Die Geschichte von Strážske Synagogue
Strážske lies in the Zemplín region of eastern Slovakia, in the Michalovce district, and under the Hungarian kingdom it was known as Sztrázske. Its Jewish community was small: the Pinkas Hakehillot volume on Slovakia includes Strážske in its table of communities that had more than fifty Jews, but no fuller history of the congregation has been found. The synagogue itself is known from a single document. In September 1970 the Central Union of Jewish Religious Communities in Slovakia (ÚZŽNO), which had taken over the property of communities that were not re-established after the war, received a report on the Strážske synagogue. The ethnologist Peter Salner quotes it in his 2024 study of the fate of Slovak synagogues: the building had been completely destroyed by the German army, which ran its kitchens and kept its horses and cattle inside, and afterwards by evacuees, Soviet soldiers and others. The town's own history records that Nazi German units passed through Strážske in the autumn of 1944 and that the front line crossed the town between 27 and 29 November 1944, which is the most likely time of the damage. No photograph, plan, building date or description of the synagogue has been found, and its exact site in the town is unknown.
Where it stood
Historic: Strážske (Sztrázske), Zemplén county; street and house number unknown. Today: unknown; placeholder pin at the centre of Strážske, Michalovce district, Košice region (approximate).
Größere Karte öffnen →Die jüdische Gemeinde
Very little has been published about the Jews of Strážske. The Pinkas Hakehillot encyclopaedia of Slovak Jewish communities, published by Yad Vashem, lists Strážske, in the Michalovce district, among the communities that had more than fifty Jewish inhabitants, which places it among the many small rural congregations of Zemplín rather than among the large town communities such as nearby Michalovce or Humenné. It was large enough to keep its own synagogue and its own cemetery. The cemetery survives in a patch of dense woodland beside the road from Strážske to Brekov, roughly halfway between the two places, with a few gravestones still standing. The sources consulted give no founding date for the community, no population figures by year, no names of rabbis, cantors or lay leaders, and no information on whether it followed the Orthodox rite, as most eastern Slovak congregations did. The community's registers and the records of its administration before 1945 have not been located; the Central Union archive in Bratislava, which holds the 1970 report on the synagogue in box 7, may hold more.
Architektur und Gestaltung
No description, photograph, drawing or plan of the Strážske synagogue has been found, so nothing reliable can be said about its size, materials or appearance. Its construction date, its builder and the number of seats are unknown. The only physical detail recorded is indirect: the 1970 report quoted by Peter Salner says that the Nazi German army set up its kitchens in the building and kept horses and cattle inside it. That implies a hall with an open floor large enough to shelter animals and field cooking equipment, but it does not show whether the synagogue was a purpose-built masonry building or a converted house, or whether it had a women's gallery. Maroš Borský's 2005 catalogue of the synagogue architecture of Slovakia, which covers most known synagogue buildings in the country, has no entry for Strážske, and the Slovak online heritage gazetteer pamiatkynaslovensku.sk has a page for the Jewish cemetery but none for the synagogue.
Leben in der Synagoge
No account of religious life in the Strážske synagogue has been found. The sources consulted do not name any rabbi, cantor, ritual slaughterer or teacher who served the congregation, and they do not say whether the community kept a school, a ritual bath or a burial society, although the existence of its own cemetery suggests that it buried its own dead. A congregation of a few dozen people in a Zemplín village would usually have prayed according to the Orthodox rite and relied on a rabbi in a larger neighbouring town for questions of law, but no document confirms this for Strážske, and it should be read only as the general pattern of the region. Memoirs or testimonies of former residents, survivor interviews and the community records in the Central Union archive in Bratislava are the most likely places where details of services, festivals and the people who led them could still be found.
Zerstörung
The only account of the destruction is a report of 2 September 1970 in the archive of the Central Union of Jewish Religious Communities in Slovakia (box 7, Strážske), quoted by Peter Salner in 2024. It states that the synagogue was completely destroyed by the German army, that is, the Nazi German army, which had its kitchens in the building and kept its horses and cattle inside, and later by evacuees, Soviet soldiers and others. The report does not give a date. Nazi German forces occupied Slovakia after the outbreak of the Slovak National Uprising at the end of August 1944, and the town's history records Nazi German units passing through Strážske in the autumn of 1944, with the last of them leaving on 27 November 1944 as the front crossed the town and Soviet troops arrived. The army's use of the empty synagogue therefore most probably dates from the autumn of 1944, and its further wrecking by refugees and Soviet soldiers from the weeks that followed. Whether any ruins stood after 1945 and who cleared them is not recorded.
Das Schicksal der Gemeinde
No source specific to the Jews of Strážske has been found that records their deportation or how many survived. They shared the fate of the Jews of eastern Slovakia under the wartime Slovak State (1939-1945), whose virulently antisemitic regime enacted the Jewish Code of 1941 and persecuted the Jews of the country throughout the war. Peter Salner's study notes that between 1938 and 1945 more than 100,000 Jews from Slovakia were murdered, and that of the 228 Jewish religious communities active before the war only 79 were reconstituted after liberation. Strážske was not among them: by 1970 its synagogue was being reported on as abandoned property of the Central Union of Jewish Religious Communities, the body that took over the assets of communities that had ceased to exist. The names of the Strážske victims, the dates on which they were deported, and whether any member of the community returned after the war are unknown and could probably be established from Yad Vashem's records and from survivor testimony.
Der Ort heute
The location of the synagogue in Strážske has not been identified in any source consulted, so it is not possible to say what stands on its plot today, and no surviving fragment is recorded. The map pin for this entry is a placeholder at the centre of the town and should not be read as the synagogue's site. The community's Jewish cemetery still exists: a few gravestones stand in a dense small wood beside the road from Strážske to Brekov, about halfway between the two, near the boundary between the Košice and Prešov regions. Finding the synagogue's plot will need the cadastral maps of the 1940s or the Central Union's 1970 file on Strážske.
Haben Sie etwas beizutragen?
Fotos, Dokumente, Familiengeschichten oder Erinnerungen an diese Synagoge und ihre Gemeinde halten ihre Geschichte lebendig.
Share a memory or thought
No comments yet. Be the first to add one.