Plauen, Germany

PLAUEN Saxony, Germany. Evidence of a Jewish presence is found between 1308 and 1484-85, when the Jews were expelled. A settlement was reestablished in 1870. Services were held in rented rooms and in 1899 a cemetery was consecrated. The town’s geographic proximity to Eastern Europe and the flourishing textile industry attracted East European Jews. By 1913 the community numbered 553 and in 1928 its population was 836. East European immigrants had their own Orthodox prayer room (before 1904) and a Talmud torah school. The German Jewish majority set up Liberal associations such as a branch of the Central Union (C.V.) and a B’nei B’rith lodge. There were also a branch of the German Zionist Organization and several youth associations. A synagogue was consecrated in 1930. From the mid-1920s, Plauen became a Nazi stronghold. The cemetery and synagogue were desecrated and Jewish houses were marked in red. Growing hostility led many Jewish pupils to leave the local high school. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, the Jewish population was 652. In spring 1933 two Jewish communists and a Jewish member of the German Democratic Party (DDP) were arrested. On 1 April 1933, boycott day, a Jew was murdered. By 1934 the number of Jews living in Plauen had shrunk to 360 and by 1. January 1938 to 297. In October 1938 57 Jews without German citizenship were deported to Poland. On Kristallnacht (9-10 November 1938) the synagogue was set on fire, Jewish homes and businesses were looted and wrecked, and Jewish men were taken to the Buchenwald concentration camp. By 1939 there were 134 Jews living in Plauen. Those who had not managed to leave were forced to move to “Jews’ houses” and in 1942 were deported to the east with the exception of nine Jews married to none-Jews.