City walk Ribnitz-Damgarten

"...that he may settle in Our town Ribnitz resident ..." (Ducal "Schutzbrief" of 1811)
. The first Ribnitz Schutzjuden came to the city around 1753 - but were allowed to move only as peddlers across the country.

Since the founding of the city in 1233, the Ribnitz market with the town church of St. Mary was and remained the center of public life. Several times the square was redesigned, for example after the town fire of 1759 or most recently in 2007, when the amber fishermen's fountain was inaugurated. Trade has always played an important role for the border town in northeastern Mecklenburg. It is therefore not surprising that Jewish families also settled here, although they had to acquire a ducal charter of protection beforehand. Whether this was already the case in the late Middle Ages, even before the Sternberg Host Abuser Trial of 1492, is disputed. However, there is evidence that in 1753 the three Schutzjuden Isaack Levin, Behrend Hirsch and Salomon Isaack lived in Ribnitz. Already in 1755 a first cemetery was established at their request. Although the small Jewish community grew to seven families by 1800, the possibilities to earn a living remained limited: As late as 1811, a letter of protection for Joseph Simon stipulated that he, "without keeping an open store, may engage in house trading by carrying packs to the countryside [...]" or "may attend the public fairs [...]". In no case, however, a competition for the Ribnitz merchants should arise.

"But since there was nothing combustible in the structure, the temple did not respond to this attack." (Article in the Stadt- und Landboten, November 11, 1938)
Since 1803, the Ribnitz community came together for worship in the Büttelstraße - until 1906. Fifteen years later, the old synagogue building was auctioned off and demolished in early 1939.

For decades, the small Jewish community had met in private rooms for prayer and worship. In 1803, enough donations had been collected to build a synagogue of its own at Büttelstraße 6: a "plain square building" in half-timbered style, which was fitted with new windows and plastered in 1853. In 1846, the synagogue community received its own Israelite congregational order. However, already after 1865 the number of members dwindled rapidly due to the general emigration - from over 100 to 16 persons in 1925. Even services were no longer held after the death of the last prayer leader and teacher, Dr. Joseph Strauß (1837-1906). In order to at least be able to maintain the cemeteries, it was decided to publicly auction off the synagogue in 1921. With the exception of the Torah scrolls, the inventory was probably sold before 1933. Already at the beginning of 1938 the city pushed for a demolition of the dilapidated building, now owned by the Ribnitz building contractor Falk. An arson attack on November 10 failed for lack of flammable materials, which was also noted by the press. In 1939, the former synagogue was demolished and on its foundation walls the present building was erected as a transformer station with business office and apartment 

"Ladies jackets [...] children's clothing, excellent - chic and cheap - recommends Julius Salomon." (Business advertisement in the Ribnitzer Stadt- und Landboten, 1908)
In 1901, the Ribnitz citizen Julius Salomon opened one of the leading textile stores in the city at Lange Straße 40.

The 19th century also brought the Jewish community in Ribnitz legal equality and the associated social recognition, which was not a matter of course. As in many Mecklenburg country towns, however, a brief flourishing after 1850 was soon followed by emigration. Around 1925 only five Jewish families were still resident in Ribnitz, but over the years they were firmly anchored as respected citizens in the public and economic life of the town. Among them were Julius Salomon (1870-1921) and his wife Jenny née Rosenberg (1874-1944). In 1901 the young merchant had been registered in the Ribnitz citizen book, acquired the house Lange Straße 40 and opened there in 1902 a soon flourishing textile business. The family with the three children Heinrich (1901), Alfred (1902) and Anita (1907) moved shortly after to Nizzestraße 22. The business and house in Lange Strasse were handed over to a successor before 1914. When Julius Salomon died young in 1921, the widow set up a haberdashery store in Nizzestraße. In the early 1930s the children left Ribnitz. Shortly thereafter, Jenny Salomon also felt the repressive measures of the new National Socialist rulers. In 1939, she was forced to give up her store, but the house still remained in her possession.

"For the good of mankind" (Paul Kühl, History of the town and monastery of Ribnitz, 1933)
. For a full 49 years, Sanitätsrat Dr. med. Bruno Joseph (1861-1934) worked in Ribnitz and the surrounding area. Even today he is still known to many people.

