Great Synagogue of Hanušovce nad Topľou

Еврейская община

A Jewish family of three from Poland is first recorded in Hanušovce in 1735, and six families lived there in 1769, three of them from Galicia. A burial society appears to have been founded in 1786, and the community bought land on the edge of town for a cemetery. In the 19th century Hasidic Jews from Poland settled in the town; they spoke Yiddish among themselves and the eastern Slovak dialect with their neighbours. At the split of Hungarian Jewry in 1869 the community joined the Orthodox stream. The Jewish population was 338 in 1869, 234 in 1900, 271 in 1930 and 299 in 1941. After the First World War the community, about 400 people including members from nearby villages, was headed by Shlomo Friedman, and in 1922 some 140 family heads paid community tax. Most Jews were traders in groceries, farm produce, cattle, horses and spirits, and in 1930 they owned most of the town's shops. Most belonged to Agudath Israel; a Zionist branch, Bnei Akiva and Betar were also active.

Архитектура и дизайн

Very little is recorded about the building itself. Pinkas Hakehillot Slovakia states only that it was built in the middle of the 19th century in a classical style and that it was more spacious than the small wooden synagogue it replaced, which is why the community called it the Great Synagogue. The land was bought from Count Dessewffy, the local landowner, who donated the building materials. No photograph, drawing, plan or description of the exterior or interior was found in this research, so its size, layout, seating, the form of the women's gallery and the position of the ark and bimah are unknown. The architect and the builder are not named in any source read. The precise date of construction is also not recorded; the source gives only the middle of the century, and the entry's date of about 1850 should be read as an approximation.

Жизнь в синагоге

The congregation was Orthodox from 1869, with a strong Hasidic element brought by settlers from Poland. Hanušovce was a rabbinic seat: Pinkas Hakehillot names a line of rabbis from Moshe Fränkel, who left for Šarišské Lúky in 1792, through Zvi Hirsch Adler, Leib and Tzvi Ya'akov Waldman, Yeshayahu Katz Bajern, Yosef Moshe Rappaport, Zalman Yekutiel Wolf, Avraham Baruch Bindiger and Yoel Zvi Roth. From 1877 to 1897 the rabbi was Eliezer Chaim Deutsch, author of Tevuat Hasadeh, who founded the yeshiva. He was followed by Zvi Yehuda Blum, author of She'erit Yehuda, under whom a few dozen students studied, and then by Shmuel Freund as rabbinical judge until 1921. Rabbi Adler, who came in 1921, built the yeshiva up to more than a hundred students and opened a dining hall for them. About forty children attended the Talmud Torah. The rabbi strongly opposed Zionism, and most of the community belonged to Agudath Israel.

Разрушение

After the Slovak State was created in 1939 the Jews of Hanušovce were persecuted by local residents and by the authorities, and Pinkas Hakehillot names the district head, Julius Shimko, as a sworn hater of Jews. Their shops were plundered and from 1941 most were closed or aryanized. On the eve of Yom Kippur, in September 1941, the synagogue was broken into and set on fire. According to Pinkas Hakehillot, the building and its contents, including the religious objects, were consumed by the flames. The source does not say who broke in and set the fire, whether members of the Hlinka Guard, local residents or officials were involved, or whether anyone was ever held responsible. What happened afterwards to the burnt shell is also not recorded: no source read says whether the ruins stood into the postwar years or when and by whom they were cleared. After the war the surviving Jews prayed in an improvised prayer house rather than in the old synagogue.

Судьба общины

In 1940 the Jews of Hanušovce were placed under the Jewish centre in nearby Giraltovce, and in 1940/41 the community opened an eight-grade Jewish school, run by Arnošt Tratner, after Jewish pupils were expelled from public schools. Many men were sent to forced labour. In 1942 most of the community was deported. On 27 March 63 young women were taken to the transit camp at Poprad and deported to Auschwitz on 2 April; about thirty escaped and hid. Young men were sent through Žilina to Majdanek in early April. On 23 May members of the Hlinka Guard rounded up the Jews of the area, and on 24 May about 300 Jews from Hanušovce and its surroundings, among them Rabbi Adler, were deported from Stropkov to the Rejowiec ghetto in the Lublin district. Seven families with exemptions remained; the last Jews were moved to western Slovakia in May 1944, and after the 1944 uprising, in which eleven local Jews fought, the Nazis seized and killed or deported those they found. About 107 Jews lived in the town in 1947; most left for Israel and elsewhere in 1949, and the last few left by the end of the 1960s.

Место сегодня

The exact plot of the Great Synagogue has not been identified in any source read, so it is not possible to say what stands there today. Pinkas Hakehillot, compiled around 1990 to 2003, lists the community buildings that survived in neglected condition, namely the mikveh, the Talmud Torah and two other houses, and does not include the synagogue among them. The synagogue does not appear in the English Wikipedia list of synagogues in Slovakia or in the Slovak Wikipedia article on the town as a surviving building. The Jewish cemetery survives on an unmarked hillside on the edge of town. The map pin is a placeholder at the town centre.

Значимые имена