Erwitte
General information: First Jewish presence: 1660 (two Jews); peak Jewish population: unknown; Jewish population in 1933: 32 (in June)
Summary:
Additional Jewish population figures for Erwitte include
the following: 64 in 1817 and 108 in 1864. The synagogue
on 50 Helleg (formerly Kletterstrasse) was inaugurated
in, at the latest, 1801. Nineteenth-century Erwitte Jews
also maintained an old cemetery on Gografenstrasse (approximately 160 feet from the local castle). In 1958,
after this cemetery was converted into a lawn, graves
were transferred to the newer Jewish cemetery, which
had been consecrated inside the general burial grounds at
1 Bundesstrasse in 1881; used until the beginning of the
20th century, the Bundesstrasse cemetery has 77 gravestones.
In 1875, a local Jew was killed during anti-Jewish rioting.
By June, 1933, only 32 Jews lived in Erwitte. Later, on
Pogrom Night (November 9-10, 1938), the nearly defunct
synagogue was ravaged, nine or 10 of its Torah scrolls ripped
into shreds. The remaining Jewish homes and Jewish-owned
businesses were damaged severely that night.
In all, five Erwitte Jews emigrated; two of them went to
the Netherlands. Seven resettled elsewhere in Germany, four
died in Erwitte and 16 were deported to the East in July
1942, where they all perished. At least 20 Jewish residents
of Erwitte died in the Shoah.
The synagogue site—the building was torn down in
1982—accommodates a garden. As of this writing, a
memorial has never been erected in Erwitte.
Author / Sources: Esther Sarah Evans
Sources: AH, EJL, HU, SG-NRW, SIA
www.juedischeliteraturwestfalen.de/
www.zentralarchiv.uni-hd.de/
Sources: AH, EJL, HU, SG-NRW, SIA
www.juedischeliteraturwestfalen.de/
www.zentralarchiv.uni-hd.de/
Located in: north-rhine-westphalia