Zittau, Germany

ZITTAU Saxony, Germany. From 1400 up to 1434 there is evidence of a small community maintaining a prayer room. Resettlement commenced only in the 1860s or 1870s. A cemetery was established in 1887 and a synagogue was consecrated in 1906. Large numbers of Jews from Eastern Europe on their way to the West stopped over in Zittau and in around 1900 the community set up special relief organizations to assist them. Probably also because of emigrants who decided to stay in Zittau, the Jewish population rose to 200 in the 1920s. When the Nazis came to power in 1933 the Jewish population was 159. In October 1938 there were only 70 Jews in Zittau; 22 of non-German citizenship were deported to Poland. On Kristallnacht (9-10November 1938) the synagogue and the mortuary at the cemetery were destroyed, businesses were wrecked and the preacher and other Jews were arrested and taken to the Buchenwald concentration camp. By April 1941, 24 Jews and 29 persons of partial Jewish origin (Mischlinge) remained in Zittau. It is assumed that most Jews were deported to the East. By October 1942 only six Jews were left in the town, probably protected by marriage to non-Jews.