City walk Cologne

"All city councils We permit by general law to appoint Jews to the curia." (Edict of Emperor Constantine, 321 n.)
Under Cologne's town hall forecourt, west of the old Judengasse, lay buried the beginnings of Jewish life in the city. In the future, the Jewish Museum MiQua is to be located there. Still being built ...

At Cologne's "Jüddejas", on the east side of the new Augustusplatz, this walk is to begin. Here was already in Roman times (before 321) a separate Jewish quarter, but after the expulsion of the medieval community (1424) was built over. It would almost have disappeared from the memory of the city if the archaeologist Otto Doppelfeld had not unearthed surprising finds under the rubble of the Second World War in 1953-57: first two gravestones (14th century) and a coin hoard (1349), then the remains of a synagogue (after 1000) and a mikvah (before 800). Further excavations followed after 1990 and 2010. Today, Cologne's Archaeological Quarter can locate an entire city quarter, including its own hospital, wedding and teaching house. Before the traumatic plague pogrom of August 23/24, 1349 (Cologne's Bartholomew's Night), up to 800 people lived here - a center of Jewish life and scholarship in Europe. In 1372 at the latest, there is evidence of a community again, but it was only tolerated in Cologne until 1424 under stricter Jewish regulations (1404). Now - after long inner-city squabbles - the Jewish Museum MiQua wants to connect to this buried history above and below ground. In 2018, the foundation stone was laid, the opening is planned for 2024... At the town hall next door, the first stumbling block laid by Gunter Demnig in 1992 will then also be accessible again.

"Wagoner's son and department store king"
Since 1891, the department store of Leonhard Tietz in Hohe Straße was one of the most popular shopping addresses in Cologne - since 2019, a stumbling stone commemorates the early escape of the family in 1933.

About the street Obenmarspforten you get to Cologne's pedestrian zone along Hohe Straße / Schildergasse - until today the shopping district in the old town. Since the middle of the 19th century, many Jewish companies were also located here, and they played a major role in shaping the cityscape. Among them was the department store of Leonhard Tietz (1849-1914) and his wife Flora née Baumann (1855-1943). They had opened their first textile store in Stralsund in 1879, and in Elberfeld (Wuppertal) in 1882. Thanks to an innovative business model, the company expanded steadily. In 1891, it opened a branch in Cologne at Hohe Strasse 23-25, and in 1895 the new flagship store opened at Hohe Strasse 45. Tietz had his department store extended and remodeled twice more - in a more modern, larger and more splendid style than ever before: in 1902/03 with the Tietz Passage in Art Nouveau style, and in 1912-14 in its present form according to plans by the architect Wilhelm Kreis. Under the management of his son Alfred Leonhard Tietz (1883-1941), Leonhard Tietz AG last employed around 15,000 people at 43 locations - until the company was completely "Aryanized" in 1933/34. The family, which had supported numerous charitable institutions of the synagogue community and the city of Cologne, fled to Amsterdam and in 1940 on to Palestine. Only since March 2019, a stumbling stone in front of today's GALERIA Kaufhof in Gürzenichstraße commemorates their history. A few steps along Antoniterstraße is a second, but completely "disappeared" place: In the house Cäcilienstraße 18-22, where in 2005 the Nord-Süd-Fahrt was built over with the Weltstadthaus was since 1902 the home of the Jewish-liberal Rheinland-Loge (founded in 1888) - with a large ballroom for club, cultural and community activities as well as its own synagogue room (1935). In 1941/42, one of the largest "ghetto houses" in Cologne was established here ... A reference is missing until today.

"... to lift us up through the enjoyment of artistic things in times that bend us down so deeply in soul ..." (Dr. Paul Moses, Mitteilungen des JKRR, Jhg. I / No. 1, November 1933)
The Disch House (1928-30) is considered one of the outstanding examples of New Building in Cologne. That the Jewish Cultural Association Rhine-Ruhr also had its headquarters here from 1933-38 is less well known ...

