Krumbach Synagogue

Społeczność żydowska

The Jewish presence in Krumbach was essentially one extended family and two related households. Nalbantova's thesis, drawing on Margarete Kowall's local history Zeitreise Heimat and the parish history 750 Jahre Pfarre Krumbach, describes how Jehuda Blum arrived in 1820 and at first made his living as a pedlar. The Blums and the other families later lived from production and trade, and the Blums also sold agricultural machinery from their business premises on the market. In 1870 the village had 22 Jews in three households: Blum, Mayer and Reininger. Krumbach was never an independent Kultusgemeinde; it lay within the area of the community of Neunkirchen, which, according to the thesis, supported the little Krumbach synagogue around 1900. The religious education of the children was taken seriously: Moritz Blum taught religion, and two further teachers, whose names are not recorded, are mentioned. The Blums remained the leading family until 1938, when they had already moved to Vienna. How many Jews lived in Krumbach in 1934 or 1938 is unknown.

Architektura i projekt

The synagogue was a plain, almost cubic building of rendered brick, about 6.5 by 13.5 metres, with a ridge height of about 8 metres. It had a gable roof of red tiles with two sheet-metal dormers, a plinth about 70 centimetres high, and pilaster strips and horizontal bands at the corners. With its main axis running west to east, it looked much like a Lower Austrian farmhouse, and it shared one roof with the storeroom of the family shop. The gable end carried a round window, and above the entrance was a semicircular grilled fanlight; the men used the left leaf of the double door and the women the right. The prayer hall was nearly rectangular, about 5.7 by 7 metres and 4.1 metres high, with a flat ceiling and a floor of small light-blue tiles. It was lit by a single round-arched window on the north side; two smaller windows beside it were later walled up. The south wall had no openings. A narrow wooden stair of ten steps led to a women's gallery about 1.5 metres deep, hung from two steel columns in the roof space and probably added later.

Życie w synagodze

The building served as house of prayer, schoolroom and meeting room for the handful of Jewish families of Krumbach. The ark was a recess in the east wall closed by a red curtain, with the tablets of the Law above it. The reading desk was formed by simple movable tables, and in front of it stood a large gilded wooden candelabrum, the only ornament the thesis describes. Movable wooden benches were set across the main axis. Women had no seats: they stood in the gallery, which was dark because the south side had no windows. The congregation owned two Torah scrolls with small crowns, a pointer, a silver ritual object and four Torah mantles. Moritz Blum gave religious instruction there. No rabbi or cantor is recorded for Krumbach; the frequency of services and the date of the last one are unknown.

Zniszczenie

The synagogue was not set on fire during the November Pogrom. Nalbantova explains this by its position within a row of buildings, where a fire would have endangered the neighbouring houses. In the night of 10 November 1938 the Gestapo, the Nazi secret state police, took all money, jewellery and valuables from the Blum family, who had just moved to Vienna. The family was then forced to sell all its property, synagogue included, to the municipality of Krumbach, and the proceeds went to a Nazi administrative office. The furnishings were lost or stolen. For years afterwards the building served as a warehouse of the agricultural cooperative (Lagerhausgenossenschaft): the gallery, the partition, the stairs and the upper floor were removed, the windows and doors of the north front were bricked up, and a door with a loading ramp was cut into the south wall. The building was demolished in 1989. Who owned it then and who ordered or carried out the demolition is not recorded in the source read.

Los społeczności

After the annexation of Austria in March 1938 the Jewish families of Krumbach were expropriated and driven out, as the thesis states. The Blums had moved to Vienna by November 1938, where the Gestapo robbed them in the night of 10 November, and they were forced to sell everything they owned in Krumbach to the municipality. According to Nalbantova, two of the Blum children escaped abroad before the Second World War, and the remaining members of the family were murdered in concentration camps. Photographs in the thesis name Fritz, Else, Mira (née Ullman) and Gretel Blum, but their individual dates and fates were not given in the parts read. None of the surviving family members returned to Krumbach after 1945, and no Jewish community was re-established there. The fate of the Mayer and Reininger households, and the number of Krumbach Jews murdered in the Holocaust, are unknown.

Miejsce dzisiaj

The synagogue stood in the courtyard behind the Blum family's house and shop in the centre of Krumbach, by the market. The family's business house is now the municipal office (Gemeindeamt), and the thesis suggests that a ritual bath may survive in its cellar; this has not been confirmed. The last house that had belonged to Jews in Krumbach was demolished in 2007. In 2005 a memorial stone was unveiled on the site of the synagogue. No part of the synagogue building itself survives. The exact plot boundaries and house number of the synagogue were not given in the source read, so the map pin marks the present municipal office on the former Blum property.

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