Synagogue (Groß-Umstadt)
The synagogue from Gross-Umstadt is a Grade II listed desecrated synagogue , which in the Hessenpark in Neu-Anspach translocated was and since 2012 as a museum about " Jewish life in rural Hessen is being used" and the history of the synagogue.
history
In Groß-Umstadt Jews were named as residents as early as 1548. Since 16./18. There was a Jewish community in the 19th century . In the 17th century, three to five Jewish families lived in Groß-Umstadt, in 1834 there were 44 Jewish inhabitants and in 1861 69 (2.5% of a total of 2,741 inhabitants), in 1880 81 (2.8% of 2,844), in 1905 87 (2nd , 4% of 3573), 1910 77 (2.0% of 3743). The community had an older synagogue, which also contained the teacher's apartment. Several attempts to build a new synagogue in view of the growth of the community and the condition of the house, failed. In 1866 the state of construction had become so bad that the old synagogue collapsed and could no longer be saved.
Due to the lack of money in the community, an appeal for donations was launched. However, it took several years to secure the financing for the new building. On May 21, 1874, the new synagogue was ceremonially inaugurated by the regional rabbi. The church had 45 places for men. Women's seats were on the gallery .
This synagogue was again in a poor structural condition in 1913 because it had been built on the outskirts of the city on swampy terrain and a sponge had formed in the walls.
During the November pogroms of 1938 the synagogue was devastated and the Torah scroll burned in the market square. In contrast to many other places, no attempt was made to destroy the synagogue by arson, since the National Socialist mayor lived in the neighboring house. The Jewish community was forced to sell the synagogue building to the mayor in late 1938. This used the building as a storage room . As early as 1942, there were no longer any Jewish citizens living in Groß-Umstadt.
In the 1970s the building was dilapidated. The owner (the son of the former mayor) offered the city to buy the house. The city did not accept this offer. A citizens' association was formed that wanted to purchase the house with the support of the city. This plan was wrestled for five years; in the end the city decided not to buy it. Instead, Hessenpark took over the building in 1979. It was demolished and rebuilt from 1983 to 1988 as the first building of the C - Südhessen building in Hessenpark, but not in the original proportions. It is located off the beaten track and was used as a storage room for almost 30 years.
description
The building is a massive construction made of irregular quarry stones on an almost square floor plan with a floor area of around 110 m². The gable roof is covered with beaver tails , the side walls each contain three arched windows with an upper edging made of sandstone .
You enter the building on the ground floor through an anteroom. To the right and left are two small rooms, straight ahead is the large prayer room. The Torah shrine where the scrolls are kept is on the east side of the prayer room. The small rooms served as classrooms, community rooms, reading rooms, libraries and for morning prayer . The women's gallery is on the upper floor.
There are two Hebrew inscriptions on the outside. Above the entrance is the Hebrew text from Gen 28.17 EU :
- "How awesome is this place, here is nothing but the house of God, and here is the gate of heaven"
and above the first window on the right side facade the text "House of Prayer Israel" is placed.
Use in the Hessenpark
In the almost six years of reconstruction, the building was erected in the Hessenpark with proportions that were far too large. From 1988 the house was only used for internal purposes and was not open to the public. After renovation , the synagogue was ceremoniously opened as an exhibition house on May 3, 2012 . The only living Jewish citizen with roots in Umstadt, Rabbi Ernst M. Stein from England , gave a moving address at the opening . More than eighty citizens of Groß-Umstadt attended the opening. In cooperation with the Jewish Museum Frankfurt am Main , a multi-year exhibition on the subject of Jewish life in rural Hesse and the history of the synagogue building was shown on 140 square meters , which was reopened in May 2016 in a newly designed permanent exhibition.
The new exhibition was realized by Hessenpark in cooperation with the Jewish Museum Frankfurt , the Fritz Bauer Institute and the Round Table - Jewish Life in Groß-Umstadt . A summary of the topic of Jewish rural life is shown in the small anteroom of the synagogue , in which four Jewish families are presented as examples, whose family biographies were reconstructed from the middle of the 19th century. In the gallery there is a documentation of the four great South Hessian regional synagogues in Dieburg , Zwingenberg , Groß-Umstadt and Michelstadt . In the main room, the five topics of Jewish faith , everyday life, Jewish working life, Jewish culture and the areas of emancipation , integration and persecution are shown. The exhibition was built according to modern points of view and methods, which include information tables. a. Listening stations, “flaps to rummage through”, drawers to “deepen”, boxes of leaves and much more. This is intended to stimulate conceptual discovery and understanding.
