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IN-DEPTH FEATURES
Clouds of smoke billow from the dome of the beis
knesses. Black soot bellows up darkening the German skies.
Anxious Jewish faces peering out of windows snatch a glance
at the abomination, looking on helpless and horrified as
kodshei Yisroel go up in flames. This image appears
over and over on the small screen at the entrance to the
unique exhibition of reconstructed botei knesses at
the Diaspora Museum in Tel Aviv. The message of this unique
project: they can burn and destroy, desecrate and annihilate
-- but the memory persists.
*
Before World War II, Germany had 2,800 botei knesses
that served as communal centers filled with tefillos.
Some of them reflected the Jews' power in the country and
were built with great splendor inside and out. But when
Hitler's madness began to take over the German streets and to
burst onto the scene in the form of official laws, they were
suddenly in great danger. The assassination of a German
diplomat by an enraged Jewish youth whose family had been
expelled from Germany was the green light for a blood-bath
(see sidebar). On Kristallnacht, also called the Night
of Broken Crystal, at the height of a pogrom steeped in hate,
over 1,400 botei knesses were desecrated and
destroyed.
In the memorial corner, built as a closed circle at the
exhibition, the names of botei knesses turned into ash
are documented, with before-and-after photographs of botei
mikdosh me'at that once stood and then were no more.
They are gone but they have not vanished, at least not from
the screen of memory. This is the foremost goal of the
creators of the "Synagogues in Germany: Virtual
Reconstruction," a traveling exhibition that spent six weeks
in Israel last summer -- its first stop outside of Germany.
Of course, rebuilding all of the botei knesses would
be infeasible, but to immortalize them in our consciousness
is certainly possible. In order to insure the results speak
in the language of today and resonate around the world among
young and old alike, the project designers opted to employ a
modern medium: the computer. The original models appear on
the screens, allowing the viewer to roam through them as if
on a walking tour of the shul itself, bringing history
back to life.
German Gesture
What is surprising about the virtual restoration program is
the German partners who joined the Israelis in the historical
rehabilitation campaign in order to close loose ends from the
past and present. The other moving aspect besides the virtual
perpetuation is the unusual gesture on the part of young, non-
Jewish students who decided to invest their time and ability
into documenting botei knesses that disappeared into
the flames, perhaps to seek some sort of forgiveness.
"The initiative was conjured up in the head of a 30-year-old
German lecturer, ten years ago, when the beis knesses
in the city of Lubeck, Germany was burned," explains Mrs.
Sarah Harel of the Diaspora Museum, who worked on the
project. "A group of architecture students at the University
of Technology in Darmstadt decided their research,
documentation and restoration project would act as a
counterweight to the rise in antisemitism and neo-Nazism in
Germany as well as new legislation against minorities. The
goal was twofold: to raise awareness of important historical
monuments destroyed by Nazi violence and to immortalize the
vibrant Jewish life that existed in Germany in the past, and
its decimation.
"It began with the restoration of three synagogues in
Frankfurt, displayed in miniature in a number of places in
Germany, and its success and the interest it aroused gained
momentum, transforming into a wave of restorations that
eventually turned the project into a traveling exhibition.
Bonn, the former capital of Germany, was the first exhibition
site to allocate a major exhibition hall in which to present
the exhibition, an act that accentuates its great importance
in the eyes of the German people."
German interest in Jewish religious history is a research
topic in and of itself. Several restoration initiatives were
conceived and even funded by German institutions and often
financial backing came from the Germans rather than the
members of the Jewish community. "Perhaps this stems from an
inner sense of guilt stirring in German youths," says Dr.
Adina Merille of the Department of Art History at Tel Aviv
University, an expert in the restoration of German botei
knesses and the head of the restoration project. On a
trip to Berlin even she herself was astounded by the degree
of interest the Germans showed.
She clearly remembers a surprisingly insightful question by
one of the German students who showed greater knowledge of
the details in the Jewish tradition than many German-Jewish
students. He wanted to know whether, in the 1920s, care was
taken to build botei knesses facing toward Jerusalem
and the location of the bimoh in relation to the
aron kodesh. What begins as a mere interest in
architecture soon transforms into general enthusiasm for
religion. In order to gain greater and greater understanding,
some of the German students even began to study Hebrew and
went to botei knesses to hear the tefillos and
observe Jewish culture up close.
