Dortmund
General information: First Jewish presence: 11th century; peak Jewish population: 4,500 in 1930; Jewish population in 1933: 4,108 (in June)
Summary: The earliest record of Jews in Dortmund is dated 1074; at
that time, Jewish merchants were known to pass through
the city. The persecution of Jews in Dortmund during the
First Crusade (1096) has been documented also. There is
no indication of permanent Jewish settlement in the city
until the early 13th century, although a Jewish cemetery
was established outside the city walls in 1136. By 1252,
Dortmund was home to an organized Jewish community
with its own synagogue and mikveh. Those Jews lived in the
Judengasse (“Jews’ Alley”), in the area of today’s Luehringshof.
Dortmund’s medieval Jews, protected by the Counts of the
Mark, made a living through moneylending. During the
Black Death persecutions (1350) Dortmund’s Jews were
accused of well poisoning; some were killed, and the survivors
expelled. The Count of the Mark and the local authorities
confiscated the property the Jews left behind. Eventually, in
1372, the city authorities, in need of money-lending services,
invited Jews to return for a limited time. These Jews were
given back the mikveh, the cemetery and possibly the old
synagogue too, in return for the payment of fees. By 1380, 10
Jewish families lived there; Shimshon ben Shmuel of Dueren
was their rabbi. As Dortmund gradually lost its status as a
political and economic hub, its Jewish population declined
to zero (by the mid-15th century). Jews returned in the 16th
century but were expelled again in 1596; they settled in
towns in the surrounding area: Castrop, Dorstfeld, Hoerde,
Schwerte and Unna. Thereafter there is no record of Jewish
life in Dortmund until the modern era.
Jews were granted permission to come back to Dortmund
at the beginning of the 19th century, and did so in increasing
numbers from the middle of that century onwards. In the
early 20th century up until the Nazi period, Dortmund’s
Jews, apart from the poorer arrivals from Eastern Europe,
were mostly upper middle-class. They earned a living as
businessmen, salesmen and in the professions; some were
artisans. Jews were increasingly active in public life after the
Emancipation; in 1910, three served on the city council, and
one was chairman of the local medical society. The Eastern
European Jews made a living through petty trade, peddling
and crafts.
In 1818, Dortmund’s Jews worshiped in a prayer room in
the home of Jacob Salomon. In 1853, a small synagogue was built on the Wuestenhof. As the community grew, plans were
made to build a new synagogue; a plot of land was purchased
on Hiltropwall in the city center in the 1890s. The new
synagogue, designed by architect Eduard von Fuerstenau,
was inaugurated on June 6, 1900. The synagogue, which
had a 40-meter high cupola; a room for weekday prayers
on the ground floor with its own Torah Ark; a mikveh; a
choir loft; an organ; and seating for 1,270 worshipers, cost
501,000 Marks to build. Its congregation was affiliated with
the Jewish communities in Luetjendortmund and Mengede.
Dortmund’s Orthodox, Eastern European Jews, who arrived
during World War I and lived in the northern part of the
city, operated several prayer rooms of their own. Those
prayer rooms were located on Zimmerstrasse, Leopoldstrasse
(there was a mikveh in house number 31 on that street), and
possibly on Heiligegartenstrasse and on Muensterstrasse too.
There were also separate synagogues in the Dorstfeld and
Hoerde districts of the city.
In 1861, the medieval cemetery was replaced by a
new burial ground in Dorstfeld; which was used by the
Dortmund community too. Another Jewish cemetery was
laid in Dortmund itself, in the Ostpark, in 1888.
Dortmund’s Jews opened a private elementary school
in 1840; which became a public Jewish elementary school
in 1858. The school changed address numerous times: in
1870/1871 it moved to 9 Breitenstrasse; to Kampstrasse
(to a new building) in 1889; to 51a Lindenstrasse in 1930
(the school had 300 pupils that year); and, in 1937/1938,
to 14 Kampstrasse II. In addition to the elementary school,
Dortmund’s Jewish community ran a handcrafts school and a
Talmud Torah; around 80 children attended afternoon classes
in the latter in 1932. There was also a Jewish community
center which, like the school, was moved on several occasions;
the last time was in 1937, to the Jewish school building on
Kampstrasse II. The center closed down in 1941.
