Medernach Synagogue

ÜBERBLICK

Die Geschichte von Medernach Synagogue

Medernach is a village in the canton of Diekirch, today part of the commune of Vallée de l'Ernz. It was one of the few places in rural Luxembourg with an organised Jewish congregation before the Second World War, and the 1904 Jewish Encyclopedia names it, with Ettelbruck, Grevenmacher and Esch, as one of the country's Jewish communities outside the capital. Jewish families settled there from 1845 and lived mainly from the cattle trade. In 1882, according to the Liberation Route Europe description of the site, a prayer house, which people called the synagogue, was created to serve the Jews of Medernach and of the neighbouring villages of Waldbillig and Christnach.

The building stood on what is now the rue de Savelborn. The online sources put the word synagogue in quotation marks and never describe the building, so whether it was a small free-standing prayer house or a converted house is not documented in what could be read. Its congregation was destroyed in the Holocaust, and memorials were later set up on the spot where it had stood, which shows that the building itself no longer exists. No photograph or plan of it has been found.

STANDORT

Where it stood

Historic: prayer house of the Jews of Medernach, Waldbillig and Christnach, Medernach, canton Diekirch; exact house number unknown. Today: memorial site, rue de Savelborn (near no. 35), L-7660 Medernach, commune of Vallée de l'Ernz (approximate).

Größere Karte öffnen →

Die jüdische Gemeinde

The first Jewish family settled in Medernach in 1845, and others followed in the nearby villages of Waldbillig and Christnach. Most of the men were cattle dealers. Liberation Route Europe gives the community 25 members in 1860 in its text, although its summary says 60 for the same year; it counts three families with 21 people around 1900 and 33 members in 1930, a figure the Luxembourg tourist board repeats. From 1875 the families took Luxembourg nationality and, according to the same source, were fully integrated into village life. Nathan Kahn, born in Medernach in 1852, was naturalised in 1876 and in 1908 was elected in the local elections. Klaus-Dieter Alicke's lexicon of Jewish communities states that the Jews of Medernach and Waldbillig formed part of the Ettelbruck congregation, which suggests that Medernach depended on Ettelbruck for some purposes while keeping its own prayer house. Marc Schoentgen's 2006 essay on the Jewish community of Medernach, the main study of its history, could not be read online.

Architektur und Gestaltung

Nothing is known of the building's appearance. The sources consulted say only that a prayer house was created in 1882 and that it was called the synagogue; both the Liberation Route Europe text and the Luxembourg tourist board put the words prayer house and synagogue in quotation marks, as if to signal that it was not a formal synagogue building of the kind built in Ettelbruck in 1870 or in Esch in 1899. The verb used, created rather than built, leaves open whether a new structure was put up or an existing building was fitted out. The site lies on the rue de Savelborn, in the part of the village called Foschent on modern maps. No photograph, drawing, plan, description of the interior or record of the number of seats has been found, and the architect or builder is unknown. For a community of a few dozen people serving three villages, the room for prayer is likely to have been small.

Leben in der Synagoge

No account of services in the Medernach prayer house has been found. It was set up to give the Jews of three neighbouring villages, Medernach, Waldbillig and Christnach, a place to pray close to home, sparing them the journey to the larger congregation at Ettelbruck, to which Alicke says they belonged. With some 20 to 35 members over most of its life, the community would have been barely large enough to gather the ten adult men required for public prayer, and it probably relied on families from all three villages to do so. Whether it ever had its own teacher, cantor or ritual slaughterer is not recorded in the sources read. Nothing is known of its religious orientation, its furnishings or its Torah scrolls, or of what became of them. The prayer house remained the focus of the community until the Nazi occupation of Luxembourg put an end to Jewish life in the village.

Zerstörung

No source consulted says when the Medernach prayer house ceased to be used or when the building disappeared. It presumably fell out of use during the Nazi German occupation of Luxembourg, under which the village's Jews were deported in 1941 and 1942; after the last of them were taken in July 1942 the building stood without a congregation. Whether it was damaged, seized, sold or converted during the occupation is unknown. The tourist board and Liberation Route Europe state that the first memorial to the community was placed on the site of the former synagogue in 1959 (one page says 1958), which suggests, but does not prove, that the building had already gone by then. Who demolished it, and why, is not recorded in any source found. Because nothing read shows it standing after 1945, the date and the actor of its disappearance both remain unknown.

Das Schicksal der Gemeinde

Under the Nazi German occupation of Luxembourg the Jews of Medernach were deported in two groups. According to Liberation Route Europe and the Luxembourg tourist board, 18 Jews from Medernach were deported on 16 October 1941 to the Litzmannstadt (Łódź) ghetto in occupied Poland. Alicke's lexicon gives 22 residents of the Ernz valley commune deported to Eastern Europe in October 1941. On 28 July 1942 the last eight Jews of Medernach were deported to Theresienstadt. Norbert Kahn was arrested by the Gestapo in February 1942 for not wearing the yellow star and was sent through the Hinzert camp to Buchenwald, where he was murdered; his mother was deported to Cinqfontaines (Fünfbrunnen) in Luxembourg and died there. Liberation Route Europe counts at least 28 Medernach Jews deported and murdered and states that none of the community survived; the one survivor from a Medernach family was living in France, where his parents and brother were arrested, deported and killed.

Der Ort heute

The building no longer exists. Its site on the rue de Savelborn in Medernach is now occupied by memorials to the Jewish community, set up in 1959 and in 2021. The exact plot and house number of the prayer house are not given in any source read; the tourist board places the memorial site at about 49.8104 north, 6.2176 east, on the rue de Savelborn near house number 35, and this entry's pin follows that. No surviving fragment of the building is recorded. Marc Schoentgen's 2006 study, local parish and municipal records and the Lehrmann history of 1953 may identify the building and the date it was pulled down.

Helfen Sie, die Erinnerung zu bewahren

Haben Sie etwas beizutragen?

Fotos, Dokumente, Familiengeschichten oder Erinnerungen an diese Synagoge und ihre Gemeinde halten ihre Geschichte lebendig.