Slanica Synagogue

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Die Geschichte von Slanica Synagogue

Slanica lay on the upper Orava river in the historic county of Árva, in today's Námestovo district of the Žilina region. It was an old village, first mentioned in the sixteenth century, known as the parish where the linguist Anton Bernolák was born and later for its blueprint dyeing. About 850 people lived there before the Orava dam was built between 1941 and 1953 and the water flooded the village; only the hill with the eighteenth-century church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross stayed above the surface and is now the Slanica Island of Art.

The English Wikipedia list of synagogues in Slovakia includes a 'Slanica Synagogue', giving its construction as 1850, in the nineteenth century, and its end as 'destroyed around 1950'. The list cites no source for the row, and its round dates of 1950 are known to be placeholders in many other rows. No history of Slanica read for this entry mentions Jewish residents, a synagogue or a prayer room, and the Encyclopaedia of Jewish Communities for Slovakia has no separate Slanica entry; the nearest communities with entries are Námestovo and Tvrdošín. Whether a purpose-built synagogue ever stood in Slanica, and how it ended, therefore remains unconfirmed.

STANDORT

Where it stood for nearly 100 years

Historic: Slanica (Hungarian Szlanica), Árva county; street and plot unknown. Today: flooded area of the Orava reservoir near Námestovo; pin on the Slanica Island of Art (Slanický ostrov umenia), Námestovo, 029 01, Žilina region (approximate).

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Die jüdische Gemeinde

Nothing specific about Jews in Slanica was found. The Encyclopaedia of Jewish Communities (Pinkas Hakehillot) for Slovakia has entries for the nearby towns of Námestovo and Tvrdošín but not for Slanica, which suggests that any Jews in the village were few and belonged to a neighbouring congregation, most probably Námestovo, the district town a short distance down the valley. The Námestovo entry is not available in translation online and could not be read. Local histories of Slanica, including the Oravské múzeum article published for the 460th anniversary of the village's first mention, describe its parish, its inns, its manor house, its school and its blueprint workshops, but say nothing about Jewish families. In many Orava villages Jews kept inns and shops, and Slanica had inns from 1681, but no source read links them to Jewish owners, so the size, origin and religious life of a Slanica Jewish community are unknown.

Architektur und Gestaltung

No description, photograph, plan or drawing of a synagogue in Slanica was found. The only information is the construction date of 1850 given in the English Wikipedia list, which does not say whether the building was a free-standing synagogue, a prayer room inside a house or inn, or a building shared with a school or ritual bath. Typical small rural synagogues of Orava in the mid-nineteenth century were modest rectangular halls of masonry or timber with a pitched roof, but there is no evidence that this applied in Slanica, and the style, materials, size, seating capacity and builder are all unknown. The old photographs published by the Oravské múzeum show the village church, chapels, the manor house and the school, and none of them shows a building identified as a synagogue. Locating the building would require the cadastral maps of Slanica made before the flooding, the records of the Námestovo Jewish community, or Maroš Borský's gazetteer of Slovak synagogues, which could not be read.

Leben in der Synagoge

Nothing is known about religious life in a synagogue at Slanica. No rabbi, cantor, ritual slaughterer, teacher or lay leader connected with the village has been found in any source read for this entry, and no record names the congregation or says which religious trend it followed. Whether services were held in a separate building, in a room of a private house or in an inn cannot be said from the evidence found. The nearest Jewish cemetery recorded is that of Námestovo, which is now about one-third under the water of the same reservoir, and it is possible that Slanica's Jews buried their dead there, but no source states this. Any description of life in the building would have to come from the records of the Námestovo community or from Borský's gazetteer of Slovak synagogues, neither of which could be read.

Zerstörung

The only source for the end of the synagogue is the English Wikipedia list, which says it was destroyed around 1950 and gives no cause, actor or exact date. No second source confirming the demolition was found, and who destroyed the building is not recorded. The date coincides with the last stage of building the Orava reservoir: the dam was built between 1941 and 1953, and in 1953 Slanica was one of five villages flooded. Oravské múzeum writes that the last families left only when the water reached their homes and that soldiers removed some residents by boat and pontoon. The village houses were abandoned and lost under the water at that time, so if a synagogue building still stood in Slanica it would have been lost in the same way. However, no source read says this of the synagogue itself, and the round year 1950 may be a placeholder rather than a documented date.

Das Schicksal der Gemeinde

No source read for this entry names any Jew from Slanica or describes what happened to Jewish residents of the village, so their number, their deportation and their fate are unknown. No Jewish community is recorded in Slanica after the Second World War, and the village itself ceased to exist when the Orava reservoir flooded it in 1953; its non-Jewish inhabitants were resettled, and some of them, according to the English Wikipedia article on the village, were made to work on the dam. Any account of the fate of Slanica's Jews will have to come from the Pinkas Hakehillot entry for Námestovo, deportation lists for the Námestovo district, or survivor testimony, none of which could be read in this research.

Der Ort heute

Slanica now lies under the waters of the Orava reservoir. The only part of the village above the surface is the hill with the Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, today the Slanica Island of Art run by the Oravská galéria and reached by boat from the Slanická osada shore. The site of any synagogue is unknown and, like the rest of the village, almost certainly under water. No remains, marker or memorial for a synagogue or a Jewish community in Slanica are recorded. The map pin for this entry marks the Slanica Island of Art as the one fixed point of the former village and should not be read as the synagogue's location.

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