Barca Synagogue (Košice-Barca)

RESUMEN

La historia de Barca Synagogue (Košice-Barca)

Barca, in Hungarian Bárca, was a village on the southern edge of Košice; it is now a borough of the city and the home of Košice International Airport. A Jewish community formed there in the second half of the eighteenth century and was at first attached to the rabbinate of the nearby village of Seňa. According to the Slovak heritage gazetteer pamiatkynaslovensku.sk, which follows a 2020 article by Monika Kacejová in the city paper Košice:Dnes, the village had two Jewish cemeteries and one synagogue. The synagogue stood on land that had belonged to Andrej Stankay, on what is now Abovská Street, opposite the Zichy manor house and before the turning towards Boľarov.

The community was never large. Of 972 inhabitants in 1838, 147 were Jews, and in 1857 Jews made up 15.3 percent of 950 inhabitants, the second largest religious group in the village. After the First World War about 120 Jews lived there. The congregation kept a ritual bath and a shochet, who also taught religion and led prayers. No rabbi, architect or building date is recorded in the sources read. After more than a century of use the building was in very poor condition after the Second World War. It was sold to the Czechoslovak state and later demolished.

UBICACIÓN

Where it stood

Historic: Bárca (Barca), on the former plot of Andrej Stankay on the main street, opposite the Zichy manor, before the road to Boľarov. Today: Abovská Street, Košice-Barca, 040 17 Košice; site of the airport telecommunications building opposite the Zichy manor (Abovská 1/32). Approximate.

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La comunidad judía

The Jews of Barca lived in a farming village on the main road south of Košice, where several noble families, among them the Zichys, had manor houses. The Pinkas Hakehillot entry for the area says the community was established at the end of the eighteenth century and belonged to the rabbinate of Seňa, while the heritage gazetteer places its foundation in the second half of that century. Population figures are scattered but show a stable small community: 147 Jews among 972 inhabitants in 1838, about 145 (15.3 percent of 950 people) in 1857, and about 120 after the First World War. In 1857 the Jews were the second largest religious group after the Catholics. The community maintained a synagogue, a ritual bath and two cemeteries; the older cemetery has since been built over, according to the European Jewish cemeteries survey. Its only salaried official was a shochet, the ritual slaughterer, who doubled as religion teacher and prayer leader. The names of the community's presidents and members, and its religious orientation, were not found.

Arquitectura y diseño

No photograph, drawing or plan of the Barca synagogue was found, and none of the sources read describes the building. Its architect, builder, date of construction, size, seating capacity and style are all unknown. The heritage gazetteer says only that it existed for more than a hundred years before falling into decay after the Second World War, which places its construction no later than the 1840s, perhaps soon after the community was founded in the late eighteenth century; this is an inference from that phrase, not a documented date. The sources record that it stood on a private plot, formerly owned by Andrej Stankay, on the village's main street, today Abovská Street, facing the Zichy manor house. For a congregation of between about 120 and 150 people it was probably a modest single-room village prayer house, but no source confirms its form or materials. Borský's 2005 catalogue of Slovak synagogue architecture has no entry for Barca.

La vida dentro de la sinagoga

Very little is recorded about religious life in the Barca synagogue. The Pinkas Hakehillot entry states that the community employed a shochet who also served as teacher of religion and leader of prayers, which means that services were normally led by this one official rather than by a rabbi or a professional cantor. For rabbinical matters the congregation looked first to the rabbinate of the neighbouring village of Seňa, and later, given Barca's position on the edge of the city, presumably to Košice, though no source states this. The community kept a ritual bath beside its synagogue and buried its dead in its own cemeteries, two of which are known. Children would have received their religious instruction from the shochet. No names of officials, no record of particular events in the synagogue, and no description of its furnishings or ritual objects were found in the sources consulted.

Destrucción

No source found records damage to the Barca synagogue during the Second World War. After its congregation was deported in May 1944 the building stood empty. According to the heritage gazetteer pamiatkynaslovensku.sk, following Monika Kacejová's 2020 article in Košice:Dnes, the synagogue was in a badly decayed state after the war and was sold to the Czechoslovak state. The state later cleared the site, using the Slovak term asanácia for a planned demolition, and built a telecommunications building for the airport on the plot. Košice International Airport lies within Barca's cadastral territory, and the clearance appears to have served the airport's needs, though no source describes the decision. The sources do not give the year of the sale or of the demolition, and do not say whether the sale took place before or after the Communist takeover of February 1948; the building of the airport facility on the site, however, points to the Communist period. Who sold the building on behalf of the Jewish side is not recorded.

El destino de la comunidad

The Pinkas Hakehillot entry records that the Jews of Barca were deported in the second half of May 1944, taken first to Košice and from there to Auschwitz. How many of Barca's Jews were murdered and how many survived is unknown, and no list of names was found. No Jewish community was re-established in Barca after the war, and its synagogue, ritual bath and cemeteries fell out of use. Barca was later absorbed into the city of Košice as one of its boroughs. The 2021 census counted five residents of the borough who declared Jewish ethnicity and two who stated membership of the Jewish community.

El lugar hoy

The synagogue's plot on Abovská Street, opposite the Zichy manor house, is occupied by a telecommunications building put up for Košice airport after the synagogue was cleared. The construction date of that building was not found. Nothing of the synagogue is known to survive above ground. The Zichy manor house still stands across the street and marks the location. The map pin for this entry is placed across Abovská Street from the manor and is approximate. Barca's older Jewish cemetery has been built over; its gravestones were removed. Kacejová's 2020 article in Košice:Dnes reported the recovery of a missing part of a Barca Jewish gravestone.

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