Freudenberg Synagogue (Baden)

Drawing of the synagogue in Freudenberg, created in 1891 by Heinrich Wießler

The synagogue in Freudenberg (Baden) , a town in the Main-Tauber district in Baden-Württemberg , was built in 1892. The secular synagogue is on the corner of Maingasse / Hauptstrasse 139.

history

The old synagogue, built in the late 1850s, burned down in 1891. Although the number of parishioners declined at that time, the Freudenberg Jewish community decided to build a new building on the same site. The construction was carried out according to the plans of the Wertheim city architect Heinrich Wießler. In addition to the prayer room, the three-storey building also included the ritual bath ( mikveh ), the teacher's apartment and the community room . The high synagogue room took up the upper floors; it offered seats for 29 men and more for women on the gallery . The newly built synagogue was only used for a few years, probably only until 1908.

time of the nationalsocialism

During the November pogrom in 1938, SA men from Wertheim and Freudenberg demolished the synagogue. They smashed the interior and threw the debris from the windows of the prayer room along with the Torah scrolls and other cult objects; Community workers had to drive everything to the local dump the next day. Anton Beck secretly removed a scroll and hid it. In 1979 she was placed in the synagogue in the settlement of Kedumim near Nablus in the West Bank.

After 1945

In 1945 the Allies confiscated the synagogue building and handed it over to the Jewish asset management company JRSO . The latter sold the building to the Freudenberg community in 1952, and shortly afterwards it came into private ownership. Since the renovation in the 1950s, the former synagogue has been used as a residential building.

The former church has been used as a meditation room, social meeting point and psychotherapeutic practice since 2015.

literature

Klaus-Dieter Alicke: Lexicon of the Jewish communities in the German-speaking area. Volume 1: Aach - Groß-Bieberau. Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 2008, ISBN 978-3-579-08077-2 ( online version ).
Joachim Hahn and Jürgen Krüger: Synagogues in Baden-Württemberg . Volume 2: Joachim Hahn: Places and Facilities . Theiss, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-8062-1843-5 , pp. 132-133 ( Memorial book of the synagogues in Germany . Volume 4).