Jewish memories in Thale, Germany

The region of Harz mountains, in Germany, was famous for the high concentration of Jewish population, especially in the 17-18th century. Despite the permanent threats of pogroms, the local landlords allowed the Jews to establish here, set up their own business and schools and even create important institutions of Torah learning. But as in many other cases, it was short lived and the persecutions in the 1930s lead to vandalism of synagogues and places of prayer as well as the significant diminishing of the Jewish population. 

Nowadays, there are almost no Jews left, most part of them being murdered.

The memories are strong though and one might find memorial notes about famous local families and personalities that leaved in various cities. 

One of such case was this mention, on a wall near the Karl-Marx street in Thale. It reminds the family Dessauer, who lived here for a while, before the war. Dessauer was a common name in the region, with similar names encountered in Magdeburg or Halberstadt, but the clear connection between them is not obvious. Dessauer might be a name that in fact can mention the common place of origin, the city of Dessau. 

Jewish memories in Hamburg: Otto and Paul Lang

The - sometimes strong - connection between national socialism and sport, especially in the case of the big sport associations is not yet fully explored. One of such cases is the famous and extremely popular FC Pauli in Hamburg. In the 1930s, many players of Jewish origin were either dismissed from their sport clubs or simply encouraged to do so by themselves.

One such a case are the brothers Lang, Otto and Paul, in whose honour a memorial stone was inaugurated a couple of years ago. The memorial stays at the entrance to the stadium. 

Both of them had an important contribution to the development of the local rugby. They left FC Pauli in 1933, the clear conditions of the departure not being documented in full details. 

Otto left shortly after Germany via Antwerp, from where he moved in the United States where he died in 2003. His brother, Paul, stayed in Germany and was deported to KZ Theresienstadt in 1945. He survived and returned to Hamburg after the war, where he died in 2003.

Jewish memories in Hamburg: Brandenburger Haus

A Hansa city, with an intensive trade activity, Hamburg also used to have a very rich and sophisticated Jewish community, whose representatives contributed greatly to the well-being of the city and its citizens. The free economic status that supposedly also involved a certain free mind frame. It was not always like this, but at least, for a certain period of time, Jews living in Hamburg had a good time. They invested in the local economy and constructions, their contributions remaining as part of the history of the city. 

During a short visit to the city of Hamburg, I discovered close to the Gansemarkt, the imposing Brandenburgerhaus. It has 4 stores and bay-windows, a typical architectural element from Liverpool, in England. This 'kontorhaus' - tradesman house, usually used as offices for businesses - was built following the plans of Johannes Wald.

The house belonged to Isidor Hirschfeld that wanted to build the house for his wife, born Brandenburger. Isidor, together with his brother Benno, had before the war a successful fashion owner based in Hamburg, with offices in Hannover, Bremen and Leipzig. Isidor died in 1937, but Benno shortly before the end of the war, at Buchenwald. 

Memories of Jewish life in Schöneberg, Berlin

In the Western part of Berlin, Schöneberg is one of the areas where used to live many Jewish intellectuals, among which Albert Einstein, that used to live on Haberlandstrasse 8, Gisele Freund, Leo Baeck on Fritz Elsasstrasse 15 or Erich Fromm, on Bayerischer Platz 1. Marcel Reich-Ranicki, the leading literary critic of German literature also lived here for a while, and in his memory, a local school is bearing his name.

Aiming to remember the terrible times, an artistic project of Renata Stih and Frieder Schnock is aimed to raise awareness about the absurdity of the racist legislation at the time. Near the street lamps, on the main streets from the Bayerische Viertel, where Jews used to live, small billboards were placed with the texts of the interdictions the Jews were victims thereof. 

Jews were not allowed to go to school, own dogs or visit the doctors. Even though, later in the project, various mentions were added aimed to specify the context where those decisions were taken, reading all those messages on the light of the day in 2014, doesn't sound very pleasant.

The 80 signs are doubled signed: on one side there is a fragment of the German Nuremberg law and on the other side, there is a graphic description of the interdiction. 

As the signs are written in German, the target of the live exhibition is the German speaking population, but I suppose that after a while, those living around got used with the signs ending up by completely ignoring them. 

This exhibition is part of the larger project 'Places of Remembrance', aimed to outline the lost Jewish heritage of Berlin and can be considered as one of the most significant in the Western part of the city.

