1984 through an initiative of the citizens of Leer, where it was attached to the Ichud-Schiwat-Zion synagogue on Ben-Jehuda-Strasse in Tel Aviv . A copy was made for the memorial in the Jewish cemetery on Groninger Strasse .

On November 10, 2002, a new memorial was opened to the public on the opposite side of the street from the synagogue site. It consists of a Star of David set into the floor, three steles with panels that contain information about the Jewish community in Leer and the names of all those who were murdered. An additional plaque with a representation of the synagogue was attached to the previous plaque. The car repair shop and gas station are now closed and have been in disrepair ever since. Since 2013 there have been plans by the city of Leer and the East Frisian landscape to excavate the remains of the synagogue. However, this requires the owner's consent, which has not yet been received. In addition to the cellar of the former synagogue, a ritual bath ( mikveh ) is believed to be underground.

Archaeological investigation

In September 2019, the owner of the area submitted plans for new development on the fallow land. In the new building, according to the planner, an extension with a room of silence should point to the synagogue. The Archaeological Service of the East Frisian Landscape carried out an archaeological investigation prior to the new development. In the course of the investigations, she had two excavator cuts carried out on the site in June 2020. In the first cut, the archaeologists discovered the foundation of the northern outer wall of the synagogue at a depth of two meters, the exact location of which on the property has thus been clarified. The layer of fire from the fire from November 1938 and an approximately 50 cm thick layer of construction and fire rubble from the synagogue were found on the foundation floor. The second cut opened the entrance to the basement of the former rabbi's apartment. There three steps lead down to a reddish cement screed. According to the construction plans, this area is the entrance area to the boiler room and possibly also to the immersion bath. In order to document the last remains of the synagogue before it is finally destroyed, further archaeological investigations are to take place in coordination with the city of Leer and the building owners' association. The site will then be rebuilt.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h City Archives Leer (ed.): "... there is no isolated place in the whole area ..." Synagogues in Leer. A collection. (PDF) In: Archives Pedagogical Writings. City Archives Leer, accessed on January 17, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Synagogue Memorial / City of Leer (East Frisia). Retrieved January 17, 2019 .
  3. ↑ a b c d empty. October 10, 2018, accessed on January 17, 2019 (German).
  4. ↑ a b c d e Menna Hensmann: there is no isolated place in the whole patch. (PDF) In: Brochure for the exhibition 340 years of history in Leer. Stadt Leer (Ostfriesland) / Stadtarchiv, accessed on January 17, 2019 .
  5. ↑ a b c The synagogue in Leer (district town, East Friesland). Retrieved January 17, 2019 .
  6. ↑ Fleßner, Bianca., Stichting Kunst en Wetenschap .: Traces of Jewish life in East Frisia . Schraard 2013, ISBN 978-90-79151-07-3 .
  7. ↑ a b c d e Daniel Fraenkel: Empty. 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. 942-957.
  8. ^ City of Leer (East Frisia): The end of the Jewish community in Leer. Retrieved January 17, 2019 .
  9. ↑ a b Website City of Leer: We want to smoke out the wolf in his canyon!
  10. ↑ Reyer, Herbert., Tielke, Martin., Ostfriesische Landschaft .: The end of the Jews in East Frisia: Exhibition of the East Frisian landscape on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Kristallnacht . Verlag Ostfriesische Landschaft, Aurich 1988, ISBN 3-925365-41-9 , p. 57 f .
  11. ↑ City of Leer (ed.): We want to smoke out the wolf in his canyon! The pogrom night in Leer. (PDF) Retrieved January 17, 2019 .
  12. ↑ Synagogue Memorial / City of Leer (East Frisia). Retrieved January 17, 2019 .
  13. ^ Günther Robra: Erich Emil August Drescher . In: Biographical Lexicon for East Frisia . Second volume. Published on behalf of the East Frisian Landscape by Martin Tielke, Ostfries. Landschaftliche Verlags- und Vertriebsgesellschaft, Aurich 1997, ISBN 3-932206-00-2 , pp. 80–82. ( Available online )
  14. ↑ City of Leer wants to expose remains of the synagogue. Retrieved January 17, 2019 .
  15. ↑ a b Edgar Behrend: New discussion about eyesore. (PDF) In: Ostfriesen-Zeitung. February 10, 2018, accessed January 17, 2019 .
  16. ↑ Empty: The eyesore in the cityscape should go. Retrieved September 18, 2019 .
  17. ↑ Leer: Synagogue riddle could be solved. Retrieved September 18, 2019 .
  18. ↑ Remnants of the former synagogue in Leer uncovered by ndr.de on June 11, 2020
  19. ↑ Press release of the East Frisian Landscape from June 11, 2020

Coordinates: 53 ° 13 '58.3 "  N , 7 ° 27' 8.9"  E