Peine

First Jewish presence: 1603 (see below); peak Jewish population: 300 in 1762; Jewish population in 1933: 103

Jews settled on the outskirts of Peine in 1603, but it was only in 1807/13 that a Jewish presence was established inside the town. The community maintained a synagogue, an elementary school (1838-1873) and a cemetery, the last of which was located in Telgte and enlarged in 1803. In 1907, a new synagogue—it also housed a schoolroom and a teacher’s apartment—was inaugurated on Bodenstedtstrasse/ Goethestrasse (present-day Hans-Marburger Strasse). The old synagogue was demolished. In 1932/33, 16 Jewish schoolchildren received religious instruction. A teacher and chazzan were employed, and the community maintained a women’s welfare organization (established in 1919) and a branch of the Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith; records from 1899 and 1924 mention a chevra kadisha, but we cannot say for certain that it still functioned in 1933. On Pogrom Night, rioters damaged the synagogue, the cemetery and Jewish-owned stores. Sixteen men were arrested the next morning, and SS troops vandalized Jewish homes; Hans Marburger, a sixteen-year-old teenager, was murdered. The synagogue was set on fire, after which, in 1939, its ruins were pulled down. Peine’s Jewish cemetery was destroyed at some point after 1942, the same year during which a housing company bought the synagogue site. By August 1939, two-thirds of the Jewish population of 1933 had left Peine. The remaining Jews were forcibly moved into a barracks on Woltorfer Strasse in 1941/42. In 1942, 1944, and 1945 Jews from Peine and Haemelerwald were deported to Warsaw and to Theresienstadt. At least 60 Jews originally from Peine and nearby Hohenhameln perished in the Shoah. (Haemelerwald and Hohenhameln were affiliated with the Jewish community of Peine.) Today, the synagogue site serves as a park. Memorial stones and slabs were erected at the synagogue site (in 1948 and 1979, respectively), at the cemetery (before 1947) and at the Marburger and Perel family homes (in 1999 and 2000, respectively). Several memorials were desecrated in 1950, 1971 and again in 1990. The film Europa Europa is based on the autobiography of Solomon Perel, a native of Peine.

Heidemarie Wawrzyn

Copyright: Pogrom Night 1938 - A Memorial to the Destroyed Synagogues of Germany/ Germansynagogues.com

Notes

Sources: The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust, Shmuel Spector [Ed.], [publisher] Yad Vashem and the New York University Press, 2001., Führer durch die Jüdische Gemeindeverwaltung und Wohlfahrtspflege in Deutschland 1923-1933, Andreas Nachama, Simon Hermann [Eds.], [publisher] Edition Hentrich, 1995., Historisches Handbuch der jüdischen Gemeinden in Niedersachsen und Bremen, Herbert Obenhaus, David Bankier and Daniel Fraenkel [Eds.], [publisher] Wallstein Verlag, 2005.1, Synagogen Internet Archiv, www.synagogen.info , Yad Vashem’s Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names, www.yadvashem.org/wps/portal/IY_HON_Entrance

Details

Date Added	Jan 28, 2020
Category	Residential
Country	DE
State	Lower Saxony
City	Peine
Exhibits	Pogrom Night 1938 - A Memorial to the Destroyed Synagogues of Germany

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Peine

First Jewish presence: 1603 (see below); peak Jewish population: 300 in 1762; Jewish population in 1933: 103

Heidemarie Wawrzyn

Copyright: Pogrom Night 1938 - A Memorial to the Destroyed Synagogues of Germany/ Germansynagogues.com

Notes

Details

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Jason Guberman-P., A social entrepreneur who specializes in building broad coalitions and melding intellectual and technical innovation, serves as founding Executive Director of Digital Heritage Mapping and is the coordinator of the Diarna Geo-Museum of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Life.

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Joshua Shamsi, is Project Director for the Atlas of Jewish Life and Lead Photographer/Outreach Director for the Diarna Geo-Museum of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Life.

Eddie Ashkenazie

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Eddie Ashkenazie, is a Yeshiva University PhD student focusing his studies on the Jews of the Middle East and North Africa in the modern era.

Avital Hirsch

Avital Hirsch graduated Magna Cum Laude from Binghamton University with a BA in language and linguistics. She has studied in Rome at Istituto Lorenzo de Medici.

Glenn Dynner

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Glenn Dynner. Professor of Religion, Sarah Lawrence College. BA, Brandeis University. MA, McGill University. PhD, Brandeis University. Scholar of East European Jewry with a focus on the social history of Hasidism and the Haskalah.

Chrystie Sherman

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Born in Chicago, Chrystie Sherman was educated at the University of Vermont, the University of Paris, and New York University Graduate School of Film and Television.

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