Beuern

Summary: The Jewish community of Beuern, founded in 1706, replaced an 18th-century prayer room with a synagogue on Hauptstrasse (present-day Untergasse); the synagogue’s date of construction, however, is not known. Destroyed in a fire in 1846 or 1854, the synagogue was rebuilt in 1855. We also know that the community maintained a mikveh and a Jewish school, and that it employed a shochet from Grossen-Buseck. Burials were conducted in Grossen-Buseck. In 1933, 18 Jews lived in Beuern; in November of that year, two Jewish merchants were arrested. Later, on Pogrom Night (November 1938), the synagogue’s interior was completely destroyed, after which the building was sold to a neighbor who used it as a barn. Towards the end of World War II, local youths destroyed the remaining Torah scrolls. Most Jews left Beuern; four managed to immigrate to the United States in 1940. In 1942, a Jewish family of four, Beuern’s only remaining Jews, were deported to the East, where they died. At least nine Beuern Jews perished in the Shoah. In 1980, the owner of the former synagogue building added an inscription to the structure. Although the roof was slated for renovation in 2003, the building, at the time of writing, continued to be used for storage.

Author / Sources: Heike Zaun Goshen
Sources: AH, AJ, EJ, PK-HNF