Schwerte

First Jewish presence: 1448; peak Jewish population: 142 in 1890 or 165 in 1895 (sources provide differing information); Jewish population in 1933: 60

The earliest record of a Jewish presence in Schwerte is dated 1448. Although the community grew during the 18th and 19th centuries, it did not employ a rabbi or operate any Jewish organizations. Between 1900 and 1932, seven Jews served on the city council. The community conducted services in a prayer room (at 7 Hellpothstrasse) in 1750. From the year 1805, when the municipality authorized the construction of a synagogue, and 1854, when the house of worship was finally inaugurated, Jews used a prayer room in the Wortmann home on Kirchhof. On September 1, 1854, a synagogue on Grosse Marktstrasse was inaugurated and, in 1898, a Jewish school was built at Nordwall (the school closed in the 1920s). Local Jews buried their dead in the cemetery at Nordwall from the mid-18th century onwards. By June 1933, only 60 Jews remained in Schwerte. The policy of “aryanization” ensured that there were no Jewish-owned businesses in Schwerte by 1938. On Pogrom Night, Nazis ransacked the synagogue and then burned its interior; Jewish apartments were vandalized by the mob that night; the Red Cross later appropriated the synagogue building. The 19 Jews who still lived in Schwerte in 1939 were forcibly moved into the barracks on Liethstrasse. Fourteen local Jews were deported to the camps in 1942/43. Altogether, more than 50 Schwerte Jews perished during the Shoah. A memorial plaque was unveiled near the old synagogue building –the original walls still exist—in 1994; another plaque has been unveiled at the cemetery.

Benjamin Rosendahl

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

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