Stadtoldendorf

First Jewish presence: early 18th century; peak Jewish population: 86 in 1875; Jewish population in 1933: unknown (43 in 1932)

Jews in Stadtoldendorf conducted services in a prayer room on the corner of Foerstersteig and Hagenturm until 1855, when the community inaugurated a synagogue—the building had been acquired in 1853—on Kuhstrasse. At the town’s Jewish cemetery, the oldest headstone is dated 1846. By 1932, several Stadtoldendorf Jews had moved to Braunschweig. The community, with which the Jews of Arholzen, Golmbach and Wangelnstedt were affiliated, maintained a sisterhood and an association that supported itinerant Jews. In Stadtoldendorf, the SA-led boycotts of Jewish-owned businesses were accompanied by violence, triggering the decision of Jews many to flee to Berlin or Hanover. Eight Stadtoldendorf Jews had emigrated by 1938. In 1937, the Jewish owners of a local weaving mill were arrested; one managed to escape (to Switzerland), but his two business partners both perished in Sachsenhausen—one in 1940, the other in 1942. On Pogrom Night, SA men ransacked a number of businesses. The Nazis also plundered and set fire to the synagogue, after which the site was sold to the municipality. (The Torah scrolls, however, had been stored in the attic of the grammar school.) Ten Jewish men were arrested on Pogrom Night, after which most—an 83-year-old man was released the next day—were sent to Buchenwald, where they were interned until December 22, 1938. In May 1939, 42 Jews lived in Stadtoldendorf, of whom 16 left in 1939, five in 1940 and two in 1942. At least 24 Stadtoldendorf Jews perished in the Shoah. In 1981 a memorial stone was unveiled at the former synagoguesite.The Torah scrolls, rediscovered in 1958, were handed over to the provincial federation in Hanover.

Esther Sarah Evans

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

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