Smilde Synagogue (Kloosterveen)

Die jüdische Gemeinde

Jews are first recorded in Smilde in the census of 1809, when 24 lived in the village and its surroundings. Their number rose to 88 in 1840 and to 150 in 1869, the highest figure recorded,. By 1899 the community had fallen to 75 and by 1930 to 16, and the Jewish Historical Museum's encyclopedia says the congregation had effectively ceased to function by the eve of the Second World War. The congregation was organised before 1821. Until 1825 it was formally placed under the Jewish community of Dwingeloo; in that year it was recognised as a bijkerk of the national Nederlands-Israëlitisch Kerkgenootschap. Its governing bodies, according to the Jewish Historical Museum's encyclopedia, were a church board and a church council, and it also had a treasurer who collected money for the poor of the Holy Land. Family names recorded in Smilde in the nineteenth century include Bloemendal; genealogical databases list several members of that family born and buried in the village.

Architektur und Gestaltung

Almost nothing is known about the appearance of the synagogue. The sources consulted give only its date, 1846, and its location in Kloosterveen, one of the villages that form Smilde; they give no street, no description and no dimensions. No photograph, postcard, drawing, plan or cadastral record of the building was found in this research, and the architect, builder, building material, capacity and style are all unknown. It was built when the congregation numbered roughly 90 people, a generation before it reached its peak of about 150, so it was presumably modest in size, but no source states its dimensions or the number of seats, and nothing is known of the arrangement of the ark, the bimah or a women's gallery. The community also had a separate small school building, which still existed in 1943, when it was converted into a house; whether it stood next to the synagogue is unknown.

Leben in der Synagoge

The synagogue was the centre of a small rural congregation that ran its own affairs as a bijkerk of the Nederlands-Israëlitisch Kerkgenootschap. The Jewish Historical Museum's encyclopedia records that it had a church board and a church council, and a treasurer for the Holy Land who gathered contributions for the poor of Palestine. Children received Jewish religious instruction in a small school of the congregation. Among the ritual objects once used in the synagogue was a jad, a Torah pointer, which according to its museum caption was given to the synagogue of Smilde by Mordechai Bloemendal. No names of cantors, teachers or readers who led the services, and no description of the furnishings, were found in the sources consulted. What became of the synagogue's furniture and ritual objects after the war is unknown.

Zerstörung

No source consulted records damage to the synagogue during the Nazi German occupation of the Netherlands. By then the congregation had dwindled to a handful of people and had effectively stopped functioning before the war; once its last members had been deported, the building stood without a congregation. The Jewish Historical Museum's encyclopedia states that the building was demolished after the war, and its English version says the local synagogue was razed just after the war. In 1950 the remnant of the Smilde congregation was formally merged into the Jewish community of Assen, but no year is given for the demolition. Who demolished the building, and whether it was first sold by the congregation or by Assen, is not recorded in any source found. The fate of its furnishings and ritual objects is also unknown.

Das Schicksal der Gemeinde

By 1930 only 16 Jews lived in Smilde. According to the Jewish Historical Museum's encyclopedia, almost all the Jewish inhabitants of Smilde were deported and murdered. A memorial on the Hoofdweg commemorates twelve Jewish residents of Smilde who were killed in the Holocaust. One of them, recorded in the Digital Jewish Monument, was Regina van Spier-de Jong, born in Assen in 1910, who lived at house B 324a in Smilde in July 1942 and died in Auschwitz on 17 September 1943, aged 33; members of her family, including a young son, are listed with her. The number of survivors is unknown, and after the war there were too few Jews to sustain a congregation: in 1950 Smilde was merged into the Jewish community of Assen. The cemetery bought in 1848 along the Drentse Hoofdvaart survives and is maintained by the local authority.

Der Ort heute

The plot on which the synagogue stood has not been identified in any source consulted, so it is not possible to say what occupies it now; the building was demolished after the war and no part of it is known to survive. The map pin marks the area of Kloosterveen in Smilde, not the synagogue itself. The Jewish cemetery acquired by the congregation in 1848 lies along the Drentse Hoofdvaart and is maintained by the municipality. A memorial to the twelve murdered Jews of Smilde stands on the Hoofdweg. Locating the synagogue plot will need the cadastral records and photo collections of the Drents Archief or local historical society.

Bedeutende Namen