About the Herzogstraße one arrives, direction north, to the Brückenstraße. On the right side surprises a striking corner building: the Disch House, also Cologne's office machine called. It was built in 1928-30 according to plans by the Berlin architect Bruno Paul (1874-1968) in the New Objectivity style. The name goes back to the Hotel Disch that the Cologne art collector Franz Karl Damian Disch (1821-80) had built here in 1848. When the operating company went bankrupt in 1928/29, the city acquired the hotel and had it demolished. From February 1930, the new office and commercial building was also occupied by a number of Jewish tenants, including - from the end of 1933 to the beginning of 1938 - the Jüdischer Kulturbund Rhein-Ruhr (JKRR). After thousands of Jewish cultural workers had already been excluded from the state cultural sector since April 1933, the Kulturbund Deutscher Juden (Cultural Association of German Jews), founded in July 1933 under the leadership of Kurt Singer (1885-1944) as a self-help organization in Berlin, first tried to give them a new professional and artistic perspective. Numerous regional offshoots followed. The initiative to found the JKRR in the fall of 1933 came from the Cologne Central Office for Jewish Economic Aid. The first chairman was Dr. Paul Moses, and from November 1933 a separate newsletter was published. With almost 200 permanent employees, the JKRR thus became the largest Jewish employer in the region. In 1935 it had a good 5,000 members. The theater ensemble, which was unique in Germany, enjoyed particular popularity and also made guest appearances in other cities. All the diverse activities of the JKRR were coordinated from the Disch-Haus however, at the beginning of 1938, under pressure from the city, it had to move to Ehrenstraße 80-82 - until the November pogrom. After that, all regional cultural associations were dissolved, and in 1941 the headquarters in Berlin were dissolved as well. The Disch-Haus was severely damaged during World War II and was not thoroughly renovated until 1983/84 and most recently in 2008. Today, there is nothing left to remind us of its Jewish tenants ...

"For behold, darkness covers the earth and clouds gloom over the peoples ..." (Isaiah 60:2)
In the Glockengasse 7 stood since 1861 Cologne's first modern synagogue - until the November pogrom in 1938. The foundations are buried to this day under the street crossing at Offenbachplatz.

From the Disch House it is only a few steps along Glockengasse to the major street intersection at Offenbachplatz. From 1957 had been cut here for the north-south drive a swath through the rubble of Cologne's old town. Until 1943, the former Oppenheim-Palais stood on the left side, in today's crossing area. Right next to it, in the direction of the Opera, was the site of Cologne's first modern synagogue. It was not until 1798 - under French rule - that Jewish families were again allowed to settle in Cologne on the left bank of the Rhine, among them the young banker Salomon Oppenheim (1772-1828). He was also one of the founding members of the new Cologne community on October 12, 1801. A prayer house including a mikvah was established in the old Poor Clares convent of St. Mary in the Temple (1614-1802) here in Glockengasse. The congregation grew, soon the 120 seats were no longer sufficient, and the dilapidated building was closed in 1854. Thanks to a donation by Abraham Oppenheim (1804-78), one of the first and most beautiful synagogues in Germany in the neo-Islamic (Moorish) style was inaugurated on the same site on August 29, 1861. The architect was the Cologne cathedral master builder Ernst Friedrich Zwirner. The gleaming dome, complete with Star of David, rose proudly 46 meters into the air. The light interior was modeled on the Alhambra of Granada. There was room for 226 men and 140 women (on three galleries). The bima stood - quite traditionally - in the center, the marble Torah shrine (with a quotation from Isaiah 60:2-3) on the east wall. After the construction of the synagogues Sankt-Apern-Straße (orthodox) and Roonstraße (liberal), the minyan in Glockengasse, supervised since 1906 by Rabbi Dr. Ludwig Rosenthal (1870-1938), developed into the center of conservative Cologne Jewry. The celebrations of the 75th anniversary (1936) were followed by the pogrom of November 9/10, 1938: at 4 a.m. the synagogue was stormed, vandalized, looted and finally burned down. Only the Torah scroll was saved. Beginning in February 1939, the Cologne District President pressed for clearing and "Aryanization" of the property. The archbishopric refused to buy it several times. After the bombing of June 29, 1943, the city acquired the site. It was not until 1968 that a memorial plaque on the north side of the opera house was again to commemorate the synagogue - in the wrong place. Its remains lie buried under the pavement further east to this day. A virtual reconstruction by the Department of Architecture at the TU Darmstadt can also be seen at the Jewish Museum Berlin...

