Synagogue (Neunkirchen, Lower Austria)

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The Neunkirchen synagogue was a synagogue in the Lower Austrian district capital Neunkirchen . The synagogue was built in 1883 in today's Rohrbacherstraße (corner of Hohewandstraße) and demolished in 1984.

history

There was already a Jewish community in Neunkirchen in the Middle Ages, but it was dissolved at the end of the 15th century. As a result, the first synagogue in Neunkirchen was converted into a church. After a new Jewish community had formed in the 19th century , a prayer room in the "Brückl-Wirt" served the Jewish community of Neunkirchen as a meeting room in the early 1880s. With the growth of the Jewish community, the desire arose within the community to have a representative synagogue built. In addition, due to the risk of fire, the authorities urged the closure of the prayer room used. Subsequently, on September 13, 1883 , the Minjan acquired a plot of land in Rohrbacherstrasse (corner of Hohewandstrasse) and had the Neunkirchen synagogue and an administrative building built for the Jewish community. The building was completed in a short period of time and inaugurated in 1883. For reasons of cost, however, Neunkirchen did not have its own rabbi . Initially, the Neunkirchen synagogue was looked after by Wilhelm Reich from 1894, who also held this position in Baden near Vienna from 1880. Due to his age, he was later represented by the Neunkirchen scholar Shimon Goldstein. After the death of Goldstein in 1927 and Reich in 1929, the Wiener Neustädter Rabbi Heinrich Weiss took over the care of the synagogue until 1938.

The synagogue on Rohrbacher Straße could not be heated, so the community used a room in a house in today's Peischingerstraße as a prayer room during the cold season in the mid-1930s.

After the annexation and seizure of power by the National Socialists, the synagogue was desecrated and the interior devastated during the November pogroms in 1938 . In March 1940, the Neunkirchen Israelitische Kultusgemeinde was closed. The municipality of Neunkirchen had already laid claim to the property in 1938 in order to accommodate the city museum and an office. However, in July 1939, the Reich Governor for Lower Danube allocated the property to the local NSDAP group in Neunkirchen, which housed the German Young People and a magazine for the local administration of the National Socialist People's Welfare Neunkirchen East and Neunkirchen West. After the dissolution of the religious community, the property was sold to the German Reich, which transformed the administration building into a customs office. The synagogue itself served as a warehouse for Jewish forced laborers from Eastern Europe who had to move a mezzanine floor into the synagogue.

After the war, the synagogue was left to decay for a long time, as the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Wien, as the new owner, could not raise any funds to maintain the numerous Jewish institutions in Lower Austria. For safety reasons, the roof and parts of the walls were removed in 1984. Only the outer walls were left at a height of two meters and given a plaque.

Building

The Neunkirchen synagogue was built in a style typical of small towns at the time. The model for the Neunkirchen synagogue was the synagogue built in Kobersdorf in 1860 . Synagogues of this type were also located in Bamberg , Austerlitz , Leipnik , Damboritz and Jungbunzlau , for example . The Neunkirchen synagogue was designed as a neo-Romanesque building, but also had elements of the round arch style and individual oriental elements on the outer facade. The gable contained an essay on which probably stone tablets of the law were attached. The synagogue was not facing the street, but facing east and was 9.2 by 16.4 meters in size. The Torah shrine was attached to the east side in a wall niche of the building.

The interior can only be reconstructed by comparing it with similar synagogues of this architectural style. The bima was probably in front of the Torah shrine, in front of which there were the rows of seats that reached to the entrance on the west side of the building. On the west side there was presumably also the women's gallery, which was probably accessible through an entrance on the north side. The interior itself was decorated with a simple pattern.

Parts of the cult objects have been preserved even after the destruction of the Jewish community. The Torah scroll was in the Neunkirchen local history museum and was handed over to the Baden religious community a few years ago. In addition, three escaped Torah Coats , a Torah curtain and a fragment of a Torah curtain of the destruction of the Jewish community. Today they are in the possession of the Jewish Museum of the City of Vienna .

Web links

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Neunkirchen (Austria). In: From the history of the Jewish communities in the German-speaking area. Retrieved June 19, 2020 .

Coordinates: 47 ° 43 '36.2 "  N , 16 ° 4' 44.1"  E