Bad Freienwalde

Residential - Bad Freienwalde, Brandenberg

First Jewish presence: 17th century; peak Jewish population: 82 in 1880; Jewish population in 1933: 10 families

Jews settled in Bad Freienwalde in 1671, when Elector Frederick William I of Brandenburg issued an edict, soon after which Isaac Levy became the town’s first protected Jew. The Jewish cemetery at the foot of the Galgenberg hill dates back to the same period. Services were conducted in the Boas family home until 1819, when the community purchased a building (at 145 Jopenstrasse) and established a synagogue and teacher’s residence there. It was not, however, until 1848/50 that the Jewish community of Bad Freienwalde was officially founded. The local spa, popular among Berlin Jews, would later be referred to contemptuously as the Judenbad (Jew’s bath). On Pogrom Night, SA men set fire to the synagogue. Nearly all local Jews managed to emigrate from Germany before the deportations began. At the synagogue site—the ruins were cleared in 1969— a memorial stone stands above the stairs that once led congregants into the synagogue. The cemetery was leveled in 1950, but one of the tombstones was used as a memorial stone. The town’s library was named after Hans Keilson (born in Bad Freienwalde in 1909), a Jewish writer, physician and psychoanalyst who survived the Shoah in the Netherlands.

Beate Grosz-Wenker

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

Notes

Sources: Alemannia Judaica at: www.alemannia-judaica.de The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust, Shmuel Spector [Ed.], [Publisher] Yad Vashem and the New York University Press, 2001., Lexicon of the Jewish Community in German-speaking countries, Klaus Dieter-Alicke, [publisher] Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2008., Synagogue Internet Archive, www.synagogen.info , Guide through Jewish Brandenburg, Irene A. Diekmann, Julius H. Schoep, [publisher] Edition Hentrich, 1995.

Details

Date Added	Jan 24, 2020
Category	Residential
Country	DE
State	Brandenberg
City	Bad Freienwalde
Exhibits	Pogrom Night 1938 - A Memorial to the Destroyed Synagogues of Germany

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Bad Freienwalde

First Jewish presence: 17th century; peak Jewish population: 82 in 1880; Jewish population in 1933: 10 families

Beate Grosz-Wenker

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

Notes

Details

Have additional information, photos, connections, or other resources to contribute?

Jason Guberman

Executive Director

Jason Guberman-P., A social entrepreneur who specializes in building broad coalitions and melding intellectual and technical innovation, serves as founding Executive Director of Digital Heritage Mapping and is the coordinator of the Diarna Geo-Museum of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Life.

Joshua Shamsi

Project Director

Joshua Shamsi, is Project Director for the Atlas of Jewish Life and Lead Photographer/Outreach Director for the Diarna Geo-Museum of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Life.

Eddie Ashkenazie

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Eddie Ashkenazie, is a Yeshiva University PhD student focusing his studies on the Jews of the Middle East and North Africa in the modern era.

Avital Hirsch

Avital Hirsch graduated Magna Cum Laude from Binghamton University with a BA in language and linguistics. She has studied in Rome at Istituto Lorenzo de Medici.

Glenn Dynner

Editor

Glenn Dynner. Professor of Religion, Sarah Lawrence College. BA, Brandeis University. MA, McGill University. PhD, Brandeis University. Scholar of East European Jewry with a focus on the social history of Hasidism and the Haskalah.

Chrystie Sherman

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Born in Chicago, Chrystie Sherman was educated at the University of Vermont, the University of Paris, and New York University Graduate School of Film and Television.

Gentian Xhaxiu

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Gentian Xhaxhiu, was born in Tirana, Albania, in April 1988. He has attained a Master Degree in “EU Business Law” and has successfully completed the Annual Programme of the School of Political Studies of the Council of Europe.