"... remained only the old chestnut tree, which stood in the schoolyard." (Elfi Pracht-Jörns, 2007)
In the St.-Apern-Straße 29/31 was from 1884-1942 the community and school center of the Orthodox "Adass Yeshurun" - a center of Jewish life and learning. Cologne had a hard time with the memory ...

From the Glockengasse one reaches - via Breite Straße, Auf dem Berlich and Helenenstraße - the St.-Apern-Straße. It once marked the northwestern boundary of the Roman Colonia Agrippina, after 1850 found here a dignified residential and business district. And just where today Helenenstrasse continues westward, the Israelite Religious Society Adass Yeshurun (founded in 1876) was able to inaugurate its new community and school center on January 16, 1884. As early as 1863, the Orthodox members of the greater Cologne community had organized themselves as a separate minyan. When the Orthodox teachers' seminary (founded in Düsseldorf in 1867) moved to Cologne in 1876, Rabbi Dr. Hirsch Plato (1822-1910) also took over the leadership of the separate congregation. It found a new home at St.-Apern-Straße 29/31: the synagogue, a brick building in Moorish style, had room for about 160 men and 80 women, the mikvah was in the basement, the seminary & school building in the backyard. On the initiative of Rabbi Dr. Emanuel Carlebach (1874-1927), the training school was expanded in 1907 to become the private elementary school Morijah - followed in 1919 by the Jewish Reform Real High School Jawne - the first and only one in the Rhineland. After 1929, under the direction of Dr. Erich Klibansky (1900-42), it enjoyed increasing popularity. Up to 423 Jewish students (1937) found refuge here. More than 130 were able to leave by Kindertransport to England until July 1939. The synagogue was completely destroyed inside in the November pogrom of 1938, but not set on fire. In mid-1941, the building complex was converted into one of the largest "ghetto houses" in Cologne. Klibansky, his family and his last students were deported to the vicinity of Minsk on July 20, 1942 and murdered. The property fell to the city in 1943 - shortly before the bombing of the old town. In 1958 the ruins were cleared ... For a long time only an old chestnut tree reminded of the former schoolyard. It was only thanks to the commitment of Dieter and Irene Corbach that Erich-Klibansky-Platz was created here in 1990, followed by the Löwenbrunnen memorial in 1997 and finally the Jawne Learning and Memorial Site in 2007. On St.-Apern-Straße, a bronze plaque commemorates Adass Jeschurun, while the Stolpersteine commemorate three of the countless victims. At their deportation in 1942, they were between 1 and 74 years old ...

"Save Thy people, that they die not!" (Max I. Bodenheimer, poem "A Vision", 1891)
Richmodstrasse 6 was home to the family of Rosa and Max Bodenheimer from 1899. She was involved in the women's rights movement, he in the World Zionist Organization. Both died in Jerusalem.

"I talked about Zionism, and Fräulein Dalberg turned out to be a women's rights activist. Both ideals sprang from the same feeling for justice and the same urge for freedom." This is how Justice Councilor Dr. Max Isidor Bodenheimer (1856-1940) recalled his first meeting with his wife Rosa, née Dalberg (1876-1938). In 1890, the lawyer had come to Cologne, where he met the merchant David Wolffsohn (1856-1914). He, too, was close to the young Chibbat Zion movement, which, in the face of growing anti-Semitism, advocated a Jewish nation-state in Palestine. In Cologne Jewry this idea met with little approval, and so the founding of the National Jewish Association for Germany (1894) was initially not very successful. Only through Wolffsohn's and Bodenheimer's commitment to the World Zionist Organization (1897) did Cologne become - until 1911 - the international center of the Zionist movement. Bodenheimer's wife Rosa also supported their goals, but made a name for herself in Cologne more as a fellow campaigner in, among others, the General German Women's Association (1903). After their marriage (1896), the young family had moved from Hohenzollernring 18 to their own house at Richmodstrasse 6 in 1899, which now became the hub of their activities for both of them. After Bodenheimer broke with the new Zionist leadership in 1921/22, he last appeared in 1928 as organizer of the Jewish Special Show at the Pressa International Press Exhibition in Cologne. In April 1933 the family had to flee to Amsterdam, followed by emigration to Palestine in 1935. Rosa died in Jerusalem in 1938, Max in 1940. His autobiography Thus Became Israel was published only in 1958 by his daughter Henriette. Cologne honored Bodenheimer in 1992 with a statue on the city hall tower. The memorial plaque in Richmodstraße had to be mounted on the sidewalk in 1989 - due to the refusal of the house owner ...

