Synagogue Bruck an der Leitha

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View of the synagogue with the original entrance on the left and the two entrances that were newly opened after the false ceiling was moved in on the right

The synagogue Bruck an der Leitha was a synagogue in the Lower Austrian district capital Bruck an der Leitha . Their age is estimated to be around 700 years. It is one of the best preserved medieval synagogues as they were built in many smaller Central European communities between the end of the 13th and mid-15th centuries. For a long time it was considered a Christian building as the " Nikolauskapelle " and as such was placed under monument protection in December 1938 .

location

The synagogue in today's Schillerstraße cannot be seen from the surrounding streets and is currently only accessible via the passage of the also listed residential building at Schillergasse 9 . The Bruck town hall is on the east side. The synagogue is not open to the public.

history

According to current estimates, the synagogue was built around 1300. So far, no records have been found of the persecution of Jews in Bruck in the Middle Ages, but it can be assumed that the Jewish population was not spared from the expulsions of the early 15th century ( Wiener Gesera ). Therefore, the building was probably only used as a Jewish gathering place and Jewish prayer house for a short time. After 1420 it was profaned. As a result, the building was repeatedly adapted for new uses and in some cases heavily rebuilt. In the end, the synagogue stood empty, only the most necessary maintenance measures were carried out.

The Nikolauskapelle, for which the synagogue was long held, was mentioned in a document in 1248, and in 1485 it was located in a document at the (main) square . In December 1938, already after the " Anschluss ", the synagogue was placed under monument protection as a "church building with a gothic ribbed vault inside" worth preserving. The mix-up persisted until the 1980s, when the Hungarian art historian Dávid Ferenc first questioned current opinion in 1984. But already in the city chronicles by Carl Klose from 1855 and by Josef Christelbauer from 1920, the building was associated with the synagogue of the medieval community.

Building description

The building in Bruck an der Leitha stands out from other Jewish prayer houses of a similar design, which were widespread in the former Archduchy of Austria , through its design features, such as the remarkable and in Austria unique vaulting with an additional rib on the narrow sides, as well as its good state of preservation.

The Bruck synagogue is a simple, two-bay hall building and is one of the smaller synagogues. Your main room measures only around 50 m². The building is oriented roughly in an east-west direction, the main entrance is on the south side. The external dimensions are 9.8 × 7.5 m, the area around 70 m²; the internal dimensions 8 × 6 m, the floor plan is slightly distorted to a trapezoid. The 6 m high hall (in the top of the vault) was subsequently (1420/1421) divided into an upper and a lower floor by a simple barrel vault.

The structure of the main wing has largely been preserved. The side wings and porches in which the entrance areas, the women's school, etc. were set up, are no longer available today; However, these additions were still recognizable on recordings from the late 1970s and early 1980s. The roof has been renewed several times, the current roof is a flat hip roof from the 20th century. The original roof was probably considerably steeper.

Up to the eaves level, the outside of the building is largely in its original state; the changes here mainly affect the access to the interior: The original entrance from the south was through a pointed arched portal that was walled up for a long time and buried below the surrounding floor level. In 2012 it was uncovered again during archaeological excavations. Since the installation of a cellar vault around three meters above the original floor, access to the two storeys has now been possible through newly opened simple doors on the east side. The two windows on the east side were made smaller for this purpose. The two pointed arched windows on the opposite west wall are still almost unchanged, on the north wall, opposite the original entrance, there is another preserved pointed arched window that was completely closed until 2012.

Vault

A special feature of the interior is the execution of the vault: The two-bay cross - ribbed vault had two additional ribs that ran to the middle of the east and west wall, which resulted in four identical wall views. The eastern rib ended far above the other ribs in a console, as the Torah shrine had been below it . Today only the west rib is left, on the east side the rib and the console are missing. Several closed openings, as they are known from viewing slits in other synagogues, suggest porches.

There is no clear evidence of the construction or use of the building as a synagogue, but some structural features support the classification as a medieval synagogue, such as the viewing and listening slits between the women's and the main room, the lack of any Christian architectural jewelry; the backyard situation or the setting back from the surrounding streets, the typical portal threshold and the formation of the cross-ribbed yokes with the height difference of the two central vaulted ribs to make space for the Torah shrine.

Future use

Passage from the town hall to the synagogue, with a memorial plaque

On June 29, 2015, the town council of Bruck an der Leitha unanimously decided to purchase the plot of land and the synagogue at a price of 80,000 euros. As part of the general renovation of the adjacent town hall of Bruck an der Leitha, a passage was created and a memorial plaque was attached. The synagogue is currently not open to the public due to its dilapidation. In future, however, it will be open to the public through the town hall courtyard and the new passage.

The building will be renovated and the subsequently installed false ceiling will be removed. The community plans to turn the building into a small and centrally located venue. A precise usage concept has not yet been defined.

source

literature

Web links

Commons : Synagoge Bruck an der Leitha  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Bundesdenkmalamt (Ed.): Dehio-Handbuch. The art monuments of Austria . Lower Austria south of the Danube. Part 1, A to L. Berger Verlag, Horn / Vienna 2003, ISBN 3-85028-364-X , p. 313 .
  2. ↑ Simon Paulus: On the reconstruction of the medieval synagogue in Bruck an der Leitha: The jewel in the backyard. In: David . December 2004, accessed September 9, 2016 .
  3. ^ Synagogue Bruck an der Leitha. In: Official news of the municipality of Bruck an der Leitha. July 2015, accessed October 25, 2016 .
  4. ^ Susanne Müller: Buying a synagogue is fixed. In: NÖN . December 2, 2014, accessed September 9, 2016 .

Coordinates: 48 ° 1 ′ 31.6 ″  N , 16 ° 46 ′ 49.6 ″  E