Bollendorf

Residential - Bollendorf, Rhineland-Palatinate

First Jewish presence: 1843; peak Jewish population: 110 in 1910 (9% of the total population); Jewish population in 1933: unknown (62 in 1932)

Owing to the success of several local Jews in commerce and industry, the Jewish community of Bollendorf (located near the border with Luxemburg) developed quickly. Jews conducted services in a prayer hall, attached to a private residence, until a community member donated a plot of land on which a synagogue with a seating capacity of 100 was built. The Jewish population decreased rapidly after World War I, as local Jews left in hopes of finding better economic opportunities elsewhere. More Jews left the area after the Nazis implemented their anti-Jewish boycott (1933). On Pogrom Night, the synagogue and the remaining Jewish-owned stores and homes were wrecked; the names of local Jewish soldiers who died in World War I were removed from the town’s war memorial. Of those Jews who still lived in Bollendorf on Pogrom Night, some managed to cross the nearby border or otherwise flee. Only 11 Jews lived in the town when the final deportation took place, but at least 23 Bollendorf Jews perished in the Shoah. The desecrated cemetery was restored after the war; a memorial plaque has been unveiled there.

Harold Slutkin

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

Notes

Sources: The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust, Shmuel Spector [Ed.], [publisher] Yad Vashem and the New York University Press, 2001., “und dies ist die Pforte des Himmels”: Synagogen Rheinland-Pfalz/Saarland, Will Schmid, Stefan Fischbach and Ingrid Westerhoff [Eds.], publication initiated by Joachim Glatz and Meier Schwarz, [publisher] Phillipp Von Zabern, 2005.

Details

Date Added	Apr 20, 2020
Category	Residential
Country	DE
State	Rhineland-Palatinate
City	Bollendorf
Exhibits	Pogrom Night 1938 - A Memorial to the Destroyed Synagogues of Germany

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Bollendorf

First Jewish presence: 1843; peak Jewish population: 110 in 1910 (9% of the total population); Jewish population in 1933: unknown (62 in 1932)

Harold Slutkin

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

Researcher

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

Photographer

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.