"We prayed there, we played in the courtyard, we celebrated Shabbat there..." (Karl David Ziegellaub, 1993)
In Bayardsgasse 26 was until 1941 the backyard synagogue of the Sadagerer Hasidim, in the front building a grocery store and a whorehouse. In 1945, the old world of the Griechenmarktviertel lay in ruins. 

From Richmodstrasse it is only a few steps - across Neumarkt - to Thieboldsgasse. Until 1942, it was still possible to immerse oneself here in the submerged world of Cologne s Greek market district. The alleys south of Cäcilienstraße were considered a "poor people's area," the KPD and SPD were at home here. Between low-rise tenement buildings, there were various grocery and old goods stores, as well as small craft businesses and sometimes a doctor's office. Around 1925, about 20,000 people lived here, among them many Eastern European Jewish families who had immigrated since the end of the 19th century or - on their way to the USA - had simply stayed in the city. After 1918, there were about 16,000 Jewish residents in Cologne, a good quarter of them from Eastern Europe, mostly without German passports. The older ones spoke Yiddish, the younger ones grew up speaking High German and Kölsch. The Ziegellaub family was one of them. Around 1924, they ran a shoe store at Thieboldsgasse 102 (now corner of Bayardsgasse 5). Nine Stolpersteine have been commemorating the whole family since 2017. (The children Karl and Paula managed to escape to Palestine in 1935.) Father Moritz (Moses) belonged to the Chewras Machsike Torah (Hebrew: "Society of Those Who Hold to the Torah"), an Orthodox grouping based on the Hasidic "miracle rabbi" in Sadagóra (Bukovina), Israel Friedmann von Ruschyn (1797-1850). The synagogue - the largest in the neighborhood - was located just around the corner in the rear building at Bayardsgasse 26 since about 1914: there was room for about 140 men, the women could listen from the gallery on the second floor, the mikvah was in the basement. On the second floor, the Zionist-Orthodox youth association Ha-Po'el ha-Misrachi had set up another prayer room. In the front building, the Appermann family sold kosher groceries, and to the right of the hallway was a brothel ...

In the November pogrom of 1938, the synagogue remained undamaged - already shortly before, many community members had been deported as part of the "Polish Action". In 1941, the house was sold. In 1944/45, a last bloody battle raged in the ruins of the quarter between individual resistance groups and the Sonderkommandos of the GeStaPo. Today, the open space to the right of Bayardsgasse 4 gives no hint of its lively Eastern Jewish past.

"To all Front Comrades and Germans!"
On April 1, 1933, former front-line fighter Richard Stern distributed a leaflet in front of his Cologne bedding house, Marsilstein 20, that was to make history. Printed it had his brother-in-law next door.

