Hoexter

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