La storia di Rokytnice v Orlických horách Synagogue
Rokytnice v Orlických horách, called Rokitnitz im Adlergebirge in German, is a small town in the Orlické hory (Eagle Mountains) of north-eastern Bohemia, close to the border with the former County of Glatz. Jewish families settled there at the end of the seventeenth century; the regional heritage office dates the first arrivals to 1697. They lived in a short street leading off the south-east corner of the main square, today J. V. Sládka street, which with the square now forms part of the town's protected historic zone.
Around 1715 to 1720 the Jews built a wooden prayer house that also held the schoolroom. When fire destroyed it in 1861, together with some other buildings of the Jewish community, the congregation put up a stone synagogue. Joachim Hahn's successor site says the new building stood on the same spot as the old one; the National Heritage Institute places the wooden building beside today's house no. 158 and the new synagogue above house no. 157, a slightly different reading of the same small plot.
The new synagogue had a short life as a house of prayer. The organised community dissolved in the early 1890s and, according to the heritage office, the synagogue's activity effectively ended by the close of the First World War. Under the First Czechoslovak Republic it was converted into an apartment house. It was damaged during the Second World War and is gone today.
Where it stood
Historic: Jewish street, Rokytnice (Rokitnitz im Adlergebirge), above the present house no. 157. Today: near J. V. Sládka 157, 517 61 Rokytnice v Orlických horách (approximate; the synagogue stood above this house).
Apri la mappa grande →La comunità ebraica
Jewish settlement in Rokytnice began towards the end of the seventeenth century. The National Heritage Institute dates the arrival of the first Jewish families to 1697, while the English Wikipedia article on the town gives a Jewish presence from 1712 to 1938. The families paid an annual protection fee to the lords of the Rokytnice estate and lived in one street next to the market square, forming a small Jewish quarter of a kind common in Bohemian country towns. Besides the prayer house and school they had a rock-cut ritual bath (mikveh) in the cellar of what is now house no. 157, and a small cemetery on a slope south-east of the Jewish street, laid out at about the same time as the first prayer house. The community was never large, and no population figures for it were found. By the early 1890s it had shrunk so far that the religious congregation was dissolved; Hahn's successor site suggests that the remaining members probably joined the congregation of Žamberk (Senftenberg). The community's history was written up by Karl Hostovsky for Hugo Gold's 1934 collective volume on the Jews of Bohemia, which was not read for this entry.
Architettura e design
Very little is known about the appearance of the building. The sources describe it only as a stone synagogue, built by the Jewish community after the fire of 1861 to replace a timber prayer house which had also contained the community's schoolroom. Its builder, architect, size, seating capacity, style and date of completion are all unknown, and no photograph, drawing or plan of it has been found. The National Heritage Institute's description of the Rokytnice protected zone places it above today's house no. 157 in J. V. Sládka street, a house whose cellar still contains a ritual bath cut into the rock; the wording suggests that the synagogue stood higher on the slope than the street front or on the upper part of the same plot, but this is not stated directly. After the congregation had lapsed, the building was rebuilt as a residential apartment house during the First Czechoslovak Republic (1918-1938), so by the Second World War it no longer looked like a synagogue. How much of the original stone structure survived that conversion is not recorded.
La vita nella sinagoga
No account of services in the stone synagogue has been found, and no rabbi, cantor, teacher or community official of Rokytnice is named in the sources read. What is known is the framework of the community's religious life. The wooden prayer house of about 1715 to 1720 was also the community's school, and the room for teaching was part of the building lost in 1861; whether the stone synagogue that replaced it also held a schoolroom is not stated. The ritual bath cut into the rock in the cellar of today's house no. 157, next to the synagogue site, served the community's purity laws and still survives. The dead were buried in the small cemetery on the hillside south-east of the Jewish street. The congregation was formally dissolved in the early 1890s, only about thirty years after the stone synagogue was built, and its remaining members probably attended services in Žamberk. The heritage office nevertheless places the effective end of the synagogue's activity at the close of the First World War, which suggests that some worship continued in the building after the formal dissolution.
Distruzione
The synagogue lost its religious function well before the Second World War. After the congregation dissolved in the 1890s the building fell out of use as a house of prayer, and between 1918 and 1938 it was rebuilt as an apartment house. The National Heritage Institute's description of the town's protected zone states that the building was damaged during the Second World War and no longer stands today. It does not say how or by whom it was damaged, whether by fire, fighting or deliberate vandalism, and it gives no date for the removal of the remains. No other source consulted describes its demolition, and who demolished it and when is not recorded. The same war years saw the Jewish cemetery of Rokytnice largely destroyed, according to Joachim Hahn's successor site, which also does not name those responsible. Whether the ruined house was cleared during the war or in the decades after 1945, when the German-speaking majority of the town was expelled and much of the old building stock decayed, remains unknown.
Il destino della comunità
The organised Jewish community of Rokytnice ended long before the Holocaust. In the early 1890s the congregation dissolved, and its last members are thought to have joined the Jewish community of Žamberk. The English Wikipedia article on the town gives 1938 as the end of a Jewish presence in Rokytnice, which suggests that a few Jewish residents lived there until the Munich crisis, but no names or numbers were found. No source consulted lists victims of the Holocaust who were living in Rokytnice in 1938 or who were born there, and the fate of the town's last Jewish families is unknown. The small cemetery on the hillside was largely destroyed during the Second World War and today has only a few gravestones. After 1945 the German-speaking population, which had formed the majority of the town, was expelled, breaking the continuity of local memory. A Geni genealogy project on Jewish families from Rokytnice may hold information on individual descendants and victims.
Il luogo oggi
The site lies in J. V. Sládka street, the former Jewish street, which runs off the south-east corner of T. G. Masaryk square and is part of the town's protected historic zone. The synagogue no longer stands. House no. 157, now a municipal building, survives below the former synagogue site, and its cellar still contains the rock-cut ritual bath used by the community. The wooden prayer house that burned in 1861 stood next to the present house no. 158. The Jewish cemetery, with only a few remaining gravestones, lies outside the protected zone to the south-east of the former Jewish street. What now occupies the exact plot of the stone synagogue is not stated in the sources 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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