A personality equally known and appreciated beyond the borders of the city was Dr. Bruno Joseph. In 1885 he settled with his wife Bertha née Salomon (1871-1933) as a country doctor in Ribnitz. Their daughters Helene (1893-1948) and Annemarie (1895-1989) were also born here. From 1898, his own brick house at Lange Straße 13, now the Recknitz Pharmacy, served as his home and practice, which was joined in 1919 by his son-in-law, Dr. Ludwig Thron (1889-1964). From 1912 on, Dr. Joseph was also active in the Ribnitz town council. As head of the town council (1919-27) he accompanied important building projects such as the waterworks or the sewerage system. From 1906 to 1933 he presided over the small Jewish community, which in the end, as the town chronicler Paul Kühl noted, "has neither rabbi nor temple, thus also no more services [...]". Personally, too, a bitter time began for Bruno Joseph: In January 1933, his wife died, and shortly before his own death on June 10, 1934, his license as a vaccination doctor was revoked. His daughter Helene emigrated to the USA, Annemarie survived in a "privileged mixed marriage" with Dr. Thron - as the only Jewess in Ribnitz. The names of Bertha and Bruno Joseph can also be found on the joint gravestone.

"You are hereby ordered [...] to move in with your racial comrade Mrs. Salomon in her apartment. The mayor" (order of May 24, 1941)
In May 1941, the house Nizzestraße 22 was declared the so-called Judenhaus . Since 2011, a stumbling stone commemorates its former owner, Jenny Salomon née Rosenberg (1874-1944).

At the beginning of the Nazi era, only a few Jewish families still lived in Ribnitz. A list of the city administration from 1935 counted, according to the reading of the Nuremberg Race Laws, just ten "full" or "half Jews". Those who could, emigrated, including Jenny Salomon's daughter Anita, who went to Palestine with her family in July 1937. The 64-year-old mother stayed behind alone at Nizzestraße 22. At the end of 1938, she was one of four Jewish women still living in Ribnitz. In the night of the November pogrom in 1938 the windows of her store were smashed, soon after she had to give it up. By order of the mayor of Ribnitz, Walter Wegner, her house was designated a "Judenhaus" at the end of May 1941. From then on, she had to share the three small rooms on the first floor with Paula Moses and Emmy Lichenheim. The social contacts of the three women were now systematically cut off. Paula Moses was deported to Auschwitz on July 10, 1942 via Rostock with the first collective transport and murdered there. Jenny Salomon and Emmy Lichenheim had to leave Ribnitz on the early train to Rostock on November 11, 1942. From Berlin, both were deported to Theresienstadt. Jenny Salomon died there on April 3, 1944. Her house was sold through the Rostock tax office.

"Ein cemetery of 50 feet square"
. Already in 1755, a first Jewish cemetery was established at the gates of Ribnitz. Right next to it today play pupils*innen of the elementary school Theodor Bauermeister.

A few steps in the direction of the town center lies the Bauermeisterplatz, named after the first director of the Höhere Bürgerschule, which moved into its new domicile at the Rosengarten in 1874. Until 2003, the Richard-Wossidlo-Gymnasium was housed here, after which the Theodor Bauermeister Elementary School moved in. If you look over the school fence to the right of the old main building, along the footpath in the direction of the Stadtkulturhaus, you will hardly suspect that the first Jewish cemetery of Ribnitz was located there. At the request of the three Schutzjuden Behrend Hirsch, Salomon Isaack and Isaack Levin the small community had been assigned by ducal decree of January 16, 1755 and against payment of 20 Reichstalern "a cemetery of 50 feet square in front of the Marlower Thor on the fallen down rampart" and completed in the same year. After the construction of the Höhere Bürgerschule (1872-74) there was a long dispute about the relocation of the cemetery . It was not until 1885 that the Jewish community was able to dedicate a second plot in the new municipal cemetery on the Schleusenberg. The old cemetery was desecrated several times and finally leveled after 1938 at the instigation of the Nazi authorities, including the wall. The plot was transferred back to the State Association of Jewish Communities in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in 1996.

