When Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933, small numbers of Jews started to escape Germany for Shanghai. In 1938, the year of the Anschluss and Kristallnacht, this exodus rapidly escalated. That year, Hong Kong became a major port of transit for hundreds of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazism for the sanctuary of Shanghai – […]
Jewish life on Norderney and the increasing spa anti-Semitism
From 1885 to 1914, between twenty-two and thirty-five Jews lived on the island of Norderney (0.5– 1.1 % of the population); in 1933, there were twenty-eight Jewish residents and, in 1935, only nine. The number of Jewish workers, salaried employees, and shopkeepers who stayed in Norderney only during the bathing season was higher. In 1923, […]
Felix Nussbaum’s Memories of Norderney
Norderney also had several famous Jewish bathing guests, including the painter Felix Nussbaum (1904–1944), who immortalized his Memories of Norderney in an oil painting from 1929, as well as in an ink drawing from 1932. Both depict the “Villa Nordsee,” a boarding house built in 1896. In 1901, a young man spent his summer vacation […]
Construction of the Expressionist Mourning Hall
To this day, former Jewish businesses and shops such as the Lewin Department Store (now Thalia) still characterize Halle’s distinctive cityscape. They bear witness to the glorious past of the Jewish community, which played a decisive role in Halle’s rise to become a Central German industrial metropolis. For Jews in Halle, the years of the […]
A House Called Love
From the open space of the New Synagogue Foundation, where the synagogue’s main hall used to be, one can see a vacant, red brick building: the former children’s home Ahawa (Love). Designed by the architect Eduard Knoblauch, who, a short time later, was also responsible for the design of the New Synagogue, the building initially […]
Jewish Casualties of the First World War from Solingen
As a non-commissioned officer of Brigade Etsatz Battalion No. 27, Dr. Curt Gaertner from Solingen, a “Gerichtsassessor” or judge on probation, succumbed to a shot in the head on February 25, 1915 in France. He was the second victim from the Solingen synagogue community and was twenty-six years old. His younger brother Fritz fell two […]
Inauguration of the New Synagogue in Essen
The inauguration was a grand event for the aspiring metropolis. In the 1920s, five thousand Jews were members of the synagogue community in Essen. The majority was liberal: The synagogue had a large organ, the women’s gallery was not covered with wooden lattices and curtains as in orthodox synagogues, and some prayers were recited in […]
Construction of the New Synagogue in Essen
In 1911, the architect Edmund Körner planned a representative new synagogue building that was intended to express the integration and recognition of Jews in Germany during the Second Empire. Jewish families were already living in Essen in the Middle Ages, whereby their traces become lost in the sixteenth century. Jews lived continuously in the Rhineland, […]
Construction of the children’s recreation home of the Zion Lodge I.O.B.B.
In 1910, the first children’s home opened at Benekestrasse 44; run until 1933 by the Zion Loge Hanover, today the Thomas Morus Specialist Clinic – Caritas. Since 1910, there was also a children’s recreation home of the Zion Lodge I.O.B.B. (Independent Order of B’nai B’rith). Even before the First World War, Norderney was considered an […]
Gustav Coppel is named an honorary citizen of Solingen
The manufacturer Gustav Coppel played a prominent role in the economic, social, and political life of the city of Solingen. For a time, he was President of the Chamber of Commerce and chairman of various manufacturers’ associations. For several years, he led the local and district association of the National Liberal Party, was a city […]
The early history of Jews in Hong Kong
Jews were some of the earliest settlers to come to Hong Kong after the island was ceded to the British in the 1840s. So-called ‘Baghdadi Jews’ came to Hong Kong from Iraq and India to take advantage of the trade opportunities pioneered by the Sassoons. By the turn of the century, there were around 165 […]