About Bobstraße and Mauritiussteinweg one reaches the Marsilstein. After the Second World War, the entire street here lay in ruins: Only on the south side (odd count) some old buildings have survived, on the north side dominates today - on the whole length - a six-story new building. At its end, approximately opposite No. 21, the bedding store Stern, Marsilstein 20, was located until the end of 1938. Around 1920, the merchant Markus Stern (1861-1928) had moved his specialty store for bedding and upholstery from Sternengasse to this location. Already in 1907 the whole family had moved from Weilerswist to Cologne. After attending the Jewish elementary school Lützowstraße, the youngest son, Richard Stern (1899-1967), began a commercial apprenticeship, but was drafted to the Eastern Front in 1917 (at "barely 18 years of age") as a machine gunner. Only in 1919 - decorated with the Iron Cross II Class - did he return and now joined his father's business. In 1928 he took it over completely. Around 1930, his sister Thekla and her family moved into the neighboring house at Marsilstein 18, where she and her (non-Jewish) husband Heinz Flögerhöver ran an office supplies store and print store. At the end of March 1933, Richard Stern, a member of the "Reichsbund jüdischer Frontsoldaten" (founded in 1919), decided to take a courageous step: When the press and radio called for a nationwide boycott of Jewish businesses on April 1, 1933, he drafted a flyer "To all Front Comrades and Germans!", had it printed by his brother-in-law next door and distributed it in front of his house - with an Iron Cross on his lapel, right next to an SA post. Heinz Flögerhöver photographed from the side. As an example of self-confident civil courage, both flyer and picture made history ... Stern was arrested, but was released the same day. His sales were now also declining. He switched to emigration supplies and moved to the second floor - until the store and apartment were devastated in the November pogrom of 1938. He only narrowly escaped arrest. In May 1939, he managed to emigrate to New York - only to return to Europe as a US soldier as early as 1942. In the summer of 1945, Sergeant Richard F. Stern saw the destroyed Cologne again. 53 of his family members had been deported and murdered. In 1967 he died as an independent merchant in Allentown (Pennsylvania).

"... from now on, this house will become a household name in the synagogue community." (Karl Kaiser-Blüth, 1930)
The welfare office Rubensstraße 33 belonged until 1942 to perhaps the most important addresses in Jewish Cologne. Who needed advice or help, came here. Today you have to look for its traces.

From the Marsilstein, one reaches the house Rubensstraße 33 via Schaafenstraße and Balduinstraße. Today, the Hotel Leonet can be found there: on the right, a new building with a courtyard passage (No. 35), on the left, the old building from 1892 (No. 33). On the facade, to the right of the four windows on the first floor, one can still guess the gate that led to the rear building. A look into the renovated inner courtyard is worthwhile. Until 1942, countless people came and went here day after day - looking for help and advice from the welfare office of the synagogue community and other charitable institutions. Already since 1902, the Israelitischer Unterstützungsverein under Bernhard Feilchenfeld had attempted to bundle the Jewish offers of help in Cologne. Some were located in Rubensstrasse from 1912. When in 1929 the textile entrepreneur Karl Kaiser-Blüth (1868-1944) took over the management of the Welfare Office, he purchased the house for the community in 1930 and had the architect Robert Stern develop it into a Welfare Center . From 1934, he was assisted by the women's rights activist Ida Auerbach-Kohn (1869-1942). The more Jewish life in Cologne was now constricted and cut off, the more urgent became the work of the contact points gathered in the house: According to the Yearbook of the Cologne Synagogue Community (1934), these were - in addition to the Welfare Office - the Youth Office, the People's and Middle Classes' Kitchen, the Clothes Closet, the Employment or Until the emigration ban in 1941, the Cologne branch of the German Palestine Office (founded in Berlin in 1924) was also based here. In the November pogrom of 1938, the building was damaged, but could continue to be used, additionally now for medical consultations. In 1941, the GeStaPo ordered its conversion into a "ghetto house". After the deportations began in June 1942, the municipal administration also had its headquarters here for a short time - then the Cologne police confiscated the house. In 1943 it passed to the Reich Treasury, but was restituted after 1945. In front of today's hotel, only twelve Stolpersteine commemorate this Jewish place, once so hopeful for many.

From Cologne to Jerusalem
. Since Dr. David Carlebach's appointment as rabbi of the Adass Yeshurun 1929, his apartment at Beethovenstraße 6 was considered the center of Orthodox learning in Cologne - until his emigration to Palestine in 1938/39.

