Great Synagogue of Tekovské Lužany

Еврейская община

Jews were forbidden to live anywhere in the Tekov region until the ban was lifted in the 1830s. A list of the Jews of Tekov county from 1841 records fifteen families, about 66 people, in Tekovské Lužianky; in 1854 there were 80 Jews there and 4 in Tekovské Lužany. Pinkas Hakehillot counts 64 Jews in Tekovské Šarluhy in 1880, 113 in 1910, 124 in 1921 and a peak of 180 in 1930, falling to 154 in 1941. The municipal history gives 145 for Lužianky and 108 for Lužany in 1914. The congregation was Orthodox and served Jews from fourteen nearby settlements; some institutions were shared with the separate small community of Malé Šarlužky (Lužianky), which had its own synagogue, cemetery and ritual bath. In 1922 the community employed a rabbi, a shochet who was also prayer leader, and two teachers. Most Jews were merchants: in 1921 they ran grocery and textile shops, two taverns, timber and fuel yards, two butcher shops and a bakery, and the town doctor, Samuel Bass, was Jewish. Zionist groups were active, and the Jewish party won two council seats in 1928.

Архитектура и дизайн

No photograph of the building was found. Its appearance is known from two images published by the municipality. The first is a painting by an unknown artist showing an old bearded Jew in front of a long, light-coloured building with a gabled front, pilasters and a row of tall round-headed windows. The second is a measured-style sketch drawn from the recollections of Ladislav Neumann. Seen from the street, it shows a rendered hall whose gable end was shaped with stepped shoulders and a small raised top, crowned by a Star of David, with three round-headed windows and a small round opening between them. A lower wing with a tiled roof and one round-headed window adjoined it. Seen from the courtyard, the long side had a tiled roof, four round-headed windows and a central gabled porch with a door. To the left of the street view the sketch shows the small prayer house, a gabled cottage with a Star of David and a window of three panes. The builder, the date of completion, the size and the seating capacity are unknown, and no interior view has been found.

Жизнь в синагоге

The congregation followed Orthodox practice. Late in the nineteenth century its rabbi was Yehoshua Falik HaLevi Jungreis, who kept a small yeshiva of about twenty students before moving to the larger community of Santov in Hungary. He was followed by Rabbi Yosef Abeles, who led the community until 1944. In 1922 the community also employed a shochet who served as prayer leader. Beside the synagogue stood the community's elementary school, which by the 1930s had four grades taught in Hungarian and Slovak and 38 pupils, some from nearby villages, and behind the school a ritual bath fed by the stream. A burial society, a Jewish women's organisation and a society for visiting the sick were active, and the Bnei Akiva movement later ran a pioneer training group. At the start of 1944 the community still had 198 members in 41 families, with Rabbi Abeles, three other employees and 35 schoolchildren; its head was a man named Hass. Nothing is recorded about the synagogue's furnishings, its Torah ark or the order of services.

Разрушение

The synagogue stood empty after the middle of May 1944, when the Hungarian authorities briefly used it and several nearby buildings to hold the town's Jews. Its later fate is known only from local sources. According to the history published by the municipality of Tekovské Lužany, Nazi German forces dismantled the Great Synagogue during the war together with other empty Jewish houses, and used its wooden beams to strengthen their shelters and bunkers. The source does not give a date; the reference to bunkers suggests the period when the front stood in the area, but this is an inference. The walls that remained standing were demolished after the war. Who carried out the postwar demolition, and in which year, is not recorded in the sources found. The small prayer house next to the synagogue was not demolished, and Pinkas Hakehillot notes that some former communal buildings were still standing when it was written.

Судьба общины

After the annexation to Hungary in November 1938, Jews without Hungarian citizenship were expelled to Slovakia, and local residents pressed the authorities to close Jewish businesses. Many shops were shut in 1940, and in 1940 and 1941 Jewish men were drafted into Hungarian army labour units and sent to camps in Ukraine and Russia. After the Nazi German occupation of Hungary in March 1944, the community came under the Jewish council of Levice. In mid-May 1944 about 110 Jews of the town were assembled in the synagogue and nearby buildings and taken to the Levice ghetto; the Jews of neighbouring Malé Šarlužky followed at the beginning of June. Pinkas Hakehillot records that they were deported from there to Auschwitz, those of Malé Šarlužky on 15 June. Rabbi Yosef Abeles was murdered in 1944. A few escaped and joined the Czechoslovak army in exile or Slovak partisans. About 30 survivors returned and briefly restored communal life; the municipality counts 58 returnees from both villages. Thirty-four Jews lived in the town in 1949, and most later emigrated to Israel.

Место сегодня

The synagogue stood in the western part of the village, directly on the boundary between Tekovské Lužany and Tekovské Lužianky, on the bank of the Lužianka stream. The exact plot has not been identified, and nothing of the building is known to survive above ground. The small prayer house that stood beside it still stands, with a Star of David visible on its gable, and is not on the Slovak monument register. It has housed a museum of the local Jewish community, founded by Štefan Šebo, which presents Jewish life in the village up to 1944; the municipality dates the opening to 2011, a fundraising page to 13 September 2009. A memorial to the Holocaust victims was set up in the larger Jewish cemetery in 2005.

Значимые имена