Stolp

Summary: Stolp’s first Jewish family settled there in 1705, after which the Jewish community experienced modest growth (27 Jews in 1737). During the 19th century, however, the community grew rapidly, eventually becoming the second-largest in Pomerania. Local Jews conducted services in prayer rooms until 1849, when a synagogue was built on Synagogenstrasse (“synagogue street”); Dr. Josef Klein served as rabbi during the years 1841 to 1860, as did Rabbi Salomon Hahn, from 1861 to 1898. The community also maintained a school for religious studies, an elementary school (established in 1854), an old-age home for both Jews and Christians (established in or around the year 1900) and a Jewish cemetery on Freyschmidtstrasse (laid in 1815). Prior to 1815, burials were conducted in Lauenburg. In 1902/1903, the community built a new liberal synagogue at 6 Arnoldstrasse; in the synagogue, which seated 400 men and 300 women, an organ and a mixed choir were part of the religious services. Stolp’s Jewish community center, established near the house of worship, housed three apartments for community officials; the ritual slaughter of poultry was carried out in the building’s courtyard. In 1933, 470 Jews lived in Stolp. Thirty-five schoolchildren received religious instruction that year, and the community was served by a rabbi, a chief chazzan/teacher and a second chazzan/shochet. Several Jewish welfare and social organizations were active in Stolp that year. On the morning of Pogrom Night, the synagogue was set on fire. Policemen and members of the SA prevented the fire brigade from extinguishing the blaze and, after the building had burned to the ground, blew up the ruins. Most of the city’s Jewish men were arrested and sent to Sachsenhausen. After the pogrom, services and classes in religion were held in the community center, which, after 1940, housed the Pomeranian office of the Reich’s Association of the Jews in Germany. By May 1939, approximately half of Stolp’s Jews had emigrated. The remaining Jews were forcibly moved into the community’s old-age home, from which, beginning in 1940, Jews under the age of 50 were taken for forced labor. Deportations commenced in the summer of 1942, and at least 74 Stolp Jews perished in the Shoah. At the end of the war, when Stolp became part of Poland, the entire German population was forced out of the city. The synagogue site was later converted into a playground; two memorial plaques were affixed to the entrance, and the old fence was repaired in 2006. A memorial stone was unveiled at the Jewish cemetery (which was sold in 1941) in 1996.

Author / Sources: Heidemarie Wawrzyn Sources: EJL, FJG, GKJP, YV www.stolp.de www.sztetl.org.pl