In the Schöneberg area used to live around 16,000 Jews, out of which 6,000 were deported from the Munchenerstrasse. At no. 37, there used to be a synagogue and Jewish school, mostly destroyed first during Kristallnacht and after by the bombings. The Orthodox synagogue was opened in 1909, answering the spiritual needs of the growing Jewish population. 

Schöneberg used to be called the 'Jewish Switzerland', but nowadays, there are only the Stolpersteine and the various memory projects that reminds about the past. This is how things are in this part of the world. 

Jewish memories in Berlin: Wittenbergplatz

After going out through the exit of the Wittenbergplatz U-Bahn Station in Berlin, after admiring the old adds and the modernist architecture of the station, the traveler will arrive close to the Ku'damm main shopping attraction: the historical KaDeWe retail center. Before that, near the main entrance, a list of places of infamous resonance is mentioned, a reminder of how the Jews were took over in the trains of death in the very center of the German capital city. The list of names was inaugurated there in 1967.

During the anti-Semitic attacks from the 1930s, the area near this station was often the scenery of boycott and vandalism of the Jewish shops. On Ku'damm and Tauentzienstrasse it used to be a high concentration of Jewish shops and businesses. One of the main representative was the KaDeWe, opened in 1907 by the Jewish businessman Adolf Jandorf and later sold to the Jewish family Tietz. The Jews themselves did not give up and openly protested against the situation, without too much chances of changing the overall mood of the population. 

There are different kinds of Torah teachers

Shavuos is one of the best times of the year to think about teachers and ways of teaching Torah. This year, I was not too tired, so I spent the whole night taking part to different shiurim, focused on catching up with the style of the teacher as well. 

First, it was the rebbetzen, speaking passionately about the story of Ruth, discussing, asking and answering questions, using her notes for bringing more ideas, but generally enjoying the dialogue rather than the monologue, translating the story of Ruth into our daily life. As I always had serious struggles to really go into the deep sense of this megillah, I had enough food for thought for the next days. And energy to keep up with the learning for the rest of the night.

After, I moved into a more complicated register, keeping up with the discussion about Shavuos and its signification, but through the reading of texts in Hebrew with translation, discussion line by line in a systematic way. After a while, around 2 o'clock, one might feel tired and exhausted, but between trying to read the proper Hebrew and investigating the sense of a word, the time passed very fast and didn't acknowledged that it's already 4 o'clock. I did learn a lot of new things here as well, even though I cannot openly say that I fully enjoy the intellectual discussion, as it was rather a monologue, with a couple of questions and different short observations from the participants. 

And there are always the very interesting shiurim of the rav, whose style took me a while to understand. He starts explaining a word, and the context, and goes further on with clear analysis looking for the hidden meaning. Everything told with a quiet voice, like counting the seconds before telling something new. We should be cautious yet respectful when talking about Torah.

Three different styles of teaching Torah the same learning. As for me, I never have enough of learning more and discovering new teachers helping me to find more meanings. 

Jewish life: Halle (an der Saale) Memorial

Relatively close to the central historical area, but hidden between blocks of houses, there is a small square in Halle (an der Salle) called Jerusalem Square /Jerusalmerplatz with a big arch in its center with a symbolic metal door in the middle, whose lines are united in the 6-star corners of many small Magen David. Although while arriving in the city by bus, I noticed close to the entrance the black stones of a Jewish cemetery, it seemed that the place was either too far away from the center or completely unknown to the locals I'd asked about after, so this was the only Jewish memory I encountered in Halle.

The first official Jewish presence is recorded somewhere in the second half of the 12th century. After the houses of many inhabitants were burned and looted by the locals, the Jewish presence diminished till the 14-15th century, when they returned in relatively bigger numbers. Halle used to be a very important trade knot in the Eastern side of Germany, with many fairs held around the year. 

In 1933, there were 1,100 Jews living here, representing 0.5% of the total population. Comparatively, in 1700, there were only 12 families. On November 10 1938, the synagogue and communal center were demolished, and the small memorial - called 'Judentores'/Jewish door - , where I completely arrived by accident as there were no specific information about it, is in the memory of this tragic incident. In July 1944, there were only 92 Jews living here, and their number decreased since then. 

Here is the place where the tragic events in the life of German Jewry are celebrated. A quiet place, with some green areas, and a bench where to stay and remember those terrible times.