Duesseldorf, Germany

A cemetery dating back to 1418 indicates that Jews were probably present at the beginning of the 15th century. In the course of the 15th and 16th centuries, there were frequent residence bans (in 1438-50, 1476, 1546, 1582, and1595 -97). There was a Court Jew here in 1640 and in 1677 a community began to develop with the settlement of two prosperous Jewish families, including the ancestors of Heinrich Heine (1797-1856). In 1890 there were 1,401 Jews in the community, making it the second largest in the North Rhine region. By 1910, the number of Jews living in Duesseldorf was 3985, and 5,130 by 1925, the result of immigration by East European Jews. They constituted 20% of the Jewish population by 1925 and 25% by 1932-33 (above the average for the country). The community established nearly a dozen cemeteries in the 19th century. A new synagogue was built in 1875 and replaced in 1904 by another building. At this time, services were held in accordance with Liberal practices (organ and mixed choir). The famous rabbi and philosopher of religion Dr. Leo Baeck (1873-1956) served in Duesseldorf. He was replaced in 1913 by Dr. Max Eschelbacher (1880-1964). The school was closed in 1877 when enrollment dropped to 22 of the 120 children of school age; the others attended Christian schools. By 1932-33, 26% of the marriages in Duesseldorf among Jews were classified as mixed. In 1904, Jews of East European origin banded together to form the strictly Orthodox Adass Jeshurun congregation. They belonged to the community, but established their own prayer room. In 1925, a strictly Orthodox breakaway community was also set up, the Alteingesessener Synagogenverein Adass Jisroel, whose membership included Jews from both Germany and Eastem Europe. They established their own prayer room, engaged a rabbi, and acquired cemetery rights at nearby Gerresheim. Only in 1927 were East Europeans allowed to stand for election. The community’s institutional development covered a variety of activities: there were the Duesseldorf Lodge, a particularly active local branch of the Central Union (C.V.), founded in 1893 and enjoying a large membership; a branch of the Jewish War Veterans Association; a Zionist organization; and youth groups. From the founding of the community in the 19th cent. Jews were involved in the city’s political and social life. As early as 1846-48, a Jew served on the city council and during the 1848 revolutionary period, a number of Jews from Duesseldorf played key roles in national politics and had contacts with such figures as Karl Marx and Ferdinand Lassalle, who regularly spent time in Duesseldorf. In the late 19th century and the 20th century too, there were Jewish councilmen, including Oskar Mannes, who in 1918 was one of the founders of the DDP (German Democratic Party). Jewish influence on the city’s cultural life was strong and in 1833-35, Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy served as a music director, head of the art academy, and manager of the theater in Duesseldorf. At the turn of the century, the well-established Duesseldorf Jews became part of the affluent middle class and petty bourgeoisie; the East European newcomers were economically less well-off. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, there were 5,053 Jews living in Duesseldorf. By 1935 most of the larger Jewish businesses had been sold and by April 1938, 70% of the number of businesses in 1933 had been “Aryanized.” The Nazis murdered one Jew as early as 1933; in 1937 another community member was murdered. In 1935 the community set up a school which was attended for a while by up to 300 pupils. In October 1938, 361 Jews of non-German citizenship were expelled to Poland. On Kristallnacht (9-10 November 1938), the rioting in Duesseldorf was particularly massive since Duesseldorf was the hometown of Ernst vom Rath, whose assassination by a Polish Jew served as a pretext for the Kristallnacht events. Both the synagogue and the prayer rooms were burned down and most of the Torah scrolls were set on fire. Stores and homes were wrecked and looted and some 80 individuals, including Rabbi Eschelbacher, were assaulted. The police forced several who sustained serious injuries to sign statements that they had attempted suicide. Seven Jews died as a result of their injuries. During the rioting, 166 men and 20 women were arrested; some 65 people were taken to the Dachau concentration camp, including Rabbi Eschelbacher, who emigrated to England several months after his release at the beginning of 1939. The community, which had been compelled to sell the synagogue in1939 , was charged with the cost of demolishing its ruins. In May 1939, there were 1,831 Jews in Duesseldorf, two-thirds less than in 1933. By 1941, there were only 1,400 Jews left in the city. At this point, the school closed and deportations began. In November and December 1941, there were deportations to the Minsk, Lodz, and Riga ghettoes, and in July 1942 to the Theresienstadt ghetto. In these four transports, a total of 2,487 Jews from Duesseldorf and the surrounding area were deported. No figures are available for the number of Jews in the deportations which took place in March-April and July 1943 to the Lublin, district (Poland) and in Januar 1945 to Theresienstadt. Nor are there figures available regarding those who emigrated. While Rabbi Eschelbacher estimated that 600 Jews had moved away by September 1933 alone, it is known that of the slightly more than 5,000 community members in 1933, only about 1,500 survived, i.e. many Duesseldorf Jews who had emigrated to other towns or neighboring countries also fell into Nazi hands and perished. At the time of liberation there were 57 Jews living in Duesseldorf. Their number soon increased to 350, stabilizing at 1,500 in 1968. The new community, which was founded in 1945, consecrated a new synagogue in 1958. Since 1993, as a result of the high proportion of young Russian Jews, a Jewish elementary school has once again been established.