Rendsburg

First Jewish presence: 1693; peak Jewish population: 292 in 1835; Jewish population in 1933: 30

The Jews of Rendsburg established a cemetery in 1695; a prayer room, located in a private house, in 1697; and, by 1712, a prayer hall at 8 Prinzessinstrasse. The prayer hall was deemed unsafe in 1732/33, and although we do not know where local Jews conducted services after the hall closed down, records do tell us that a new synagogue and mikveh were consecrated on the same site in 1845. The community’s Talmud Torah school, established nearby in 1756 and moved to a new building in the 1830s, later became an elementary school; the school limited its curriculum to religious studies in 1892, and in 1900 the building was rented out, after which classes were held in the synagogue. On Pogrom Night, the synagogue’s Torah Ark was blown up; later, in 1939, the building was forcibly sold to a local company. We also know that the cemetery was sold to a firearms society. Most Jews left Rendsburg, 15 immigrating to other countries. By February 1939, all the town’s Polish Jews had been moved into one building; and in 1942, right before three local Jews were deported to the East, a couple slated for deportation committed suicide. At least 33 Rendsburg Jews perished in the Shoah. The synagogue building, renovated as a cultural center in 1985, houses a Jewish museum (established in 1988).

Nurit Borut

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

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