Trebnitz

Summary: During the early 1800s, the city authorities in Trebnitz (present-day Trzebnica, Poland) allowed Jews to do business in the town but prohibited them from settling there permanently. Some years later, the authorities rescinded the ban on Jewish settlement. The Jewish community’s first synagogue was established in 1830, the same year in which local Jews consecrated a cemetery. Later, in response to the growth of the Jewish population, the community decided to build a new house of worship (inaugurated on the eve of the Jewish New Year, 1871). It was during the early 1900s, however, that Trebnitz’s Jewish population began to dwindle. As was the case in many other German towns, the year 1930 marked the beginning of relentless anti-Semitism in Trebnitz: headstones at the Jewish cemetery were desecrated with swastikas, and Nazi slogans were painted on the burial ground’s outer walls. On Pogrom Night (November 1938), Nazis destroyed the synagogue and the town’s three remaining Jewish-owned businesses. We can only assume that those Jews who remained in Trebnitz during the Nazi period perished in the Shoah.

Author / Sources: Moshe Finkel
Sources: EJL, LJG