Nienburg on the Weser

Summary: Nienburg Jews prayed in rented facilities until 1817, when the community finally inaugurated a synagogue on Lange Strasse, in a building donated by the widow of Marcus Abraham. Children studied religion in the teacher’s home until the establishment, in 1868, of a Jewish school (closed in 1924). The provincial rabbinate was located in Hanover, but the Nienburg community maintained its own cemetery. In 1933, a chevra kadisha, a sisterhood, a society for Jewish history and literature and a Zionist youth group were active in the community; no Jews, however, still lived in the previously affiliated withwns of Drakenburg, Lohe and Siedenburg by 1933. Records suggest that the aforementioned literature group ceased its activities after the death of the teacher, Mr. Solly Katz. On Pogrom Night, SA troops and several local people destroyed the interior of the synagogue, its ritual objects, and Jewish-owned homes and businesses, including the Marcus Abraham family’s furniture store. After the destruction of the synagogue, L. Weinberg and six others established another synagogue association. After January 1939, when the smaller Jewish cemeteries in the surrounding towns were closed, all burials were conducted in Nienburg; by then, the Jewish population had dwindled to 19. On March 28, 1942, the remaining 18 Jews were sent to ghettos, concentration camps or death camps. The cemetery—it was vandalized in 1985, 1989 and again in 1997—contains a memorial plaque.

Author / Sources: Esther Sarah Evans
Sources: HH, PK