La historia de Borger Synagogue
Borger is a village in the south-east of the province of Drenthe, in the present-day municipality of Borger-Odoorn. Jews lived in and around it from at least the early nineteenth century: the Jewish Cultural Quarter's community history counts 36 in 1809 and 45 in 1840, and from 1804 they formed part of the Jewish community of Assen. Before Borger had a synagogue of its own, services were held in a private house in the neighbouring village of Drouwen, between 1804 and 1846.
The synagogue on the Koesteeg was consecrated in 1887, close to the high point of the local Jewish population, which reached 92 in 1869. A year later, in 1888, Borger became an independent Jewish community. The building had a short life as a house of prayer. By 1915 it had fallen into disrepair and was sold, which suggests that services had ceased or moved elsewhere, although no source consulted says where the remaining Jews of Borger worshipped after the sale. In 1925 the community, unable to meet its financial obligations, was dissolved and merged back into Assen. The former synagogue building outlived the congregation that built it and was demolished in 1960. No photograph, plan or description of it was found.
Where it stood for 73 years
Historic: Koesteeg, Borger, Drenthe; house number unknown. Today: Koesteeg, 9531 Borger, municipality of Borger-Odoorn; exact plot unknown (approximate).
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Jews are recorded in Borger and its surroundings from the beginning of the nineteenth century. The figures given by the Jewish Cultural Quarter, which derive from the Joods Historisch Museum's community histories, are 36 Jews in 1809, 45 in 1840, 92 in 1869, 39 in 1899 and 41 in 1930. The community was thus at its largest in the third quarter of the nineteenth century and had lost more than half its members by 1899. Administratively Borger belonged to the Jewish community of Assen from 1804, became an independent community in 1888, and was merged back into Assen in 1925, largely because it could not meet its financial obligations. The congregation had its own cemetery on the Marslandenweg, officially opened in 1865 but possibly used earlier; its gravestones have been recorded by the Stenen Archief inventory project. The surnames that appear among the local victims of the Holocaust, Cohen, Nijveen, Dalsheim and Stern, give an idea of the families still living in the area in the twentieth century. No rabbi, teacher, cantor or board member of the congregation is named in the sources consulted.
Arquitectura y diseño
Nothing is known of the building's appearance. The sources consulted give only its street, the Koesteeg, and the year of its consecration, 1887. No photograph, postcard, drawing or plan of it was found, and its architect or builder, its size, its materials, the arrangement of its interior and its seating capacity are all unknown. The Geheugen van Drenthe overview of the province's synagogues lists Borger with the building date 1887 but gives no description. The same page lists the other synagogues of the province, but nothing known about them can be transferred to Borger without evidence. The fact that it was described as dilapidated less than thirty years after its consecration may indicate a cheaply built or poorly maintained structure, but this is an inference, not something a source states.
La vida dentro de la sinagoga
Very little is recorded about worship in Borger. Before the synagogue was built, the Jews of the district prayed in a private house in Drouwen, a few kilometres from Borger, from 1804 to 1846; how they gathered between 1846 and 1887 is not stated in the sources consulted. The building on the Koesteeg served a congregation that was formally independent from 1888, so for a time it would have been the seat of the community's own board, with its own finances, while the dead were buried in the community's cemetery on the Marslandenweg. Independence proved hard to sustain for a community of about forty people, and the financial weakness that led to its dissolution in 1925 is the main fact recorded about its institutional life. The sale of the building in 1915 means that it was used as a synagogue for at most 28 years. No names of rabbis, teachers, cantors or wardens, and no account of services, festivals or religious education in Borger, were found.
Destrucción
The synagogue was not destroyed during the Second World War: by then it had long ceased to be a synagogue. According to the Jewish Cultural Quarter, the building had fallen into disrepair by 1915 and was sold in that year. The buyer, the price and the use to which the former synagogue was put afterwards are not stated in any source consulted. It survived the Nazi German occupation and stood for another fifteen years after the war. The Jewish Cultural Quarter records that it was demolished in 1960 ('in 1960 gesloopt'). Who ordered or carried out the demolition, and why, is not recorded. No surviving fragment of the building is recorded.
El destino de la comunidad
By 1930 about 41 Jews lived in Borger and its surroundings, and since 1925 they had again belonged to the Jewish community of Assen. After the Nazi German occupation of the Netherlands in May 1940 they were subjected to the same registration, exclusion and expropriation measures as Jews throughout the country. A monument in Borger bears sixteen names from four families, Cohen, Nijveen, Dalsheim and Stern, and is dedicated to the Jewish families deported from the municipality of Borger in 1942 and 1943. One of them, Frouwkje (Vrouwke) Stern, was born in Borger on 23 March 1902, was still living at A 143, Borger, in July 1942, and was murdered in Auschwitz on 15 October 1942, at the age of 40. How many Jews from Borger survived in hiding or returned after the war is unknown, and no Jewish community was re-established in the village. The cemetery on the Marslandenweg survives.
El lugar hoy
The exact plot of the synagogue on the Koesteeg has not been identified in the sources consulted, so it is not known what stands there now. The Koesteeg is a long road running west from the centre of Borger towards the open country, with housing at its eastern, village end; the map pin for this entry is placed on the street, not on the building's footprint. No marker on the site of the synagogue is recorded. A monument to the deported Jews of the municipality stands on the Hunebedstraat in Borger. The Jewish cemetery on the Marslandenweg is the only physical remnant of the congregation that is recorded.
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