In general Dr. Merille feels interest in the subject of
botei knesses is also on the rise in Eretz Yisroel.
"Twenty-five years ago, when I tried to teach a course on
synagogue architecture in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, I didn't
have any students! Today, after the fall of the Berlin Wall
and back-to-roots trips in Eastern Europe, apparently people
have become more open to history and synagogues. Two years
ago, a seminar course on synagogues was opened and in Tel
Aviv there are courses on synagogues that draw a large
crowd."
The Labor of Documentation
To date, 16 botei knesses have been restored and of
these, 14 have visited Israel: models of botei knesses
in Berlin, Dortmund, Dresden, Hanover, Kaiserslautern,
Cologne, Leipzig, Munich, Nuremberg, Plauen, Mannheim and
three in Frankfurt that were destroyed during the period of
Nazi rule, especially on Kristallnacht. Due to space
limitations, only ten of them were on display at the Diaspora
Museum.
Out of the carefully packed crates comes the equipment which,
because it is virtual, appears dull and gray at first,
computerized and very unimpressive. The screens are installed
on the walls and opposite them the computer stations are set
up and beside them go documented pictures painstakingly drawn
to bring the story to life for every visitor.
Each station is distinguished from the next by a different
color. Every one of them is a whole world unto itself, a
picture of a thriving kehilloh that was maliciously
cut down.
This feeling begins to course through one's veins as he sits
down to watch images of the drawings that document every
stage of the seemingly impossible task of restoration.
Pictures of the beis knesses in all of its former
glory appear on the giant screen--the external structure, the
entranceways, the aron kodesh, the paroches--
even the light rays streaming in through the ornamented
windows. The little computer screen assembles the living
puzzle bit by bit, accompanying us through the laborious
restoration process.
First is an authentic photograph of the original shul
as it appeared in the best of times. Beside it is a horrific
photo of the waves of destruction and the charred remains
they left behind. And finally the restored version.
In the beginning there is only a flat, meaningless outline
imitating the outline of the original. Then more and more
lines are drawn in, forming nets of woven lines giving the
image three-dimensional volume. The sophisticated restoration
program (called MAYA) makes it possible to create dimensions
in proportion.
It's hard to believe botei knesses no longer in
existence can be recreated from scratch -- yeish
mei'ayin -- using only museum archive photographs and
records that document every detail. This unique virtual
meleches machsheves requires thousands of hours of
painstaking labor down to the last detail.
Hanover
A beis knesses from Hanover's Bergstrasse pops up on
the screen; on Kristallnacht it went up in flames and the
next day the remains were demolished with explosives.
Nothing was left of the impressive building with its large
dome and three seating levels and seating for 650 men and
another 450 in the ezras noshim to meet the needs of
the Jewish population in 1861. At the time, there were more
than 1,100 Jewish residents. Yet on the screen it looks
almost real, as if one could step inside and walk around.
At the other stations, visitors take part in the
rehabilitation of other botei knesses reduced to ruins
by the Germans. The rectangular form of the beis
knesses on the Luisenstrass in Kaiserslautern with its
420 seats, plus another 220 in the ezras noshim, takes
shape on the little screen in all its splendor. In the
Palatinate District much importance was attached to its
dedication ceremony in 1886, which the local press described
enthusiastically, but in 1938 the city council decided to
demolish it, saying it did not fit the city's German "image."
Following the demolition work a Nazi Party organ wrote, "A
happy report that fell like a bomb, another Oriental [sight]
that will vanish from the German panorama."
Nuremberg
The Great Synagogue at Hanszaksplatz in Nuremberg also raised
the Germans' ire, apparently because its grandeur stood out
in the cityscape. The Lutheran Church periodical of the time
described it as "the crowning jewel of their [i.e. the Jews']
victory," and after the Nazis rose to power it became a focal
point for venomous propaganda. It was destroyed three months
before Kristallnacht, but on the screen it appears in all its
former glory.
The new beis knesses at Herzogmaxstrasse in Munich,
built in response to the remarkable growth of the city's
Jewish community, was razed on June 7, 1938 with Hitler
himself ordering the work. The three-seating-level beis
knesses was the third largest in all of Germany with
1,000 seats for men and another 800 seats in the ezras
noshim. On June 7, 1938 Hitler himself visited the site.
The next day the kehilloh was notified it was slated
for demolition and the very next day demolition work
commenced.
