The story of Hellevoetsluis Synagogue
Hellevoetsluis lies on the island of Voorne-Putten in the province of Zuid-Holland, at the mouth of the Haringvliet. Jews began to settle on Voorne-Putten, in Brielle and Hellevoetsluis, from about 1750. For decades the Jews of Hellevoetsluis belonged to the Jewish community of Brielle and worshipped there: from 1804 in a former slaughterhouse that the Brielle Jews had converted into a synagogue, and from 1818 in a building behind the Catholic rectory. In Hellevoetsluis itself they at first prayed in a house synagogue in a private home.
Around 1830 the Hellevoetsluis congregation became an independent community, and in 1839 it set up a public synagogue on the Achterom, a street in the old town. The community was then close to its largest size: 74 Jews were counted in 1840. Its dead were buried with those of Brielle and Heenvliet in the Jewish cemetery at Geervliet. Numbers fell steadily through the later nineteenth century, to 34 in 1899, and in 1919 the congregation had too few members to keep the building and sold it. The former synagogue stood in other hands until the Second World War, when it was demolished during the occupation. No photograph, drawing or description of the building has been found.
Where it stood for nearly 110 years
Historic: Achterom, Hellevoetsluis (house number unknown). Today: street not identified under that name; placeholder pin in the historic fortress quarter (Vesting), 3221 Hellevoetsluis (approximate).
Open larger map →The Jewish community
The Jewish presence in Hellevoetsluis grew out of the settlement of Jews on Voorne-Putten from about 1750; in 1756 the authorities of nearby Brielle admitted a few well-to-do Jewish families. The Jews of Hellevoetsluis were first counted as part of the Brielle community, and in 1821 they still belonged to it. Around 1830 they formed their own congregation. Population figures published by the Jewish Historical Museum show 17 Jews in 1809, 74 in 1840, 59 in 1869, 34 in 1899 and only 6 in 1930, so the community was largest in the years when its synagogue was opened and shrank steadily afterwards. Like Brielle, which by 1899 had neither a cantor nor a teacher, Hellevoetsluis appears to have been too small to maintain religious life for long; its synagogue was sold in 1919. In 1938 and 1939 a camp for Jewish refugees from Germany was set up in the town, but by then there was no functioning congregation or synagogue.
Architecture and design
Nothing is known of the building's appearance. The sources consulted say only that a synagogue was set up ('ingericht') on the Achterom in 1839. The Dutch wording usually describes the fitting out of an existing building or room as a place of worship rather than the construction of a purpose-built synagogue, which would suit a congregation of about seventy people that had until then prayed in a private house, but this is an inference from the wording, not a documented fact. The size of the building, its materials, its facade, the arrangement of the ark, reading desk and women's seating, the seating capacity and the name of any builder or architect are all unknown. No photograph, postcard, plan or drawing of the synagogue was found in the Jewish Historical Museum's community encyclopedia or in the NIOD image collection searched for this entry. Its exact position on the Achterom is also unknown.
Life inside the synagogue
Very little is recorded about worship in the synagogue. Before 1839 the Jews of Hellevoetsluis prayed in a house synagogue in a private home or travelled to the synagogue of Brielle, to whose community they belonged until about 1830. After independence the congregation had its own place of worship on the Achterom, but no rabbi, cantor, teacher or community officer of Hellevoetsluis is named in the sources consulted. The congregation shared its burial ground with the Jews of Brielle and Heenvliet, at the Jewish cemetery of Geervliet, which suggests close ties between the small communities of Voorne-Putten. As membership fell from 74 in 1840 to 34 in 1899, regular services with a quorum of ten men must have become difficult; the neighbouring community of Brielle had no cantor or teacher by 1899 and its services soon ceased. In Hellevoetsluis the decline ended with the sale of the synagogue in 1919, after which no place of worship is recorded in the town.
Destruction
The congregation sold the synagogue in 1919 because it no longer had enough members to maintain it. Who bought the building and how it was used between 1919 and 1940 is not recorded in the sources consulted. The Jewish Historical Museum's community encyclopedia states that the synagogue was demolished during the occupation ('De synagoge is tijdens de bezetting afgebroken'); its English version says the former synagogue was razed during the Second World War. No exact date is given, and the source does not say who ordered or carried out the demolition, or why. Hellevoetsluis was a coastal fortress town during the occupation, but no source read for this entry links the demolition to Nazi German defence works or to any other cause, so the actor remains unknown. By then the building had been out of Jewish hands for more than twenty years, and nothing indicates that it was still in use as a synagogue when it was pulled down.
The community’s fate
By 1930 only six Jews were counted in Hellevoetsluis and its surroundings, and the congregation had long since given up its synagogue. In 1938 and 1939 the town housed a camp for Jewish refugees from Germany, part of the Dutch reception of those fleeing Nazi persecution; how long it operated there and what happened to its occupants is not stated in the sources consulted. During the occupation the Jews of neighbouring Brielle were deported and murdered, and their synagogue was vandalised and looted, with only the Torah scrolls saved and later taken to Rotterdam. The fate of the few Jews still living in Hellevoetsluis in 1940 has not been established for this entry. After the war the Hellevoetsluis community existed only on paper: in 1948 it was formally dissolved and placed under the Jewish community of Rotterdam, as Brielle had been in 1947. No Jewish congregation has existed in the town since.
The site today
The Achterom does not appear under that name in present-day OpenStreetMap data for Hellevoetsluis, and no source consulted gives the house number or plot of the synagogue, so its site cannot be identified today. It was presumably within the historic fortified town, the Vesting, where the old street names survive, but this is not documented. No surviving fragment of the building is recorded. The Jewish cemetery at Geervliet, used by the congregations of Hellevoetsluis, Brielle and Heenvliet, lies outside the town. The map pin for this entry marks the Vesting of Hellevoetsluis as a placeholder and should not be read as the synagogue's location.
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