Vráble Synagogue

RESUMEN

La historia de Vráble Synagogue

Vráble lies on the Žitava river in the Nitra district of western Slovakia; under Hungarian rule the town was called Verebély. The census of 1880 counted 201 Jews among its 2,022 inhabitants, almost all the rest being Roman Catholics, and smaller Jewish groups lived in the neighbouring villages of Nemesdicske and Felsőaha. The community's synagogue is dated to 1872 by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, which holds the one piece of the building known to survive: the triangular marble tympanum that stood above its entrance, carved with a verse from the Psalms. A list of Slovak synagogues gives 1870 instead. No photograph or plan of the building has been found, and its architect, size and style are unknown. From 1938 to 1945 Vráble belonged to Hungary again. In May 1944 the Jews of the town and the surrounding villages were concentrated in a steam mill, while five or six exempted families were held for a month in the synagogue itself, the last recorded use of the building by Jews. After the war the synagogue stood abandoned and fell into decay until it was pulled down in the 1970s. In 1993 the President of Slovakia, Michal Kováč, gave the rescued tympanum to the Washington museum.

UBICACIÓN

Where it stood

Historic: Verebély (Vráble), Bars county; street and house number unknown. Today: unknown; placeholder pin at the centre of 952 01 Vráble, Nitra district (approximate).

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La comunidad judía

Very little about the Jewish community of Vráble could be read online in this research. The Hungarian census of 1880 recorded 201 Jews among the 2,022 inhabitants of Verebély, about one in ten of the population, with 25 more in Nemesdicske and 15 in Felsőaha, villages that are now part of the town. By 1944 the community numbered some 80 to 85 families according to the Hungarian Wikipedia article on the town, which draws on Randolph Braham's history of the Holocaust in Hungary. The community kept its own cemetery, which still exists: the JewishGen cemetery survey describes a walled plot of about 30 by 100 metres with between 20 and 100 marble, granite and sandstone gravestones of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, inscribed in Hebrew, German and Hungarian, and records the last Jewish burial there in 1969. The religious orientation of the congregation, its rabbis and its lay leaders are unknown; the entry on Vráble in Pinkas Hakehillot Slovakia, which would give them, is not available in translation online.

Arquitectura y diseño

No photograph, drawing or plan of the Vráble synagogue was found in this research, so its outward form is unknown. The only physical evidence is the tympanum preserved by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The museum describes it as ornamental stone from above the entrance of the synagogue: a triangular slab of mottled pink and brown marble whose lower part forms a rectangular base, about 51 centimetres high, 85 centimetres wide and 6 centimetres thick. Three lines of Hebrew are engraved in its centre in a triangular arrangement, giving Psalm 118, verse 19: 'Open to me the gates of righteousness; I will enter them, I will give thanks to the Lord.' The shape of the stone suggests that the entrance was crowned by a small pediment or gable, but the rest of the facade, the plan, the seating and the interior fittings are not described in any source read. The architect, builder and capacity are unknown.

La vida dentro de la sinagoga

No account of worship or communal life inside the Vráble synagogue was found in the sources read. The verse over its door, Psalm 118:19, speaks of entering the gates of righteousness to give thanks, but no description of the hall it opened into survives. Whether the congregation followed the Orthodox, Neolog or Status Quo rite after the Hungarian schism of 1868-69 is unknown, as are the names of its rabbis, cantors and wardens. The only recorded episode inside the building comes from its last months of use. In May 1944, when the Hungarian authorities gathered the Jews of Vráble and the nearby villages into a ghetto in the local steam mill, five or six families who had been granted exemptions were concentrated in the synagogue instead. They were held there until 8 June 1944, when they too were moved to the mill. Nothing is recorded about how the building was used, if at all, in the years after the war.

Destrucción

No source found records damage to the synagogue during the Second World War, although the front line passed through Vráble in March 1945, when retreating Nazi German armoured units held the eastern edge of the town. The building lost its congregation in June 1944. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the abandoned synagogue deteriorated and was demolished in the 1970s by the Communist government of Czechoslovakia. The museum gives no exact year and does not say which body, whether the town's national committee or a district or state authority, ordered the demolition or what replaced it. A list of Slovak synagogues gives 1989 as the year of destruction; no source read supports that date, and it may be a placeholder. Before or during the demolition the marble tympanum from above the entrance was removed and kept. It was presented to the Washington museum by Michal Kováč, President of the Slovak Republic, in 1993; the museum's record gives 22 April 1993, the day the museum opened, as the date of commemoration.

El destino de la comunidad

From 1938 to 1945 Vráble was part of Hungary, and its Jews shared the fate of Hungarian Jewry. After the Nazi German occupation of Hungary in March 1944, the Hungarian authorities gathered the 80 to 85 Jewish families of Verebély, with the Jews of the neighbouring villages, in the town's steam mill on 9 May 1944; five or six exempted families were held in the synagogue until 8 June and then also taken to the mill. Two days later the whole ghetto population was transferred to Léva (Levice), where loading onto trains began on 13 June, and by 15 June they had been deported; another report says they were taken by way of Érsekújvár (Nové Zámky). The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum states that the Jews of Vráble were deported to Auschwitz in 1944 by Hungarian forces allied with Nazi Germany. The number who survived is unknown. A few Jews were buried in the town's cemetery until 1969, but no functioning congregation is recorded after the war.

El lugar hoy

The address of the synagogue and what stands on its plot today were not found in any source read, so the site cannot be described. The map pin is a placeholder at the centre of Vráble and does not mark the building. The synagogue's marble entrance tympanum, inscribed with Psalm 118:19, is in the permanent collection of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, accession number 1993.66.1. The Jewish cemetery of Vráble survives as a walled plot east of Nitra in a residential area; local authorities have re-erected stones and repaired the wall and gate, and the town office holds the key. Locating the synagogue plot will need old cadastral maps or the local museum and archive.

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