Main Synagogue of Moravská Ostrava

Die jüdische Gemeinde

Jews were long kept out of Moravská Ostrava: a Jewish resident leased a distillery in 1786, but Hugo Gold counted only four Jewish families in 1800 and fourteen in 1855. Industrialisation changed this. A prayer association was formed in 1860 as a branch of the Teschen community, a cemetery was consecrated in 1872, and the independent community was authorised in 1875 with 58 members. The Jewish population rose to 1,077 in 1880, about 5,000 in 1900 and 6,865 in 1931, and the community put its total, with refugees from Galicia and Russia, at about 10,000 by 1937. Newcomers from Galicia gave the town a large Orthodox and Hasidic element beside the older Liberal members, and branch synagogues were built in Přívoz (1904), Vítkovice (1911) and Hrušov (1914), with an Orthodox synagogue in the centre in 1926. Its first rabbi, Dr. B. Zimmels, died in 1893 and was succeeded in 1894 by Dr. Jacob Spira. The community ran a Jewish school from 1919, and Ostrava hosted the Maccabiah sports games in 1929. Alois Hilf served as community president.

Architektur und Gestaltung

Only one historical view of the original building was found, a photograph published by Jüdische Gemeinden and dated there to 1879. It shows a tall, richly articulated street front of horizontally banded masonry framed by two towers, each crowned with a large onion dome and a finial. Between the towers rises a central bay with three tall round-arched windows under a band of small arches and a decorative cornice. The towers have rose windows and paired arched windows above, and at ground level the entrance is a triple arcade of horseshoe-like arches reached by a broad flight of steps. This agrees with the description of the building as an oriental synagogue modelled on the Neue Synagoge in Berlin. The architect of 1879 is described only as a local architect and has not been named. In 1934, after a competition for young architects, Oskar Oehler and Elly Oehler-Sonnenschein stripped the Moorish ornament and gave the building a completely modern facade. The capacity and the details of the interior are unknown.

Leben in der Synagoge

The main synagogue followed a Liberal, or Neolog, rite. According to the Memorial Scrolls Trust it had an organ played by a non-Jew and a mixed choir trained by the non-Jewish choirmaster of the local opera, and the USC Shoah Foundation's walking tour of Jewish Ostrava describes the synagogue's own choir and organ as signs of a progressive outlook and of Jewish integration into the wider city. These practices disturbed more traditional worshippers, which is why an Orthodox synagogue was opened in Žerotínova Street in 1926, while Hasidim kept their own prayer and study rooms. At the consecration in 1879 a government representative opened the ceremony, the community president handed over the key, and Dr. A. Jellinek, called Chief Rabbi Jellinek by the Jewish Encyclopedia, gave the festive sermon. Dr. B. Zimmels and, from 1894, Dr. Jacob Spira served as rabbis. From the beginning of the twentieth century the community's administrative building stood directly behind the synagogue, with its main entrance on what is now Sokolská Avenue, so the site was the administrative as well as the religious centre of Jewish Ostrava until 1939.

Zerstörung

Nazi German forces occupied Ostrava on 14 March 1939, a day before the rest of Bohemia and Moravia. Within three months every synagogue in the city had been destroyed. According to the USC Shoah Foundation walking tour, the synagogues of Vítkovice, Zábřeh, Přívoz and Hrušov and the Orthodox synagogue in the centre were set on fire or burned between 24 May and 12 June 1939, and the main synagogue burned on the night of 13 June 1939, the last synagogue destroyed in the territory of present-day Ostrava. The Neue Zürcher Zeitung of 14 June 1939 reported a United Press telegram from Berlin that the synagogue in Mährisch-Ostrau had burned to the ground, and the Pester Lloyd of 15 June added that the community building had burned with it. The Encyclopaedia Judaica says the synagogues were set on fire immediately after the occupation, and the German Wikipedia article, following Alicke's lexicon, says the building was destroyed in 1939 by the German occupiers. None of the sources read names the individuals who set the fire or says whether the city authorities or the occupation administration ordered it. The ruins were afterwards demolished; the date and the contractor for the clearance are unknown.

Das Schicksal der Gemeinde

In 1939 Ostrava had about 10,000 Jews, many of whom tried to emigrate after the occupation. On 18 October 1939 Ostrava saw the first deportation transport of Jews in the Nazi period: about 1,200 men were sent to Zarzecze near Nisko on the San, where they had to build a camp with materials the community was forced to provide. The Nisko plan was soon abandoned; many of the men were driven over the Soviet line and most of them died, while about 400 to 500 returned to Ostrava. In 1941 some 3,900 Jews remained in the city. Between 17 and 29 September 1942 the remaining Jews were deported in three transports to Theresienstadt, from where nearly all were sent on to Auschwitz-Birkenau and other killing sites. Of 3,567 Jews deported from Ostrava, 253 survived. After the war survivors and Jews from Subcarpathian Ruthenia re-established a community of at most about 500 members; it had about 80 members in the late 1990s and has used a prayer room since 1978.

Der Ort heute

The synagogue stood in the former Pittlergasse in the centre of Moravská Ostrava. The USC Shoah Foundation walking tour places its approximate location at today's street 28. října, no. 106/18, and the coordinates in the German Wikipedia article fall on the same block. According to Jüdische Gemeinden a textile shop now occupies the site. No part of the building survives above ground. A bilingual memorial plaque has marked the site since 1992. The community's administrative building behind the synagogue, facing Sokolská Avenue, was also destroyed. The old Jewish cemetery of Ostrava was levelled around 1980 and is now a park, and the postwar community worships in a prayer room in another part of the city.

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