The last station represented the youngest shul in the
collection, the beis knesses on Sonfelderwangelstrasse
in Plauen. Completed in 1930 it served the Jewish community
of Plauen, which became the fifth largest kehilloh in
Saxony. Perhaps it was the rapid assimilation of its founders
and congregants that brought about the early demise of the
800-seat synagogue. A Jewish architect decided to do away
with the separation of men and women and to build it in a
modern, "international style." On Kristallnacht the building
and its foreign ideas went up in flames.
The congregants of Cologne's Glukengasse Synagogue, which was
completed in 1865 after four years of construction, also
received a ringing slap in the face. The outer construction
of the beis knesses combined several different
architectural styles. Dominated by Spanish construction from
the Islamic period, it was also influenced by Persian and
Indian styles. The square-shaped heichal is crowned
with a dome covered with copper plates.
During World War I, the kehilloh had the plates
removed to supply copper to the German arms industry as its
contribution to the war effort. Of course, this act was not
enough to save it; on Kristallnacht it was completely
leveled. Five years later, the land was transferred to the
municipality, which built Cologne's new opera house on the
site.
Beis Knesses Turned Parking Lot
The botei knesses that vanished from the face of the
earth did not vanish from the archives. The exhausting search
among the documents, old photographs and dusty certificates,
the supplementary interviews and the perusal of 19th century
architectural journals (when most of the restored botei
knesses were built) made it possible to bring back the
buildings from top to bottom. Advanced technologies and
innovative architectural programs allow every detail to be
recreated and immortalized.
"They restored everything," says Mrs. Reuven excitedly. "The
light fixtures, the decorative images, even the tiles and the
light that pierced through the windows and their actual
location among the homes on the streets to provide an
impression of the atmosphere and life that took place in the
vicinity of the botei knesses -- even the cloudy or
clear skies. The fact that the restoration is computerized is
another building block in the full perpetuation that can last
for decades or centuries, unlike pictures or live models,
which are subject to wear and tear and damage over time."
Says Dr. Merille, "This is a true, worldwide contribution
since the exhibition is accessible, via computer, to all
countries and brings back the history some people are trying
to erase. At one of the sites in Germany a parking lot has
been built where a beis knesses once stood. The
handful of Jews in that city are very elderly and there is
nobody to recall the holy predecessor to the parking lot.
Therefore, to me, obtaining the documents to prove this is
essential so that we at least know which beis knesses
was destroyed there and the chilling history of the seemingly
innocent parking lot..."
Battle Against Time
Everybody has a similar interest: to bring as many botei
knesses as possible back to life, at least virtually.
Professor Cohen of the Center for Jewish Art in Jerusalem,
who has been active in beis knesses restoration
projects around the world, calls this a battle against time.
Many disused botei knesses stand abandoned and
neglected, raising concerns that the authorities could
demolish them at any time due to a lack of interest. She
feels pressed to document as many botei knesses as
possible before they are destroyed and fall into oblivion.
When she arrived in Germany in 1994 to conduct research, she
was astonished to discover that besides the 1,400 large
botei knesses burned down on Kristallnacht there were
another 800 to 1,000 botei knesses -- or structures
that served as botei knesses in small towns -- which
are now in private hands. They were turned into residences
and some of them were renovated. "Sometimes it is still
possible to see they were once botei knesses,
sometimes not," says Prof. Cohen despondently. "I found
homeowners who had built staircases and altered the original
structure. One homeowner placed her bed in the ezras
noshim."
With the help of mostly non-Jewish architecture students from
the University of Brunswig in Germany, Prof. Cohen is now
taking part in an original project to document homes that
were formerly botei knesses. Once the present owners
realized the goal was not to dispossess them of their homes,
they were glad to cooperate, permitting the over 200 students
to come in and measure, sketch and document in order to build
models. This is one of the largest such "restoration"
projects in existence.
The project has already been underway for ten years in five
different states in East Germany, new states that emerged
after the unification, where construction is progressing at
great speed and the sale of houses that were once botei
knesses is a tangible threat, making the project a race
against time.
Over 100 of these botei knesses have already been
restored in the form of beautiful, 1:50 wooden models. A very
involved, creative enterprise, every such model built by
three students requires over 1,000 hours of work, including
drafting, photographing and construction. Prof. Cohen's big
dream is to bring the rare and unique exhibition to Israel,
but she has been unable to find anyone to sponsor the
project. Packaging and transporting the fragile models is a
complex and expensive undertaking.
