Kutina Synagogue

Die jüdische Gemeinde

According to the European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative (ESJF), Jews first settled in Kutina in the seventeenth century, though an organised Jewish community was not formed until 1806. The earliest written record, from 1821, counts three Jewish families with seven members. The community's cemetery, established in 1873, is a section of the large municipal cemetery on Vinogradska Street; its gravestones, dated between 1873 and 1926, carry German inscriptions in Hebrew characters as well as Croatian. Population figures differ between sources. ESJF gives 94 Jews in 1921, 157 in 1931 and 132 in the Kutina district in 1940, and describes a peak of about 155 after the First World War. The JewishGen Cemetery Discovery Project, drawing on Srdjan Matić's survey, gives about 200 in 1925-26, 165 in 1930, 157 in 1931 and 1937-38, and 130 in 1941. The synagogue of 1914 was thus built for a congregation of somewhat under two hundred people. The names of its rabbis, cantors and lay leaders have not been found in the sources consulted.

Architektur und Gestaltung

No photograph, drawing or plan of the synagogue was found during this research, so its appearance is known only from Zlatko Karač's brief classification. He dates the building to 1910-1914 and attributes it to Slavko Benedik and Aladar Vladimir Baranyai, whom he describes as young and talented Zagreb architects. In his scheme of twentieth-century Croatian synagogues, which he says relied without major innovation on four older traditional patterns, Kutina belongs to the 'Westwerk' type, with a pair of towers framing the west front, like the synagogues of Bjelovar (1912-1914) and the Lower Town of Osijek. Stylistically he groups Kutina with Bjelovar as Secession (Art Nouveau) buildings, in contrast to the later Art Deco stylisation of Vinkovci (1922-1923). He also notes that Kutina's synagogue stood on one of the new traffic streets leading to the railway, the so-called station streets, rather than inside the historic core. The land registry entries quoted by Matić list plots 265, 258/3, 264/2, 264/4, 258/1 and 258/4. Materials, dimensions, seating capacity and the interior layout are unknown.

Leben in der Synagoge

Very little is recorded about the synagogue's religious life. It served the Jews of Kutina and the surrounding Moslavina district for less than three decades, from its completion in 1914 until 1941. The congregation's ritual affiliation (Neolog or Orthodox), the names of its rabbis and cantors, and the order of services are not documented in any source read for this entry. Some of its ritual objects survived the war: the Moslavina Museum in Kutina holds a Torah scroll and rimonim, the silver finials that decorate a Torah scroll, which the museum links with the town's Jewish community and its synagogue. The museum stated in 2009 that it holds a number of ritual objects connected with the Jewish religion and culture because Kutina had both a Jewish community and a synagogue. The cemetery inscriptions, in German written in Hebrew characters and in Croatian, suggest a community that used German alongside Croatian in the decades before the synagogue was built. Photographs of the museum's Torah and rimonim were not available online.

Zerstörung

The synagogue was abandoned in 1941, according to ESJF and Srdjan Matić's survey quoted by JewishGen, when the Jews of Kutina were driven out under the Independent State of Croatia (NDH). No source consulted describes looting, desecration or damage to the building during the war, and none says what it was used for while it stood empty. In 1947, under the new Yugoslav Communist government, the building was confiscated. It was demolished at the end of the 1960s: ESJF gives 1969 and says a commercial centre was then built on the site, while the Moslavina Museum, quoted by JewishGen, says the synagogue existed until 1968, and the English Wikipedia list of Croatian synagogues also gives 1968. The demolition therefore took place under Communist rule, on property the state had taken over, but no source read names the body that ordered or carried it out. A 1999 note by Matić that the property still existed probably refers to the land-registry plots rather than the building, since the museum rejected it.

Das Schicksal der Gemeinde

In April 1941 Kutina became part of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), the Ustaše state. A document in the Jewish Digital Library in Belgrade titled 'Jewish families in Kutina at the beginning of the NDH: declaration of property' records that the town's Jewish families were made to register their property at the start of the regime. ESJF states that during the Second World War all the Jews of Kutina were expelled and killed, and that only a few survived. Where they were taken, and in which camps they died, is not stated in the sources read and no source here ties Kutina's Jews to a particular camp or date. JewishGen's figures show the scale of the loss: 130 Jews in 1941, three in 1947 and two in 1994. No organised congregation was re-established after the war, and the synagogue was never used again for worship.

Der Ort heute

According to ESJF, a commercial centre was built on the site after the synagogue was demolished. The exact address has not been established in the sources consulted; Zlatko Karač places the building on one of Kutina's station streets, and the map pin for this entry is set on Kolodvorska ulica (Station Street), which runs from the town towards the railway station, as an approximate position only. No surviving fragment of the building is recorded. The Jewish section of the municipal cemetery at Vinogradska Street survives but is overgrown and badly vandalised. The Moslavina Museum in Kutina keeps the synagogue's Torah and rimonim.

Bedeutende Namen