The Jewish Community of Jever

The fortress of Terezin (in German Theresienstadt) in north-west Czechoslovakia was founded during the reign of Kaiser Joseph II and named after his mother, Maria-Theresa. In 1941, the Nazis decided to concentrate in Terezin most of the Jews of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, including the elderly, prominent personalities and those with special privileges, and gradually to transport them from there to the death camps. They transformed the town into a ghetto, and between November 24, 1941 and April 20, 1945 some 140,000 Jews were brought there. In September 1942, the ghetto population reached a peak of 53,000. Of the Jews who passed through the ghetto, approximately 33,000 died there, while 80,000 were transported from there to the extermination camps. In the fall of 1944 only 11,000 Jews were left alive in Terezin.

Most of the inmates of Terezin were assimilated Jews, many of them artists, writers and scholars, who helped to organize intensive cultural activities: orchestras, an opera group, theater, light entertainment and cabaret. The Germans had established the ghetto with the aim of misleading world public opinion regarding the extermination of European Jewry, by presenting Terezin as a model Jewish settlement.

Lower Saxony

Niedersachsen

A Land (state) in northwest Germany bordering the North Sea. 

Aurich

A town near the river Ems in the district of East Frisia, Lower Saxony, Germany.

Jews from Italy first settled in Aurich apparently around 1378 following an invitation from the ruler of the region. This community came to an end in the 15th century. In 1592 two Jews were permitted to perform as musicians in the villages around Aurich. A new community was formed by 1647 when the court Jew Samson Kalman ben Abraham settled there. He was the court Jew of the Earl of east Frisia. Aurich was the seat of the "Landparnass" and "Landrabbiner" of east Friesland from 1686 until 1813, when they were transferred to Emden.

A cemetery was opened in Aurich in 1764; the synagogue was consecrated in 1811. Under Dutch rule (1807-1815) the Jews enjoyed the civil rights which they had lost in 1744 under Prussian rule.

By 1744 ten families had settled in Aurich. Their number increased steadily and by the time Napoleon granted full political and civil rights to the Jews of east Frisia (1808), Aurich had 16 Jewish families, who in total numbered 180 inhabitants. Their number increased to 600 by the end of the 19th century, about 8% of the total population. Due to the move out of the rural settlements caused by the industrialization, the number of Jewish inhabitants of Aurich decreased at the beginning of the 20th century.

Most of the Jews of Aurich traded in cattle, farm products and textiles. Others were butchers. They had considerable influence on the economic life of the town, for example no market day was held on the Sabbath. In 1933, the year of the Nazis' rise to power in Germany, the Jewish community of Aurich numbered 400 persons.

 

The Holocaust Period

Numerous Jews from Aurich were able to emigrate during the first years of the Nazi regime. After the invasion of the Netherlands by Nazi Germany, the remaining Jews of east Frisia were deported in 1940, among them were 140 Jews from Aurich. The Jewish community ceased to exist.

Wilhelmshaven

A city in Lower Saxony in Germany.

First Jewish presence: in or around the year 1870; peak Jewish population: 200 in the 1920s (see below); Jewish population in 1933: 191

Jews moved to Wilhelmshaven, a new seaport and naval base, in or around the year 1870. By 1901, they were registered as an official Jewish community together with the Jews of neighboring Ruestringen. The community’s members included numerous merchants and butchers, three farmers, a theater director, a well-known writer and a high-ranking soldier. Burials were conducted in Jever until 1908, when the community consecrated its own cemetery in Schortens-Heidmuehle. In 1915, local Jews replaced their prayer room with a synagogue on the corner of Boersenstrasse and Parkstrasse; the building also housed a mikveh and a school, whose teacher not only performed the duties of shochet and chazzan, but also served as chaplain to Jewish sailors. The Jews of Wilhelmshaven and Ruestringen maintained a chevra kadisha, a Jewish women’s association and, later, a literary circle and a youth movement.

