Stettin

Summary: The first Jews to settle in Stettin arrived there in the mid- 13th century. Jews were expelled from the town in 1348/49 and again in 1482/93, and it was not until the 18th century that the ban on permanent Jewish settlement in Stettin was rescinded. welfare organizations, four institutions and a charitable foundation, all of which provided social services. Several local branches of national Jewish organization were active in the community that year, and we also know that local Jews still maintained a mikveh and a library. In 1933, Jewish-owned businessmen were arrested and taken to the Pomeranian concentration camp known as the Vulcan Camp. In 1935, anti-Jewish demonstrations took place in Stettin and anti-Semitic vitriol was published on an increasingly regular basis. In response to the Nazis’ racial laws, local Jews opened their own elementary school in 1936. In October 1938, Jews of Polish origin were expelled from Stettin. In the early morning of November 10, 1938 (namely, Pogrom Night) members of the Nazi Party set the synagogue on fire; two community members, however, managed to save several Torah scrolls from the blaze. Jewish homes and stores were damaged and looted, the Jewish cemetery and other Jewish institutions were vandalized and Jewish men were taken to Sachsenhausen. The synagogue’s ruins were removed in 1939/40. In 1939, many local Jews immigrated to Shanghai. In February 1940, at least 800 Jews were deported to Lublin, Poland. Children at the Jewish orphanage were taken to Hamburg and Berlin and, later, were deported. The remaining Jews, most of whom were elderly, were deported in 1941/42. Only a few deportees survived the Shoah. After the war, Polish Jews settled in Stettin and founded a new community there. During the pogroms that erupted there in 1946 (the year after the war ended), several Jews were murdered. We also know that, in 1949/50 and especially in 1968, many local Jews immigrated to Israel. In November 1988, a memorial was unveiled at the former cemetery site. The modern Jewish community, founded in 1816 with sixteen Jewish families, built a wooden synagogue on Gruene Schanze in 1834/35; later, in 1875, a new Moorish-style synagogue was built on the site of the old synagogue. The new building—it accommodated 1,600 worshipers and contained an organ—was the largest synagogue in Pomerania; it was renovated on several occasions. It was during the 1820s that the community established a mikveh, a school and a cemetery, the last of which was consecrated on Bethanienstrasse in 1821 and used until 1962. Other communal institutions included a Jewish orphanage, founded in or around 1850, and an Orthodox prayer room, inaugurated by immigrant Jews from Posen and West Prussia in 1867. Anti-Jewish riots broke out in Pomerania in 1881, resulting, in Stettin, in violence that lasted for three days. In 1933, approximately 2,500 Jews resided in Stettin, served by a rabbi and a teacher/chazzan who instructed 250 children. Active in the community were eight Jewish

Author / Sources: Heidemarie Wawrzyn
Sources: EJL, FJG, LJG, W-G
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