Wunstorf

1st Jewish presence: 13th century (1st recorded in the 16th century); peak Jewish pop.: 88 in 1860 (3.9% of the total pop.); Jewish pop. in 1933: 46

Three Jews lived in Wunstorf in 1700, after which the town’s Jewish population grew steadily. The community maintained two cemeteries—on Hohen Holz before 1690 and, after 1830, on Nordrehr—as well as a school and a synagogue on Nordstrasse, the last of which was replaced in 1913 by a new house of worship on Kuesterstrasse, whose premises contained a mikveh, a school and a teacher’s apartment. In 1933, six Jewish schoolchildren studied religion under the guidance of a teacher/chazzan. A women’s welfare association (established in 1849) and a branch of the Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith (established in 1920) were active in Wunstorf. On Pogrom Night, SA troops vandalized shops and homes, destroyed the synagogue’s interior, burned its books and desecrated the new cemetery. A Jew was humiliated in public; another was beaten up. All Jews were forced to spend the night in the basement of the city hall, and some were abused. We also know that eight Wunstorf Jews were sent, via Hanover, to Buchenwald, from where seven returned in 1938/39. In total, 27 Jews left the town during the years 1933 to 1939. In 1941, all patients at the local psychiatric hospital (including Jews) were deported to Brandenburg; in 1941/42, Wunstorf ’s remaining Jewish residents were deported, via Ahlem, to the East. At least 41 Wunstorf Jews perished in the Shoah. Renovated by Jewish soldiers from the British army after the war, the synagogue was sold in 1955. Today, the structure serves as an apartment building, to which a plaque was affixed in 1988. In 2002, a memorial was erected near Marktkirche.

Heidemarie Wawrzyn

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

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