Levetzowstrasse synagogue

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Congregation and guests of honor leaving the synagogue after the dedication service on April 7, 1914

The Levetzowstraße synagogue (also: Synagoge Tiergarten ) was a synagogue of the Jewish community in Berlin , in the area of ​​today's Moabit district in what was then the Tiergarten district . The synagogue, inaugurated in 1914, was located at Levetzowstraße 7/8. It was damaged during the November pogroms in 1938 and was a collection point for deportations from 1941 to 1942 . In 1955, the building had to be torn down, and a memorial plaque and an artistically redesigned railroad car right on the street now remind of the fate of the people deported from here.

history

Due to the growing population at the turn of the 20th century, the Jewish community in Berlin decided to have several synagogues built. The liberal backyard synagogue in Lützowstrasse (inaugurated in 1898), the Rykestrasse synagogue (inaugurated in 1904), the Pestalozzistrasse synagogue (inaugurated as a private synagogue in 1912, official synagogue of the Jewish community from 1915), the synagogue on Fasanenstrasse (inaugurated in 1912), were built in Levetzowstrasse.

The Levetzowstrasse synagogue was built according to plans by the architect Johann Hoeniger , who was the community master builder for the Jewish community from 1881 and was already responsible for the construction of the synagogues in Rykestrasse and Fasanenstrasse . He died in 1913 before construction was completed. The planning phase was shaped by the clashes between liberals and orthodox that are typical of Berlin. Eventually the liberals prevailed in the community. The new synagogue was inaugurated on April 7, 1914 and quickly developed into a focal point for the growing Jewish population in Moabit and the adjacent Hansaviertel . A community center with a religious school and some community apartments were attached to the synagogue . The building complex was not finally completed until 1919. The synagogue, with its residential building and school building and seating for 2,120, was one of the largest churches in the city. Services were held here until October 1941. The rabbi was Julius Lewkowitz (1876–1943, deported and murdered in Auschwitz ).

During the November pogroms in 1938, the synagogue on Levetzowstrasse was slightly damaged, but could still be used for church services and community work.

1941–1943 assembly camp for deportations

In October 1941, the Gestapo headquarters from the Department for Jewish Affairs informed the board of directors of the Jewish community about the imminent start of the deportations and instructed them to convert the synagogue into a collection camp for around 1,000 people. In the main room, the seating was removed and the floor was strewn with straw to serve as a night camp. The Gestapo disguised the first transports as a house eviction operation; Accordingly, she initially referred to the synagogue in Levetzowstrasse opposite the Jewish community as an emergency shelter and not as a collective camp. The synagogue was probably chosen because it was little damaged and could accommodate around 2,000 people.

In order to enable the deportations to run smoothly, the employees of the Jewish community were forced to compile the transport lists and to help the prisoners to record the financial situation and to fill out the forms at the collection point. In addition, the Jewish community was solely responsible for the care and support of the people scheduled for deportation.

From the 1st Eastern Transport on October 18, 1941 to the 22nd Eastern Transport on October 26, 1942 , the transports of Berlin Jews to the ghettos in Central Eastern Europe were put together here. The victims were brought to the synagogue by police officers from the Gestapo control center and the criminal police and, after a few days' stay, were deported by train via the Grunewald train station or the Moabit freight station . Since there were often long periods of time between the individual transports, the building in Levetzowstrasse was not used as a collection warehouse throughout. There was no permanent Gestapo camp manager (like later in Grosse Hamburger Strasse), nor was there a permanent Jewish organization to look after the prisoners; nevertheless had the Jewish community as an employee folder victims to care for and support them in carrying their luggage.

The assembly warehouse in the Levetzowstrasse synagogue was used until autumn 1942 and was then replaced by the assembly warehouse in the evacuated old people's home of the Jewish community at Grosse Hamburger Strasse 26. As part of the factory campaign , the synagogue was used again from March 2 to March 12, 1943 as a collection camp, known as Camp II. According to the files, around 20,000 people experienced their last nights in Berlin in this assembly camp.

After 1945

During the Allied air raids on the Reich capital, the synagogue was further damaged and finally demolished in 1955. The State of Berlin bought the property from the legal successor in 1956 and had a children's playground built on the former synagogue site. In 1960, a memorial plaque was placed on the corner of Levetzowstrasse and Jagowstrasse to commemorate the suffering of the Jewish people who were deported to their deaths from here.

In 1985 Jürgen Wenzel, Peter Herbich and Theseus Bappert implemented the design for the Flammenwand memorial on the site of the former synagogue. The artists designed a ramp and a wagon with figurations depicting abstract "human packages" tied up in iron. An additional cast-iron relief shows all 36 Berlin club and community synagogues. This is intended to remind of the destruction of the diverse Jewish culture in Berlin. The plaque behind it, which towers into the sky and shows all transports from the east that left Berlin from October 1941 to March / April 1945, commemorates the deportees.

Since 1990, a memorial event has been held at the memorial every year on November 9th, at which Jewish contemporary witnesses also report on their lives and sufferings under National Socialist rule .

literature

  • Philipp Dinkelaker: The assembly camp in the Berlin synagogue Levetzowstrasse as part of the "Deportations of Jews" , Metropol Berlin, 2017, ISBN 978-3-86331-339-5 .
  • On the construction and history of the synagogue in Levetzowstrasse cf. Birgit Jerke: The Levetzowstrasse synagogue as a collection point. In: Hermann Simon , New Synagogue Foundation (ed.): Heritage and Order. An exhibition on the occasion of the 325th anniversary of the Jewish Community in Berlin, Berlin 1996, pp. 44–47, here p. 44.
  • Akim Jah: The Berlin assembly camps in the context of the "deportations of Jews" 1941–1945 . A revised version of the article of the same name in the Zeitschrift für Geschichtswwissenschaft, No. 3/2013, pp. 211–231.
  • Anja Reuss, Kristin Schneider: Berlin - Minsk. Unforgotten life stories. A memorial book for the Berlin Jews deported to Minsk , Metropol-Verlag 2013, ISBN 978-3-86331-116-2 .

See also

Putlitzbrücke deportation memorial

Web links

Commons : Synagoge Levetzowstraße (Berlin-Moabit)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Image index of art and architecture, accessed on January 1, 2016
  2. ^ Rudolf Bothe (editor): Synagogues in Berlin (Part 1) . On the history of a destroyed architecture. Ed .: Berlin Museum. Willmuth Arenhövel, Berlin 1983, ISBN 3-922912-04-4 , pp. 141 .
  3. ^ Synagogues in Berlin . Part 1, Willmuth Arenhövel, Berlin 1983, p. 142.
  4. ↑ a b Berlin-Minsk Anja Reuss Synagogue Levetzowstraße 7/8 , accessed on December 30, 2015.
  5. ↑ Places of Jewish life at Beuth University, accessed on January 1, 2016.
  6. ↑ Coordination Office Stolpersteine ​​Berlin Glossary

Coordinates: 52 ° 31 ′ 16.5 ″  N , 13 ° 20 ′ 0.3 ″  E