The exhibition from 2012 to 2016 was then left to the city of Groß-Umstadt from Hessenpark and is shown in the Gruberhof Museum of the Groß-Umstädter Museums- und Geschichtsverein e. V. further shown.
Memorial in Groß-Umstadt
In Groß-Umstadt, a memorial in front of Darmstadt Castle reminds of the former building and its desecration in 1938. The sandstone on the left is a replica of the portal stone of the former Umstadt synagogue with Hebrew inscriptions. Translated from Genesis 28:17: “How awesome is this place. Here is nothing else than a house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. ”On the right side is the memorial inscription:“ In honor of our Jewish fellow citizens and in memory of the synagogue, which was built in 1874 and on November 9, 1938 by racial madness The names of all former Jewish citizens who fell victim to the pogroms and the Nuremberg Laws between 1933 and 1945 and who were known when it was erected are recorded on the stele on the side behind the memorial . Today, 45 Umstadt citizens of Jewish faith are known to have fallen victim to Nazi terror and anti-Semitism . Little by little they will be remembered with stumbling blocks in their last apartments. To date, 26 stumbling blocks have been laid in Umstadt and the Klein-Umstadt district.
- memory
Memorial with menorah in memory of the old synagogue
Memorial stele with the names of all Umstadt Jews who perished during the time of National Socialism .
At the former location of the synagogue there is an information board, one of the aims of the city tour through the center of Groß-Umstadt.
The Round Table Jewish Life in Groß-Umstadt had called for a fundraising campaign in order to show the identification and connection with the Jewish school and prayer house as a central place of remembrance of the rural Jewish population in Hesse and the history of the Jewish community of Groß-Umstadt. The donations were used for research into the history and the technical implementation of the permanent exhibition.
literature
- Association for the preservation of the Groß-Umstadt synagogue (ed.): Groß-Umstadt. On the history of the Jews and their synagogue , Groß-Umstadt 1988, 181 pages
- Thea Altaras : Synagogues in Hesse. What has happened since 1945? , Verlag Karl Robert Langewiesche successor Hans Köster, Königstein im Taunus 1988, ISBN 978-3-7845-7790-6 . P. 143 f.
- Georg Brenner, Wilfried Köbler: You were Umstädter: History of the Jewish population in Umstadt, Raibach, Klein-Umstadt, Kleestadt and Semd, and the history of religious and racist anti-Semitism in Germany , series of the Umstädter Museums- und Geschichtsverein eV , Volume 3, Ed .: Magistrat der Stadt Groß-Umstadt, Groß-Umstadt 2010, 222 pages
- Synagogue can soon also be viewed inside in: FAZ of August 29, 2011, p. 36
- The end of a long struggle in: FAZ of July 10, 2013, p. 45
Web links
- Synagogue on the Hessenpark side
- Synagogue Groß-Umstadt near Alemannia Judaica
- City of Groß-Umstadt: Jewish life and fundraising campaign for the Umstadt synagogue
Individual evidence
- ↑ " The secret of reconciliation is remembrance ", appeal for donations by the association " Round Table - Jewish Life in Groß-Umstadt ", June 10, 2013 (PDF document, 3.29 MB), accessed on May 18, 2016 via the Groß-Umstadt History Association Umstadt
- ↑ Permanent exhibition in the Hessenpark open-air museum: You were here. Jewish rural life in southern Hesse ( Memento from May 31, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF file, 301.4 kB), accessed on May 31, 2016
- ^ New permanent exhibition in Hessenpark ( Memento from May 31, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Information from the city of Groß-Umstadt, March 31, 2016, accessed on May 31, 2016
- ↑ cf. The synagogue in Groß-Umstadt on www.alemannia-judaica.de
- ↑ Directory Umstädter Stolpersteine of the PDP local group, website of the city of Groß-Umstadt (PDF file; 552 kB); accessed on November 13, 2019
- ↑ Left with portal inscription: from Genesis 28:17: “How awesome is this place. There is nothing else here than a house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. ”Cf. The synagogue in Groß-Umstadt on www.alemannia-judaica.de . Next to it on the right the memorial inscription: "In honor of our Jewish fellow citizens and in memory of the synagogue, which was built in 1874 and desecrated on November 9, 1938 through racial madness."
Coordinates: 50 ° 16 ′ 26.4 " N , 8 ° 31 ′ 31.1" E