New Synagogue of Den Helder

סקירה

הסיפור של New Synagogue of Den Helder

Den Helder, the naval port at the northern tip of Noord-Holland, had Jewish residents from about 1790. The congregation first prayed in a room in a private house, then in 1806 bought a small building in the street later called the Jodensteeg and fitted it out as a synagogue. The opening of the Noord-Hollands Kanaal in 1824 brought growth, and in September 1837 the community consecrated a much larger synagogue on the Kanaalweg, very near the Zeedijk, on land given by the municipality.

By the 1920s that building had become dilapidated, and after several collections the congregation decided to replace it. The foundation stone of the new synagogue was laid on 2 May 1928 and the building was inaugurated in August 1928 with a large celebration, on the same plot as its predecessor. By then the community was much smaller than in its nineteenth-century heyday: 196 Jews lived in Den Helder and its surroundings in 1930, against 470 in 1869, because the opening of the Noordzeekanaal in 1876 had drawn trade away from the port.

The new building had a very short life. During the occupation the Nazis cleared Den Helder's harbour district to build fortifications, and the synagogue was pulled down with it. A Dutch Jewish history site remarks that no one could have imagined it would last so briefly. No photograph of the 1928 building and no description of its design were found.

מיקום

Where it stood for nearly 15 years

Historic: Kanaalweg, very near the Zeedijk, Den Helder (house number unknown). Today: eastern end of Kanaalweg near the Zeedijk and Willemsoord, 1781 Den Helder, Noord-Holland; site approximate.

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הקהילה היהודית

The first Jews are recorded in Den Helder around 1790, when the place was growing as a naval base and harbour on the Marsdiep. The congregation was formally established in 1806 and counted 72 members in 1809. Prosperity followed the opening of the Noord-Hollands Kanaal in 1824, which linked Amsterdam to the sea at Den Helder, and the Jewish population rose to 256 in 1840 and 470 in 1869. A Jewish school was built in 1837 with support from the Rothschild family, and a Talmud Torah society was founded in 1860, alongside a Gemiloeth Chasodiem charity. The community was led by parnassim, and like most small Dutch congregations it relied on one official who served as rabbi, cantor and ritual slaughterer; at times the mayor had to settle internal disputes over money. After the Noordzeekanaal opened in 1876 the port declined and the community shrank, to 322 around 1900 and 196 in 1930. An English-language history of the community states that apart from election campaigns there was on the whole no discrimination or antisemitism in Den Helder.

אדריכלות ועיצוב

No description, plan or photograph of the 1928 synagogue was found in the sources consulted, so its architect, style, materials and seating capacity are unknown. What is known is its setting. It stood on the Kanaalweg, the road along the Noord-Hollands Kanaal, very near the Zeedijk, on the plot the municipality had given for the 1837 synagogue, which it replaced. That earlier building, described by the national Jewish museum's encyclopedia as impressive, had its foundation stone laid in April 1837 in the presence of the mayor and aldermen and was consecrated at Rosh Hashanah that year. By the 1920s it was dilapidated and its roof was in disrepair, and the congregation judged that a new building was more reasonable than repair. The replacement was built quickly: its foundation stone was laid on 2 May 1928 and it was in use by August of the same year, which suggests a modest building suited to a congregation of about two hundred people. Its appearance remains to be established from photographs in the Den Helder municipal archive or contemporary newspapers.

החיים בבית הכנסת

Little is recorded about worship in the 1928 building itself, but the congregation's earlier history shows how central the Kanaalweg synagogue was to Jewish Den Helder. The consecration of the 1837 synagogue was a civic event: the four Torah scrolls were carried from the old synagogue in a procession of some two kilometres, accompanied by the band of the royal guard ship Kenau Hasselaar, girls in white, twelve young men carrying banners of the twelve tribes, a detachment of the 7th Infantry and town officials. A cantor from Hoorn sang psalms, Berenstein, the junior rabbi of Amsterdam, preached, and the service ended with a prayer for the royal family. Sixty years later the congregation celebrated the anniversary with a cantata by Mozes Philip Polak. The community kept its school, a Talmud Torah society and a charity fund. A photograph of about 1930 in the Reddingmuseum Dorus Rijkers shows a Purim play staged by the community, and a group photograph of about 1927-1928 records its 'Oriental festivities', both from the years when the new synagogue was planned and used.

הרס

The 1928 synagogue survived the German invasion of May 1940, but Den Helder, as a naval base, was bombed heavily that year and more than 38,000 inhabitants fled, many Jews among them. The town became a closed military zone in which only about 7,000 people with permits could remain. The national Jewish museum's encyclopedia of Dutch communities states that during the occupation the synagogue, like the whole harbour quarter, was demolished by the Nazi German occupiers in order to build fortifications there. A history of Den Helder's Atlantic Wall defences explains the wider clearance: the army command ordered coastal buildings to be torn down to open fields of fire, ahead of a visit by Field Marshal Rommel on 24 March 1944, and the old village of Ouwe Helder and the buildings behind the dike along the Westgracht down to the harbour were razed. By January 1945 the Nazis had demolished 1,925 of about 9,900 houses in the town. No source found gives the exact date on which the synagogue itself was pulled down, or says whether it had been emptied or looted beforehand.

גורל הקהילה

In 1930 Den Helder and its surroundings had 196 Jewish inhabitants. When the naval town was bombed in 1940, after Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands, many residents fled, Jews among them. Those who remained were removed in 1942: they were taken first to Amsterdam and then, through the Westerbork transit camp, deported to the East, to camps in occupied Poland. According to both the national Jewish museum and an English-language history of the community, none of them returned. Nearby, at Nieuwesluis in the Wieringermeer, a work village opened in 1934 had trained about 685 young Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria for emigration to Palestine; the Nazis cleared it in 1941, and about 200 of its people were killed. Sources disagree on the number of Den Helder Jews murdered: the museum gives 256 commemorated by the 2005 memorial, while the town's commemoration listing speaks of 118 deported and murdered Helder Jews. In 1951 only 24 Jews lived in the town, and in 1964 the Den Helder congregation merged with Alkmaar.

האתר כיום

The synagogue stood on the Kanaalweg close to the Zeedijk, in the part of Den Helder near the old naval yard of Willemsoord that the Nazis cleared during the occupation. The harbour quarter was rebuilt after the war on a changed plan, and no source consulted identifies the exact plot or says what occupies it today; no part of the building survives. The map pin marks the eastern end of the present Kanaalweg near the Zeedijk and Willemsoord and is approximate. In 2019 memorial stones were laid at former Jewish homes on the Kanaalweg and Loodsgracht, and a regional news report linked them to the old synagogue. The community's memorial of 2005 stands in the Jewish section of the general cemetery.

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