In 1933, up to 4,200 Jews lived in Dortmund, making up
0.8% of the city’s total population. The Jewish community
operated numerous charitable and welfare associations,
including a soup kitchen and women’s society. There was
also an orchestra, a choir and community newsletter. Jews
were members of non-Jewish professional organizations and
sports clubs too. Dortmund was traditionally a worker’s town
with few Nazi Party supporters in the movement’s early years;
anti-Jewish incidents were therefore rare until the boycott
of Jewish businesses in 1933. Nevertheless, Dortmund’s
boycott began a few days early, on March 28. Entrances to
Jewish shops were blocked; the SA and SS arrested Jewish
doctors, lawyers, department store employees and business
owners. They were taken into “protective custody,” only to
be released shortly afterwards. On April 1, the day of the
official boycott in the rest of Germany, anti-Jewish placards
were displayed in the street, flyers were distributed, and
SA men barred the entrances to Jewish-owned shops. In
1934, incidents of vandalism, violence and harassment
increased: Jewish properties were graffitied; their windows
smashed. The number of pupils in the Jewish school went
up as Jewish children were excluded from state schools.
The city theater was banned from staging a Wagner opera,
because Jewish artists were to be involved in its production.
In 1935, anti-Jewish demonstrations were held in which
Jews were accused of being traitors, murderers, defilers of
women and of attempting to start a war. The persecution
intensified to such an extent that approximately one third
of Dortmund’s Jewish population left; 800 of those who
remained became dependent on financial aid. Nevertheless,
during those years, Dortmund’s branch of the Jewish
Cultural Association continued to offer plays, lectures and
concerts. The community newsletter published articles on
Palestine and Jewish history. Vocational training and lessons
in Hebrew and English were intensified; the Palestine Office
and Hehalutz organized immigration to Palestine.
After the synagogues in Munich and Nuremberg were
demolished in August 1938— at that time there were 2,600
Jews in Dortmund—Dortmund’s city council decided to do
the same. The official reason given for the demolition of the
synagogue, which was described as a “shameful stain” on the
city’s landscape, was the need to improve traffic flow. This excuse exempted the city council from paying the 1 million
Reichsmarks it would have owed the Jewish community
had the building been “aryanized.” Eventually, under the
threat of violence, the community leadership opted, on
September 19, 1938, to “voluntarily” sell the synagogue
and its land; 135,000 Reichsmarks were to be paid for the
plot; nothing for the synagogue building itself. After the city
council approved the purchase, Dortmund’s district Nazi
leader arranged for a crowd to gather outside the synagogue
and destroy its interior, breaking the promise made to the
community leaders that they would have eight days to remove
ritual items from the building. Nevertheless, some Torah
scrolls were reportedly rescued from the building and kept
in the community’s offices. A Torah pointer also survived
and was discovered in nearby Unna in 1987. After the sale
was agreed, it was claimed that anti-Nazi materials had been
found in the synagogue; as a consequence the purchase price
was reduced. Even then, the state still deducted taxes from
the amount; the Jewish community eventually received a
pitiful sum. Demolition work began on October 3, 1938;
the walls were dynamited on October 19. By December the
site had been completely cleared.
Reportedly, the remains of the synagogue were set on fire
on Pogrom Night, November 9-10, 1938. It is not known
whether the Orthodox prayer rooms in the north of the
city were attacked; SA and SS troops did, however, inflict
heavy violence on Dortmund’s Jewish community: Jewish
homes and businesses were wrecked, their owners forced to
pay money to the vandals. Jewish men were arrested; most
of them sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where
17 died. Five hundred Jews fled the city after the pogrom.
In June 1941, 1,222 Jews were still in Dortmund. They
were forbidden to use public shelters, radios, telephones
or even the streets without permission. Gradually, they
were moved into communal accommodation in so-called
“Jews’ houses.” The deportations, which included Jews from
Dortmund and from the surrounding area, began in 1942
and ended in early 1945. Eight transports in total, each
containing around 5,000 persons, left the city destined for
the ghettos and camps. At least 2,200 Dortmund Jews died
in the Shoah.
After the war, in the summer of 1945, a new Jewish
community with 50 members, most of whom were survivors
of the Theresienstadt ghetto, was founded in Dortmund. In
1952, the community was awarded 800,000 Deutschmarks
as compensation for the synagogue; the city council retained
ownership of the site, which was renamed Platz der Alten
Synagoge (“the old synagogue square”) and today is the
forecourt of the city theater. A commemorative plaque was
erected there in 1990. Memorial plaques for Jews deported
from Dortmund have been erected in various locations
around the city.
The synagogue in Dortmund today, at 9 Prinz Friedrich
Karl Strasse, was inaugurated in April 1988 (it replaced an
older synagogue established in 1956 at the same address).
In 2006, Dortmund’s Jewish community had more than
4,000 members.
Photo: The synagogue on Hiltropwall in Dortmund. Courtesy of: Yad Vashem Photo Archive, 214AO9.
Author / Sources: Bronagh Bowerman
Sources: EJL, LJG, SG-NRW
Sources: EJL, LJG, SG-NRW
Located in: north-rhine-westphalia