Hoexter
General information: First Jewish presence: 1384; peak Jewish population: 209 in 1885; Jewish population in 1933: 106
Summary:
The earliest available record of a Jewish presence in Hoexter
is dated 1384. By the mid-17th century, nine Jewish families
lived in the town. Consecrated on Nagelschmiedstrasse in
1834 and in use until 1936, the synagogue also housed a
schoolroom and an apartment for the teacher.
On Pogrom Night, SA and SS men destroyed the interior
of the synagogue. Jewish homes were ravaged, Jewish men
were beaten and sent to Buchenwald, and the cemetery was
ravaged so thoroughly that not a single headstone was left
standing.
The community sold its synagogue at the beginning of
1939, but the bank account in which the proceeds of the sale
were deposited was later confiscated. According to records,
cattle were kept in the damaged synagogue building during
the winter.
Twelve Hoexter Jews perished in the Shoah. Jacob Pins,
the famous Israeli woodcut artist, was born in Hoexter
in 1917; he immigrated to Palestine in 1936 and died in
Jerusalem in 2005, two years after being honored in Hoexter.
The synagogue building, rebuilt in 1984, is now
a private house to which a commemorative plaque has
been affixed; at the Jewish cemetery, headstones have been
restored.
Author / Sources: Dorothea Shefer-Vanson
Sources: AH, LJG, SG-NRW, SIA, YV
Sources: AH, LJG, SG-NRW, SIA, YV
Located in: north-rhine-westphalia