In 1933, 191 Jews still lived in town, of whom 100 left during the years 1933 to 1938. On Pogrom Night (November 9, 1938), Jewish shops and homes were vandalized. Jews were taken from their houses and publicly humiliated as onlookers threw stones at them. Thirty-four Jewish men were deported to the Sachsenhausen Nazi concentration camp. Members of various Nazi organizations set fire to the synagogue; the building burned down completely, after which the surrounding walls were blown up and the ritual objects were put on display in the street. A further 45 Jews were able to leave town before 1939. Wilhelmshaven’s remaining Jews were subsequently deported and murdered. At least 68 local Jews died in the Shoah. The former synagogue site became a memorial in the 1970s; in 1980, a plaque was unveiled there.

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This entry was originally published on Beit Ashkenaz - Destroyed German Synagogues and Communities website and contributed to the Database of the Museum of the Jewish People courtesy of Beit Ashkenaz.

Esens

A town  in the district of Wittmund, in Lower Saxony, Germany.

The first letter of safe conduct, which guaranteed the Jews of Esens the rights of settlement and trade, was issued in 1645. The Jewish community grew steadily from eight families in 1690 to 70 persons in 1708 and 117 in 1828. Until 1871 the community of Esens also included the Jews from Westeraccumersiel among its members. When they left the community, the number decreased to 89 and remained quite stable over the following years. A synagogue was first mentioned in 1680. A new synagogue and school was built in 1827. The school had to close down in 1927 because there were not sufficient pupils among the 76 Jews living in Esens.

The majority of the Jews in Esens made their living in livestock trade, retail trading, and as merchants of textiles or as butchers.

In 1939 the Jewish community numbered 30 people.

The Holocaust Period

After the Nazis came to power in 1933, local members of SS started to discriminate against their Jewish neighbors. On P:ogrom Night (November 9, 1938) the SA burned down the synagogue and deported all the Jewish men to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Some of them returned and succeeded to leave to other countries. When in 1940 the entire east Frisia's Jewish population was deported, the Jewish community of Esens ceased to exist.

Varel

A town in the district of Friesland, in Lower Saxony, Germany. 

First Jewish presence: 1683; peak Jewish population: 90 in 1875; Jewish population in 1933: 39

The Jews of Varel initially conducted services in a rented prayer room, first documented in 1717. The community unsuccessfully petitioned the authorities for a synagogue in 1760, and it was not until 1806, when a local Jew, Abraham Schwabe, provided the community with a building, that a synagogue was established in Varel. This synagogue had been abandoned by 1843, as the structure had fallen into disrepair. Later, on July 28, 1848, the community inaugurated a synagogue on Osterstrasse; the building, which had been acquired in 1840, housed an elementary school, an apartment for the teacher and a mikveh. Records also mention that in 1900, the community opened a hostel for indigent Jews. Varel’s Jewish cemetery was consecrated in 1711.

Seventeen Jews lived in Varel on Pogrom Night (November 9, 1938), when SA troops set the synagogue on fire and plundered the remaining Jewish homes. Jewish men and several women were imprisoned in police headquarters, from where they were sent to Oldenburg and, later, to Sachsenhausen Nazi concentration camp, where one man was so badly beaten that he died of his wounds. Those who survived the ordeal were eventually released, after which eight more Varel Jews emigrated from Germany. Varel’s last Jewish family left town in 1940. On July 23, 1941, after the remaining Jewish residents of the old-age home were deported to Theresienstadt Nazi concentration camp, the town was declared Judenfrei (“free of Jews”). Approximately 43 local Jews perished in the Shoah. The site of the Jewish cemetery was taken over by the Nazis, who used some of the gravestones for construction; several gravestones were retrieved after the war. The synagogue site was acquired by a local resident in May 1939. In 1990, a memorial plaque was unveiled at the public school opposite the plot where the synagogue once stood.

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This entry was originally published on Beit Ashkenaz - Destroyed German Synagogues and Communities website and contributed to the Database of the Museum of the Jewish People courtesy of Beit Ashkenaz.

Sengwarden 

 A village in Lower Saxony, Germany.

After WW II Sengwarden was part of the British occupation sector in Germany and served as the site of a displaced person camp. Since 1972 the village has been administratively attached to the nearby city Wilhelmshaven.