Between Destruction and Creation
This race against time is a very costly undertaking, making
it difficult to increase the pace of the restoration work.
Each restoration takes years and can cost up to $1 million,
says Mrs. Reuven. The cost of setting up exhibitions -- the
computer stations, the projectors and the documentary films --
is also high. Nevertheless the existing restorations seem to
have whetted the appetites of other researchers. The students
of Darmstadt continue toiling away at other restorations and
additional kehillos and cities have also initiated
restoration projects for razed botei knesses.
When the exhibition travels to venues in Europe and the US
the project could embrace the whole world, providing a sense
of closure for Holocaust survivors. In the exhibition the
restored botei knesses pass before our eyes and the
sound of the traditional chazanus from these
kehillos plays in the background. We feel as if we
were visiting them, touching yet not touching the terrible
past. The sounds of weeping alongside the astonishing
restorations produced is a meeting of sorrow and joy,
destruction and creation. The essence of this exhibition is a
summary of our lives throughout the generations to this
day.
The first botei knesses were built during the Second
Temple Period, in the first and second centuries BCE in the
time of the mishnah.
During the Middle Ages in what is now Germany, botei
knesses were built according to one of two styles. The
first features a heichal divided by pillars into three
sections, like the botei knesses in Worms and
Prague.
The second, simpler style features a large, undivided
heichal, like the botei knesses in Rofech
(Alsace) and Speyer. Models of the botei knesses in
Prague and Worms from the Middle Ages are on permanent
display at the Diaspora Museum.
From the 16th to the 18th centuries botei knesses were
at first much simpler. The different styles of the shuls
reflected the improvement in the Jews' legal and social
status. Externally most small-town shuls differed from normal
homes only in minor details, such as the size of the windows
or a protrusion in the eastern wall. When the Enlightenment
began and with it the freedom to establish kehillos in
large cities, the change became apparent in the design and
stylistic architectural of the botei knesses.
Unfortunately, some of these modern botei knesses
reflected leanings toward non-Jewish culture, modernization
and efforts to demonstrate progressiveness and openness.
The first of these modern botei knesses was dedicated
in Karlsruhe in 1798. The 19th and 20th centuries brought
further spiritual decline among a segment of German Jews who
roamed in other pastures and tried to make their botei
knesses look like churches. With the development of the
Reform Movement in the 19th century, some "enlightened" Jews
even dared to alter the interior design, foregoing
fundamental elements of the traditional shul. They
moved the bimoh to the eastern end near the aron
hakodesh, eliminated the ezras noshim and even
held sermons in German and prayers with organ
accompaniment.
A survey of architectural and stylistic changes in the
botei knesses of the 19th century, their size and
location, reflects the wealth and status of the Jews of this
period, but most of all it shows the toll progress took on
them. Construction styles also hint at the local Jews' places
of origin. The pseudo-Oriental style at the beginning of the
second half of the 19th century is indicative of the Jews
from the East. Later Gothic styles were adopted to fall into
line with German nationalism, to find favor in the eyes of
their fellow countrymen and to blend in. Well-known botei
knesses from this period in Dresden, Hanover and Munich
closely resemble Christian cathedrals. After the Nazi rise to
power, no new botei knesses were built in Germany.
The restoration of botei knesses in Germany was just
one of numerous efforts worldwide to preserve botei
knesses. Many researchers have turned their restoration
endeavors into their life's work and they see it as an
important mission. One of these researchers, who takes every
destroyed beis knesses--even in the most remote corner
of the world--to heart is Professor Cohen, director of the
Center for Jewish Art in Jerusalem. She travels to every part
of the globe to locate deteriorating botei knesses and
to try to take part in their renewal. When this is
impossible, she at least ensures they are preserved on
computer as quickly as possible before they are gone without
a trace.
So far she has participated in over 70 trips to 39 countries
and has participated in at least 45 restoration projects. She
has already been to Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan twice each to
take innumerable measurements. Leading a team of four
students, an architect and a photographer they go from one
site to the next, racking up the miles in their rental car,
often working day and night for two to three weeks to
document the botei knesses and the tashmishei
kedushoh inside.
