Synagogue Koblenz

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The prayer hall in Koblenz-Rauental
The back of the prayer hall of the Jewish cemetery seen

The prayer hall, erroneously called Synagogue Koblenz by many , is the house of worship of the Jewish community of Koblenz and the surrounding districts. Today's prayer hall in the Rauental district was formerly the mourning hall of the adjacent Jewish cemetery . The synagogue was previously located in Koblenz's old town , most recently in the Bürresheimer Hof until it was destroyed during the November pogroms in 1938 .

history

There has been a Jewish community in Koblenz since the Middle Ages . A tombstone from 1149 is the oldest evidence of a Jewish person from Koblenz. During this time the Jews settled in the old town between the Old Castle and the Florinskirche . There was also a Judengasse (first mentioned in 1276, today's name: Münzstraße), at the end of which the Judentor (1282) was located in the city ​​wall . The Jewish community at the time already had a synagogue, a cemetery and a hospital. The first pogroms against the Koblenz Jews took place in the 13th century, culminating in the destruction of the community during the plague epidemic in 1348/1349. In the period that followed, however, Jewish families again moved to Koblenz. After Kurtrier expelled all Jews from the electorate in 1418, there were no Jews in Koblenz for 100 years. Elector Richard von Greiffenklau zu Vollrads did not allow it again for 20 years until 1518. In the 16th to 18th centuries, Jews always lived in Koblenz, with small interruptions.

With the conquest of Koblenz by French revolutionary troops in 1794, the Koblenz Jews were given full equality. In the 19th century the number of Jewish families increased sharply (1807: 188 people, 1858: 415 people, 1895: 576 people). Although their economic conditions improved, this time was also marked by anti-Semitism . In the years 1847/1848 the Jewish community acquired the Bürresheimer Hof and had it converted into a synagogue. During the Reichspogromnacht from November 9th to 10th 1938 the interior of the synagogue was devastated, but the building was not set on fire because of the neighboring houses. In December 1938, the city of Koblenz "bought" the Bürresheimer Hof building from the Jewish community without paying any purchase price.

After the National Socialists came to power in 1933, many Jews emigrated abroad and the number of Jewish families fell (1925: around 800 people, 1933: 669 people, 1939: 308 people). The remaining Jews were subjected to severe repression and had to go out of business. The deportation began in 1942 , during which 870 Jews from the region were deported to the concentration camps in the east via the Koblenz-Lützel train station . The former synagogue building was largely destroyed by bombs in 1944.

After the end of the Second World War in 1945, only a few survivors returned to Koblenz, but they again formed a small Jewish community. The city of Koblenz returned the former synagogue property to the community in 1947 and later paid compensation for the loss of use by the Jewish community. Because of their small number of members and the very difficult circumstances, the almost completely murdered or emigrated community decided not to restore the destroyed buildings of the Bürresheimer Hof, but to sell them to the city of Koblenz and use the proceeds for the renovation of their former cemetery hall.

The Jewish community had been using the mourning hall built by Carl Schorn in 1925 at the Jewish cemetery in the Rauental district of Koblenz as a prayer room since 1947. It was then rebuilt in 1950/51 by the architect Helmut Goldschmidt . In 1961/62 the prayer room was given a separate parish hall. After the immigration of Jewish people from the countries of the former Soviet Union in the 1990s, the number of community members rose to almost 1,000 people (2011). The cultural community of Koblenz is responsible for the city of Koblenz as well as for the districts of Mayen-Koblenz , Ahrweiler , Cochem-Zell , Rhine-Lahn and Westerwald . Due to the increased number of parishioners, the converted cemetery hall became too small, and the location on or near a cemetery is actually not permitted for a synagogue according to the Jewish rite.

With the relocation of the cultural institutions from the Bürresheimer Hof to the newly built Forum Confluentes in 2013 , efforts were made to return the building, which was formerly used as a synagogue, to the Jewish community. However, after lengthy discussions, the city of Koblenz sold the Bürresheimer Hof and other historic buildings on Florinsmarkt to a private investor (ISSOflorinsmarkt GmbH & Co. KG), who wants to renovate the building and house an institute close to the university. Since 2014 there are plans to build a new synagogue on an area of ​​the Dominican monastery in the Weißer Gasse in the old town of Koblenz, which was destroyed in the Second World War .

construction

The prayer hall in the former mourning hall is a building with a raised, cube-shaped middle section and flat, single-storey side wings . The middle part with a flat hipped roof is crowned by a Star of David . The western wing was previously the cemetery keeper's apartment. The prayer room is located in the central part and is oriented towards the Torah shrine , which has been raised by a few steps in the east, where the funeral hall was previously laid out.

Monument protection

The prayer hall of the Jewish community of Koblenz is a protected cultural monument according to the Monument Protection Act (DSchG) and entered in the list of monuments of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate . It is located in Koblenz-Rauental in the Jewish cemetery monument zone .

The prayer hall has been part of the UNESCO World Heritage Upper Middle Rhine Valley since 2002 .

See also

literature

  • Energieversorgung Mittelrhein GmbH (ed.): History of the city of Koblenz. Overall editing: Ingrid Bátori in conjunction with Dieter Kerber and Hans Josef Schmidt. Theiss, Stuttgart 1992-1993;
  • Ulrike Weber (edit.): City of Koblenz. City districts (= monument topography Federal Republic of Germany . Cultural monuments in Rhineland-Palatinate. Vol. 3, 3). Werner, Worms 2013, ISBN 978-3-88462-345-9 .

Web links

Commons : Synagoge Koblenz  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Petra Weiß: The city administration of Koblenz in National Socialism, Hagen 2012, pp. 495–496. Online: https://ub-deposit.fernuni-hagen.de/servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/mir_derivate_00000164/Diss_Weiss_Koblenz_2011.pdf
  2. ↑ Weiß, Stadtverwaltung Koblenz under National Socialism, p. 496.
  3. ↑ Synagogue back in the Bürresheimer Hof? in: Rhein-Zeitung , May 27, 2011
  4. ↑ Florinsmarkt: Görlitz buys the historic buildings from the city in: Rhein-Zeitung , September 30, 2013
  5. ^ Synagogue can be built in Weißer Gasse in Koblenz in: Rhein-Zeitung , January 15, 2014
  6. ↑ General Directorate for Cultural Heritage Rhineland-Palatinate (ed.): Informational directory of cultural monuments - district-free city of Koblenz (PDF; 1.5 MB), Koblenz 2013

Coordinates: 50 ° 21 ′ 45.8 ″  N , 7 ° 35 ′ 8 ″  E