La storia di Nýřany Synagogue
Nýřany, called Nürschan in German, lies about twelve kilometres west of Plzeň. It grew with the coal mines of the nineteenth century and was raised to the status of a town in 1892. Jews settled there late: according to the regional history site Jüdische Gemeinden, the community can only have formed in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, and it never had more than about 80 members, a peak reached around 1890 to 1900.
The community nevertheless had a building of its own on the town's main road. The German-language sources date its fitting out as a house of worship to about 1902 to 1904 and suggest, with some caution, that it may earlier have been a Christian church. A coloured greeting postcard dated 1899 already shows it as a free-standing gabled hall with a Star of David in the gable, so the building, at least, is older than the later date suggests. After 1910 the Jewish population shrank steadily, and in 1938 only nine Jews are said to have lived in the town. Nýřany was annexed by Nazi Germany in the autumn of 1938 and placed in the Reichsgau Sudetenland. In November 1938 the synagogue was set on fire, and a year later the burnt-out ruin was pulled down. Nothing of it is known to survive.
Where it stood for nearly 35 years
Historic: on the main road of Nürschan (Nýřany), house number unknown. Today: Nýřany, okres Plzeň-sever, Plzeňský kraj; exact plot not identified (approximate).
Apri la mappa grande →La comunità ebraica
The Jewish community of Nýřany was young and small. Jüdische Gemeinden, the successor of Joachim Hahn's survey of Jewish communities in the German-speaking lands, states that it must have formed only in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, when the coal mines around the town were drawing in workers and traders. The same source puts its largest size at fewer than 80 people, around 1890 to 1900, and records a continuous decline after 1910. By 1938 only nine people of the Jewish faith were reported in the town. No membership lists, occupations, names of officers or rabbis, or details of how the congregation was organised were found in the sources read for this entry. It is also unknown whether Nýřany kept its own rabbi or cantor, or relied on the much larger community in nearby Plzeň for religious services, burials and schooling. A diploma thesis by Pavla Hurtová on Czech-German relations in Nýřany between 1892 and 1945, which de.wikipedia cites for this synagogue, could not be read.
Architettura e design
Two photographs show the building. The postcard dated 1899 shows a detached, rendered hall standing gable-end to the main road behind a low wall with railings and a gate, with a street lamp in front. The gable front has two tall round-arched windows and a round opening high in the gable holding a Star of David; a small ornament or turret crowns the gable. The long side wall facing the street has a row of about six tall round-arched windows above a raised base, and a smaller turret appears at the far end of the roof ridge. A 1939 photograph of the burnt building shows the same gable with its round opening, the arched windows now empty, the walls blackened and the base rendered to imitate stone blocks. The form, a plain hall with round-arched windows and roof turrets, would fit either a small purpose-built synagogue or a converted chapel, which is why the sources raise the possibility of a former church. The architect, builder, seating capacity and interior arrangement are unknown, and no interior view was found.
La vita nella sinagoga
Almost nothing is recorded about religious life inside the Nýřany synagogue. The sources read say only that the small community had its own house of worship, fitted out around 1902 to 1904. With fewer than 80 members at its height and only nine Jews left by 1938, the congregation can have gathered a full prayer quorum regularly only in its earlier decades, but no source describes its services, its rite, its officials or its festivals. Whether there was a women's gallery, a school room or a ritual bath in or near the building is unknown. The 1899 postcard, sent as a greeting from Nýřany, shows that the synagogue was one of the buildings that a local publisher thought worth picturing on the main street, standing beside a row of single-storey houses. The names of rabbis, cantors and community presidents connected with the building were not found, and the thesis that might record them could not be read.
Distruzione
After the Munich Agreement Nýřany was annexed by Nazi Germany and administered as part of the Reichsgau Sudetenland. During the November pogrom of 1938 the synagogue was set on fire and burned. Neither de.wikipedia nor Jüdische Gemeinden names the people who set the fire; it happened under Nazi rule as part of the wave of arson against synagogues in Germany and the annexed border regions, but who in Nýřany carried it out is not recorded in the sources read. A photograph from 1939, published by zanikleobce.cz, shows the building as a burnt-out shell: the walls and gable still standing, the windows empty and the masonry blackened. According to Jüdische Gemeinden the ruin was demolished a year after the fire, that is in 1939. Who ordered and carried out the demolition, and what happened to the plot afterwards, is not recorded in the sources consulted.
Il destino della comunità
By 1938 only nine Jews were reported to be living in Nýřany. What became of them after the town was annexed by Nazi Germany in the autumn of 1938 is not recorded in the sources read for this entry. Whether they left for the interior of Czechoslovakia, and whether any of them were later deported and murdered from the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, could not be established. No names of victims or survivors were found, and no Jewish community was re-established in Nýřany after 1945. Searching the Holocaust victims database at holocaust.cz by place of residence would be the obvious next step to trace individual fates.
Il luogo oggi
The synagogue stood on the main road of Nýřany, but no source read gives its street number, and it is not known what occupies the site today. The map pin follows the coordinates given in the de.wikipedia article on the synagogue, which places it in the town centre west of the main square; this is approximate and should not be read as a confirmed footprint. No surviving fragment of the building is recorded. Whether any marker recalls the synagogue on the site is unknown. The zanikleobce.cz record of the vanished building, which may give a precise location, could not be read.
Hai qualcosa da condividere?
Fotografie, documenti, storie di famiglia o ricordi di questa sinagoga e della sua comunità aiutano a mantenerne viva la storia.
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