Twistringen

First Jewish presence: 1730; peak Jewish population: 40 in 1858; Jewish population in 1933: unknown

Twistringen’s synagogue association, which included the Jews living in nearby Heiligenloh and Ehrenburg, was established in 1843. In 1845, the community acquired a building in Twistringen in which it established a synagogue and a school, the latter of which had been operating at a different location since 1830. We also know that this community maintained a mikveh and, after 1789, a cemetery just north of Twistringen. The Jewish school closed down in 1860, and although another was established in 1888, it, too, closed down in 1904. In 1907/08, Twistringen’s Jewish children studied religion in Bassum with a teacher from Barenburg; later, they studied with a teacher from Diepholz. In 1932, one local child received religious instruction, then provided in Twistringen itself. On the morning of November 10, 1938, male Jews were arrested and imprisoned in the fire department’s building. Valuables were stolen from Jewish homes and documents pertaining to the community, placed in the kosher butcher’s home for safekeeping, were confiscated. SA men then set fire to the synagogue. Several Jewish men were transferred to the prison in Hanover and, later, to Buchenwald, from where they were released in late November 1938. Eight Jews lived in Twistringen in 1939. In 1941, the few who remained were made participate in forced labor. Then began the deportations to Minsk, Warsaw, Auschwitz and Riga; records suggest that the last deportation was that of Alma and Sophie Goldberg in 1943. At least 20 Twistringen Jews perished in the Shoah. In May 1985, a memorial stone was unveiled on Bachstrasse, near the former synagogue site.

Esther Sarah Evans

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

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