They work feverishly, feeling they are in a race against
time. The kehillos are shrinking and the botei
knesses, with all their contents, are in danger. In
Bukhara, for instance, many religious articles are sold to
collectors in local bazaars after being stolen from botei
knesses or carted off to a different location where
nobody remembers where they came from or which
kehilloh they belonged to. There may be as many as 300
tashmishei kedushoh in a single beis knesses,
making the task of restoring them particularly exhausting. In
the city of Kobeh in Azerbaijan, for example, many hours of
hard work were required to restore all of the inscriptions on
the yodayim used for the reading of the Torah, but
this did not deter them.
"It has gotten into my blood," says Prof. Cohen. "I can't
sleep at night when I see that things are being destroyed. We
try to reach all of the historical botei knesses from
before the War. Those from the present period, the next
generation will document in another 20-30 years."
When the documentation campaign got underway 25 years ago,
nobody had an inkling of the dimensions of the destruction
that took place. But the more she visited kehillos and
saw buildings on the verge of collapse and indifferent
kehillos, the more passionate she became in her lofty
mission, which she terms a "rescue" mission in every sense of
the word.
In the former Soviet Union, for instance, she found
splendorous 17th- and 18th-century botei knesses ready
to fall and with no chance of preservation. At the
shul in Razhani, Ukraine there was a gaping hole in
one of the walls. A local architect claimed the structure was
sure to collapse and indeed within two years Prof. Cohen
received a photograph of the pile of stones where the beis
knesses once stood. Many abandoned, neglected botei
knesses are dying away quietly, either because the
kehilloh is poor or has thinned out and is unable to
renovate.
A kehilloh in India, for example, has an abandoned
beis knesses on a plot of land that someone is
interested in purchasing. Chances are good it will be
demolished, therefore all that remains is to at least
preserve it on computer somehow, says Prof. Cohen, to prevent
people from someday claiming Jews never lived in the area,
for without Jewish cemeteries or botei knesses there
will be no way to disprove them. Thus the virtual restoration
of the beis knesses is in a sense the restoration of
the kehilloh, its rabbonim and life there.
In the US, there is an international organization that
provides funding for the virtual restoration of all cultural
monuments. Recently, it decided to select ten botei
knesses from around the world to serve as examples of
Jewish culture, but Prof. Cohen feels she is unable to
choose. "I want to save all of them and not many are left.
Who am I to choose between one building and the next?" She
estimates there are currently 5,400 botei knesses in
danger. Not large, active botei knesses but structures
that have been turned into storehouses and even restrooms.
One of them is the magnificent shul in Slonim,
Byelorussia, located in the middle of what is now the local
market and completely inactive. Somebody opened one of the
walls and built a set of restrooms. Prof. Cohen raised an
outcry in the European Committee and today it is privately
owned and efforts are underway to restore it physically.
"It's so painful," she says, "especially botei knesses
that have passed into the hands of [non-Jews] so that instead
of the sound of Torah being heard there, other, impure sounds
are heard. In numerous cities, the abandoned, neglected
buildings were taken over for tourism purposes, converting
the botei knesses into museums, archives and even
churches and simply to enrich the municipal purse."
One beis knesses in Serbia was turned into a church
yet the "luchos habris" remained inside. In the city
of Szeged, Hungary, large amounts of money were spent to
restore the big, spectacular shul, nearly the size of
the enormous botei knesses burned in Germany. Most of
the year it serves as a lucrative museum, while on holidays
it serves as a beis knesses.
An impressive shul in Subotica in Northern Serbia near
the Hungarian border was taken away from the Jewish community
over 50 years ago and converted into a theater, which has
since fallen into neglect. Nobody seems to care that the
adjacent buildings, the slaughterhouse and beis
medrash, will also disappear eventually, certainly not
the handful of old men who remain in the kehilloh.
In Fez, Morocco, the government helped the small remaining
community to restore the beis knesses -- only to turn
it into a profitable tourist attraction. This pattern is
repeating itself in other countries as well. A beis
knesses in Cairo was restored and turned into a tourist
site alone. The Czechs are working hard to renovate dozens of
small botei knesses scattered in small towns because
they justify the investment costs by drawing many tourists.
Prof. Cohen sadly calls them "former botei knesses"
and tries to at least preserve the legacy that will not
return.
Unfortunately such events take place not only in forgotten
places where no Jew has set foot for decades, but also in the
heart of London, New York and other places. In East London,
for example, at least 12 old botei knesses are slated
for demolition in order to build houses. Local Jews are not
just apathetic and willing to sell the botei knesses,
but they don't even take the trouble to make the sale known,
instead relating to the mikdosh me'at as a financial
asset.
