Former Jewish School Leer

In 1909, the Jewish community of Leer built a school building in what was then Deichstraße, which was to serve as both a religious and a (public) elementary school. Before that, the pupils* had been taught in a house in Kirchstraße since the 1840s/50s (cf. Beykirch 2006, 32f.). Until its closure, four teachers (Lasser Abt, Ignaz Popper, Hermann Spier and Seligmann Hirschberg) taught successively at the Jewish School Leer. After the November pogroms of November 9-10, 1938, when the synagogue in Leer was demolished, the Jewish population was rounded up in the slaughterhouse or cattle stables, and the Jewish men were deported to Oldenburg on November 11 and from there to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp (cf. Hensmann 2001, 248f.), the school building was also used for the Jewish community's religious services (cf. Beykirch 2006, 118). In June 1939, the school building had to be forcibly sold to the city of Leer due to a lack of entertainment facilities (cf. Beykirch 2006, 120). From 1945 on, the building changed hands many times. Until the purchase by the city of Leer in 2011, a veterinary practice was located in the former school building. In September 2013, the meeting and memorial site "Ehemalige Jüdische Schule Leer" (Former Jewish School Leer) was inaugurated, which is primarily dedicated to the memory of the Jewish population of the Leer district and as an extracurricular place of learning is dedicated to the communication of Jewish local history. In addition, changing special exhibitions are shown and events are organized on both past and current Jewish life.