Varel
General information: First Jewish presence: 1683; peak Jewish population: 90 in 1875; Jewish population in 1933: 39
Summary: The Jews of Varel initially conducted services in a rented
prayer room, first documented in 1717. The community
unsuccessfully petitioned the authorities for a synagogue in
1760, and it was not until 1806, when a local Jew, Abraham
Schwabe, provided the community with a building, that
a synagogue was established in Varel. This synagogue
had been abandoned by 1843, as the structure had fallen
into disrepair. Later, on July 28, 1848, the community
inaugurated a synagogue on Osterstrasse; the building,
which had been acquired in 1840, housed an elementary
school, an apartment for the teacher and a mikveh. Records
also tell us that in 1900, the community opened a hostel
for indigent Jews. Varel’s Jewish cemetery was consecrated
in 1711.
Seventeen Jews lived in Varel on Pogrom Night
(November 1938), when SA troops set the synagogue on
fire and plundered the remaining Jewish homes. Jewish men
and several women were imprisoned in police headquarters,
from where they were sent to Oldenburg and, later, to
Sachsenhausen, where one man was so badly beaten that
he died of his wounds. Those who survived the ordeal
were eventually released, after which eight more Varel
Jews emigrated from Germany. Varel’s last Jewish family
left town in 1940. On July 23, 1941, after the remaining
Jewish residents of the old-age home were deported to
Theresienstadt, the town was declared Judenfrei (“free of
Jews”). Approximately 43 local Jews perished in the Shoah.
The site of the Jewish cemetery was taken over by the
Nazis, who used some of the gravestones for construction;
several gravestones were retrieved after the war. The
synagogue site was acquired by a local resident in May
1939. In 1990, a memorial plaque was unveiled at the
public school opposite the plot where the synagogue once
stood.
Photo: The synagogue of Varel. Courtesy of: Town Archive of Varel.
Author / Sources: Esther Sarah Evans
Sources: JGNB1, YV
www.bethhahayim.info/varel.htm
Sources: JGNB1, YV
www.bethhahayim.info/varel.htm
Located in: lower-saxony