Restorations are sometimes used for unexpected purposes.
Prof. Cohen does not overlook botei knesses in Eretz
Yisroel, going from one to the next to document physical
details and learn about the kehillos and customs of
Jews from various backgrounds. Every beis knesses is
carefully measured and entered into the architectural
databanks. The tashmishei kedushoh are photographed
and thus turn into a valuable resource. The police often make
use of these photos when articles are stolen and even
Interpol, the international police, rely on them. In Hungary,
for example, when a large collection of tashmishei
kedushoh was stolen, these photos and records were
utilized to track down and investigate them.
The students have already learned how to determine, based on
the type of ornamentation on the rimon, the fabric,
the paroches or aron hakodesh, which community
it belongs to, whether Georgian, Moroccan, Ashkenazi or
Tunisian. The Hebrew University has a computerized index of
Jewish art considered the world's largest virtual Jewish art
museum. Efforts are currently underway to develop a program
to convert it into an online database for anyone to access.
This databank has been growing for 25 years. Today it
contains 250,000 articles and 1,100 botei knesses are
documented on paper and computer.
According to Prof. Cohen such restorations and archives are
of even greater significance. Beyond the gratification
documenting the kehillos brings, these projects make
it possible for builders to mimic the style of any beis
knesses they choose, be it 17th-century Ukraine or 16th-
century Tunisia.
The nefarious campaign to destroy Germany's botei
knesses dates back to January 30, 1933 when Adolph
Hitler, may his name be blotted out, was first appointed
chancellor of Germany. It began with general riots not
directed toward any specific ethnic group: the burning of the
Reichstag, the national parliament in Berlin, and then the
rise in political persecution of Nazi opponents. Then
suddenly it shifted onto the Jews.
On April 1, 1933 a boycott of Jewish merchandise, businesses,
doctors and lawyers was declared. One week later, a racist
law was legislated, a reform of professional clerical work
intended to drive Jews, with the exception of World War I
veterans, out of civil service.
Approximately one month later, the blows became public with a
mass book-burning of works by Jewish authors. Later,
legislation was passed revoking the German citizenship the
Jews had been granted in 1918. Events stepped up with the
passage of the Nuremberg Laws, which allowed only those with
German blood or nearly German blood to be citizens; others
were denied political and civil rights. In addition the Law
for the Protection of German Blood and Honor disallowed
marriage between Jews and Reich citizens and annulled
previous marital bonds of this kind.
Bylaws defined the term "Jew" according to the family tree,
revoked the Jews' voting rights and required all Jewish
government workers who had not yet been fired to be dismissed
from their jobs immediately. The government also ceased
providing protection for what it called "Jewish places of
cult worship," which had formerly been given protection
through their status as religious associations. And in the
spring and summer of 1938, new laws were passed to remove
Jews from economic life by issuing them a special identity
card they had to present everywhere upon request.
On October 28, 1938, the first of many expulsions took place
when 1,700 Polish Jews, most of who had lived in Germany for
an extended period, were sent back to Poland. But when the
Poles refused to take in their former citizens they had to
stay in no-man's land.
A young Jew named Hershel Grynszpan, whose family had been
forced to stay between the two countries, lost his composure
and as an act of protest on November 7, 1938 he assassinated
German diplomat Ernst Vom Rath at the German Embassy in
Paris. At this point, events began to spin out of control,
with one act of vengeance following the next. Two days after
the assassination, the terrible pogroms that came to be known
as Kristallnacht broke out, leaving hundreds of botei
knesses in ruin.
The Nazi government decided to respond to the assassination
with an organized pogrom aimed at the Jews and Jewish
institutions. Over the course of two days, over 1,400
botei knesses were desecrated and destroyed, 7,500
business were looted, 91 Jews were murdered and 26,000 were
sent to concentration camps. A law passed after the rioting
allowed the Germans to confiscate all Jewish property, a
collective punitive tax of one billion marks was levied on
them and they were required to pay for all the damage done on
Kristallnacht (the Reich kept all of the damage payments from
the German insurance companies), including the cost of
clearing the rubble left from the botei knesses.
Information on over 2,000 synagogues in Germany is available
at the Synagogue Internet Archive
(http://www.synagogen.info/en_index.php) This is an
interactive archive and visitors may add their own
recollections and documents to the existing information.
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