"To the memory of the Jewish citizens of our town who died in Ribnitz and all the turmoil of the time 1933/45 far from home."
At hardly any place the eventful history of integration and exclusion, remembering and forgetting becomes clearer than at a Jewish cemetery - also at Ribnitz Schleusenberg.

The year 1869 brought the Jewish population in Ribnitz, as in the entire North German Confederation, full legal equality, which usually went hand in hand with social integration. This also became apparent a good 15 years later: in the search for a second Jewish cemetery area, a conscious decision was made to connect it to the new municipal cemetery on the Schleusenberg - against the protest of the Oberkirchenrat. In 1885, the Jewish section west of the mourning hall, surrounded by a wall, was inaugurated. The last burial took place in November 1927. Thereafter, the site became overgrown, as the small Jewish community could hardly afford to maintain it. After multiple desecrations (including 1924 and 1932), the cemetery was "cleared" after 1938, and finally dissolved completely in 1968 and reoccupied with Christian graves.

Only in 1996 the retransfer took place. Today, only parts of the wall remain, along with three older gravestones (1831, 1842 and 1850) from the first Jewish cemetery. Together with a granite obelisk from 1988, a small memorial was created from them in the far southwest corner, in honor of the "deceased Jewish citizens of our city". In 2007, this was also desecrated.

"I know that the Jewish woman has already been through a lot, [...]" (Interrogation protocol Bertha Thomas, November 12, 1941)
Already in early 1939, the war widow Paula Moses née Zadek (1883-1942) had to sell her house at Neuhöfer Straße 14. In 1942 she was deported to Auschwitz.

Little is known about the Moses family. The father, Wolf called Wilhelm, had been killed in action shortly before the end of World War I in 1918. The mother Paula then moved with her sons Kurt (born 1911) and Henry (born 1914) from Osnabrück to Ribnitz. Without a profession, the widow struggled to make ends meet. In 1924 Henry drowned while playing in the Bodden. Around 1925, the family moved into the house in Neuhöfer Straße with their grandmother, who was in need of care. Kurt became an accountant and, like his mother, joined the SPD. Several times he was opposed, including on May 1, 1933, when SA men stormed the Ribnitz trade union building. In 1934 he emigrated to Palestine. The mother remained behind alone and was at the mercy of repressive measures by the state and the city. In 1939, a special tax forced her to sell her own house. She was able to live in the annex (once a laundry room) for a short time, but then she had to move in with Jenny Salomon on Nizzestraße. At the end of 1941, even long-time acquaintances like 81-year-old Bertha Thomas had to break off their contacts. A malicious prosecution for "not wearing the Jewish star" was averted by the baker's wife's courageous testimony. But already on July 10, 1942, Paula Moses was handed over to the Gestapo in Rostock and deported from there to Auschwitz.

"Lichenheim & Pincus. Lange Straße No. 111. Gegr. 1855. manufactory and fashion goods. Only the best qualities" (business ad in Ribnitzer Stadt- und Landboten, 1908)
At 80 Lange Straße, the Lichenheim family wrote Ribnitz company history for almost 75 years. In 1942, Emmy Lichenheim (1871-1944) was the last to be deported to Theresienstadt.

Back across the Rostock Gate, this walk ends in front of the house at Lange Straße 80, a new building that today houses the Apotheke am Bodden pharmacy. The business and residential house of the Lichenheim family, which had been resident in Ribnitz since 1855, still stood here until 1967. The founder of the company, Hermann Lichenheim (1830-1917), was a respected citizen, member of the marksmen's guild (in 1877 he was even king of the marksmen's guild) and until 1906 chairman of the Jewish community. His manufactured goods business, supplemented by a flourishing coal trade, was continued by his son Louis (1861-1927) and his wife Emmy née Lychenheim. Their son Max (1901-82) became a lawyer. Shortly before his graduation from the University of Rostock on the "right to inherit in Ribnitz", the mother and widow were forced to close down the business: The almost 75-year history of the company ended with a total sell-out on October 3, 1930. While Max emigrated to Shanghai in 1939, Emmy Lichenheim remained in Ribnitz, but had to sell her house in the same year and move to Nizzestraße in 1941, by order of the mayor. On November 11, 1942, she was deported via Rostock to Berlin and finally to Theresienstadt, where she died on May 8, 1944.