הסיפור של Delden Synagogue
Delden is a small town in Twente, in the east of the province of Overijssel, close to the German border and beside the estate of Twickel. Jews are named in the records of its court as early as 1695 and 1710, and families from Germany settled here early. The community was never large: twenty Jews were counted in 1748 and the number never rose much above sixty.
The synagogue was built in 1760, at a time when the Jews of Delden still buried their dead in a small cemetery on the Twickel estate. It remained the community's house of prayer for close to two hundred years, through its formal recognition as an independent Jewish community in 1838 and its slow decline in the early twentieth century. Its street, appearance, size and builder are not recorded in the sources found, and no photograph of it was located.
After the Second World War there was no longer a congregation to use it. The building was sold soon after the war, served for a while as a storehouse and was afterwards demolished. A stone from its facade was saved and is kept in the Rijksmuseum Twenthe in Enschede. The community itself was dissolved in 1947.
Where it stood for 185 years
Historic: Delden, Overijssel; street and house number unknown. Today: unknown; placeholder pin at the centre of Delden, municipality of Hof van Twente (approximate).
פתיחת מפה גדולה ←הקהילה היהודית
According to the Jewish Cultural Quarter's community encyclopedia, which draws on the Encyclopedia of Jewish Communities in the Netherlands, Jews appear in the records of the Delden court in 1695 and 1710, and Jewish families from Germany settled in the town at an early date. The community always stayed small. Its population was counted at 20 in 1748, 26 in 1809, 68 in 1840, 55 in 1869, 50 in 1899 and 35 in 1930, figures that include Jews in the surrounding area. Delden became an independent Jewish community in 1838. Its first cemetery lay on the Twickel estate behind the house 't Eysink on the Hengelosestraat; its oldest surviving stone dates from 1764 and it was last used in 1786. A second cemetery, De Plaai on the Flierweg, replaced it. A letter of 1863 from the court marshal of King Willem III about an order placed with the butcher De Leeuw in Delden shows a Jewish tradesman supplying the royal household.
אדריכלות ועיצוב
Almost nothing is known about the building's architecture. The sources consulted give only its construction year, 1760, and do not name its street, its builder, its dimensions or the number of seats. No photograph, postcard, drawing or plan of the synagogue was found, so its outward form cannot be described. Its date places it among the older village and small-town synagogues of the eastern Netherlands, many of which were modest brick buildings set among ordinary houses, but there is no direct evidence that Delden's followed that pattern. The one surviving piece of the building is a stone from its facade, which was removed before or during the demolition and is now in the collection of the Rijksmuseum Twenthe in Enschede. Its inscription or decoration has not been described in the sources read. The architect, style and capacity are unknown.
החיים בבית הכנסת
No first-hand account of services in the Delden synagogue was found. The congregation never numbered more than about seventy people, including Jews from the surrounding countryside. The names of its rabbis, teachers, cantors and lay leaders are not recorded in the sources consulted. The community's daily life appears in only a few traces: the butcher De Leeuw, who supplied an order for the household of King Willem III in 1863, and a 1913 portrait of the widow Jacobs of Delden published in the Jewish weekly De Joodsche Prins. From 1838 the synagogue was the house of prayer of a recognised independent Jewish community. How long regular services continued before the war is unknown.
הרס
No source found records damage to the synagogue during the Nazi German occupation of 1940 to 1945, and whether it was looted or used by the Nazi occupiers is unknown. After the war the Jewish community of Delden no longer existed as a functioning congregation and was formally dissolved in 1947. According to the Jewish Cultural Quarter's encyclopedia, the synagogue was sold soon after the war, was used for a time as a storehouse, and was later demolished. The year of the demolition is not given, and who demolished it, and who had bought it, is not recorded in the sources consulted. Before or during the demolition a stone from the facade was removed; it is preserved in the Rijksmuseum Twenthe in Enschede. Nothing read suggests that the building was pulled down to make way for a new synagogue.
גורל הקהילה
In 1930 the community of Delden and its surroundings numbered 35 people. After the German invasion of May 1940 the Jews of Delden came under Nazi occupation. According to the Jewish Cultural Quarter's encyclopedia, most of them were deported and murdered in the Nazi death camps; the dates of deportation, the exact number of victims from Delden and the number who survived were not established in this research. The few who survived did not re-establish a congregation. In 1947 the Jewish community of Delden was officially dissolved and joined to the community of Enschede. In 1974 it was reassigned to the Jewish community of Hengelo, which now has responsibility for the area. The two Jewish cemeteries remain: the old burial ground on the Twickel estate and De Plaai on the Flierweg, a national monument since 1970, both maintained by the local authorities.
האתר כיום
The plot on which the synagogue stood has not been identified in any source consulted, so it is not possible to say what occupies it today. The only known remnant of the building is the facade stone in the Rijksmuseum Twenthe in Enschede. Delden's Jewish past is otherwise visible mainly in its two cemeteries: the small eighteenth-century burial ground behind 't Eysink on the Twickel estate and the cemetery De Plaai on the Flierweg. The map pin for this entry is a placeholder at the centre of Delden and should not be read as the synagogue's location. Finding the address will need the cadastral records or the local-history collections for Delden held in Overijssel.
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