Baisingen synagogue

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Synagogue memorial

The synagogue in Baisingen , a district of Rottenburg am Neckar today , is one of the best-preserved regional synagogues in Germany. It is used as a museum and is looked after by a support association.

History of the synagogue

The synagogue was built in 1784 in the classical style . It rose two stories above a square floor plan with a high hipped roof. The main room was given a wooden dome designed as a sky decorated with gold stars. The women's gallery on the upper floor was above the adjoining room, which was reserved for the cantor and the Jewish school . During a renovation in 1837/38, the women's gallery was extended over the entire west side. During this renovation, the benches and the bima , perhaps also the Torah shrine, were renewed. Around 1910 the synagogue received a new interior painting, with the painting of the dome also being renewed.

During the November pogroms on November 10, 1938, SA men ravaged the interior and burned the stalls, the Torah shrine and the Bima. The building itself was not set on fire, otherwise the neighboring houses would have been endangered. Previously, the NSDAP politician Philipp Baetzner had incited the SA men to riot with a speech in Horb. Baetzner was sentenced to 18 months in prison by the Rottweil regional court in June 1948 . Soon after, the synagogue was used as an agricultural barn and a large gate was broken into the east wall. The lower side room became a pigsty.

The synagogue has been a listed building since 1984. Four years later, the city of Rottenburg acquired the building and prepared repairs, which were carried out in stages by many voluntary helpers until the opening in 1998.

Redevelopment concept

Since there is no longer a Jewish community in Baisingen, it was not possible to restore the building as a synagogue. Nor should the building be restored to its original state. Rather, it was important to those responsible to preserve all the important traces of its history:

  • the interior with its painting, with an older color finding on the side gallery wall,
  • the prints in the plasterwork of the benches torn out by the SA men,
  • the hole that was created when the stove was knocked over with its chimney pipe in the middle of the west gallery and in the dome,
  • the plaster damage in the top of the dome that occurred when the chandelier was torn out,
  • the barn door from the time of agricultural use, without which the synagogue would probably have been torn down.

As far as possible, the traditional state has been preserved. A new floor was laid. The foundation of the bima and the Torah shrine were left out. The main door to the synagogue has been restored. However, it remains closed to make it clear that the synagogue no longer serves as a prayer room. Today access is via the adjoining room.

The chandelier only disappeared a short time before the renovation. It is said to have come by mistake to the community of Gols as a gift . The members of the association try to collect further testimonies and objects from the synagogue and to show them again in the museum.

Genisa

In the attic above the synagogue there was a depot for everything that was no longer needed for religious community life. The origin of this tradition was the command not to throw away any scriptures in which the name of God was mentioned. In 1990 the State Monuments Office recovered a number of objects in this hiding place, known as Genisa , either in whole or in fragments: well-worn prayer books, edifying writings, wall and pocket calendars, numerous circumcision cloths embroidered or painted with blessings (called Torah pennants because they were wrapped around the Torah scroll for a while ), Phylacteries ( tefillin ), the rest of a parochet from the Torah shrine and, as a special feature, a ram's horn ( shofar ), which was blown for the New Year festival .

Museum concept

A permanent exhibition on almost 400 years of community life in Baisingen was set up on the gallery. The history of the families and their synagogue is supplemented by the Genisa finds and other testimonies of Jewish life. The main exhibit of the museum is of course the building itself, as all phases of its history remain visible.

The museum is supported and looked after by a support association founded in 1989, whose members also actively and financially supported the restoration and renovation work.

Jewish community in Baisingen

Jewish Cemetery

Jewish residents in Baisingen have been attested since 1596. After being expelled from the larger cities, from Upper Austria and the Duchy of Württemberg , the Jews found a new home in imperial knighthood villages under the protection of the local lords; in Baisingen these had been the Stauffenberg taverns since 1696 . They sent the Jews to shelters, the number of which increased as the Jewish population grew.

Since 1778 there was also a Jewish cemetery . Along with the synagogue, it represents the second important testimony to Jewish life in Baisingen. After their civil equality in the 19th century, some Jews built large houses in the village that still characterize the townscape today. In 1843 almost a third of Baisingen's residents were Jews. Later the number decreased again. In 1933, however, there were still 86 Jews living in the village. Around 60 emigrated in the period that followed, and those who remained were deported to the extermination camps . Only a few survivors returned to Baisingen in 1945.

literature

Exhibition leaflet, ed. from the Baden-Württemberg State Monuments Office, Stuttgart and the Friends' Association Synagoge Baisingen eV, Rottenburg am Neckar, 4th edition 2006

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Carsten Kohlmann: "... to keep the individual perpetrators secret if possible". On the biography of NSDAP district leader Philipp Baetzner (1897–1961) and his role in the pogroms on November 9 and 10, 1938 in the Horb district. In: Gedenkstättenrundbrief 5 , November 2010, pp. 1–5 (PDF; 1.8 MB).

Coordinates: 48 ° 30 ′ 17.7 "  N , 8 ° 46 ′ 26.8"  E