Riesenburg
General information: First Jewish presence: in or around the year 1700; peak Jewish population: 148 in 1895; Jewish population in 1933: unknown (70 in 1925)
Summary: Not much is known about the history of the Jewish
community of Riesenburg (present-day Prabuty, Poland).
Individual Jews lived in Riesenburg in the early 1700s, but
it was not until the early 1800s that a Jewish community
was established there. Local Jews consecrated a cemetery
and established a synagogue, the latter of which was of neo-
Gothic design, in 1812 and 1855, respectively. (The cemetery
was in use until 1930.)
Jews began to flee Riesenburg soon after the Nazis rose to
power, so that by 1937 only 65 Jews lived in the town. On
Pogrom Night, Nazis stormed the synagogue and burned it
down. The Jewish cemetery was destroyed during the war,
and is now a garage. One can find fragments of gravestones
bearing Hebrew and German inscriptions scattered among
the trees and the grass of the cemetery site.
As of this writing, the town has never erected a memorial.
Photo: The middle of the synagogue of Riesenburg, which had rounded windows. Courtesy of: Unknown.
Author / Sources: Moshe Finkel
Source: EJL, IAJGS
www.sztetl.org.pl
Source: EJL, IAJGS
www.sztetl.org.pl
Located in: east-prussia