Along Rubensstrasse, heading west, you reach Hohenstaufenring. This is the beginning of Cologne's New Town, which was only created after the demolition of the medieval city wall (from 1881). With the construction of the synagogue on Roonstraße (1899), a large part of the community's life moved to the new residential area. A few steps to the south, at the junction of Mozartstrasse and Beethovenstrasse, there has been Yitzhak Rabin Square since 1996 - in memory of the Israeli prime minister who fell victim to an extremist assassination attempt in Tel Aviv, Cologne's twin city, in 1995. Once before, in 1923, Rathenauplatz (previously Königsplatz) in Cologne had been named after a murdered Jewish politician. Walther Rathenau died in Berlin in June 1922, and Rabin was born in Jerusalem in March. Today, both squares are connected - only a few hundred meters apart - by Beethovenstrasse. Since the construction of the spacious town houses in the 1890s, Jewish families also lived here until the Nazi era. The Carlebachs were among them. In 1929 Dr. David Carlebach (1899-1951), in succession to his father Emanuel, was appointed rabbi of the Adass Yeshurun. The family lived on the third floor of Beethovenstrasse 6. In addition to his teaching activities at the Yavne and teachers' seminary, Carlebach also gave private Talmud or religious lessons (for both men and women), and so the apartment soon developed into a center of Jewish Orthodox life and learning in Cologne. Next door, at Beethovenstraße 16, was the house of the van Cleef family, from which Carlebach's wife Sara (1896-1977) came. Around 1937, when the Carlebachs were already planning to emigrate to Palestine, they moved in there briefly. In November 1938, the father was already in Jerusalem, and his wife and children were able to join him in early 1939. In May 1941, Beethovenstraße 16 (as well as No. 2, 3, 8 and 27) was declared a "ghetto house" - in January 1943, its last residents* were deported.

"Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit..." (Zechariah 4:6)
From 1899 to 1938, the imposing main synagogue on Roonstraße was the center of liberal Cologne Jewry. Its reconstruction in 1959 marked a new presence of Jewish life in the city - until today.

From Beethovenstraße it is only a few steps to Rathenauplatz (until 1923 Königsplatz). There, at today's Roonstraße 50, the Jewish community had acquired a plot of land in 1893/94: The construction of a second main synagogue in the Neustadt was urgently needed, because around 1890 Cologne already had 7,000 Jewish inhabitants, and the space in Glockengasse was too limited. The Cologne Reading Society served as an alternative location. In 1895, according to plans by the architectural firm Schreiterer & Below, the cornerstone was laid for what is still Cologne's largest synagogue: an imposing domed building in the neo-Romanesque style, with a large rose window and a red and green roof. The entrance led through a three-arched vestibule from the southwest into the ornately painted interior. There was room for 800 men, and 600 women including choir and children in the gallery. The Torah shrine faced east, directly in front of it - following the liberal rite - the reading desk. On March 22, 1899, Rabbi Dr. Abraham Frank (1839-1917) was able to inaugurate the new synagogue together with various community facilities and religious school. With the installation of the organ in 1904/06, the "Adass Yeshurun" finally split off, and so the "Temple" on Königsplatz, from 1918 under the leadership of Rabbi Dr. Adolf Kober (1879-1958), became the center of the reform-oriented majority of the Cologne community. Until the November pogrom in 1938: hatred and violence were unleashed with all their force. Devastated and plundered, the synagogue was finally set on fire, and the entire building complex was declared a "ghetto house" in 1941. From here, Dr. Isidor Caro (1877-1943), Cologne's last rabbi, was also deported in 1942 - shortly afterwards the first bombs fell... In the ruins of the synagogue, a small group of about 80 survivors celebrated their first service on April 29, 1945, but it took another decade until the new congregation decided to rebuild in 1954 - with the support of Konrad Adenauer. According to plans by Helmut Goldschmidt (1918-2005), the exterior was restored almost unchanged. Inside, he inserted a false ceiling: a community hall below, a simple synagogue room above. In addition to the rabbinate, religious school and community administration, the building also housed a mikvah, kindergarten, youth center and kosher restaurant. Shortly after its inauguration on September 20, 1959, the desecration of the synagogue caused an international sensation - and so it always remained a symbol of the new presence as well as fragility of Jewish life in the post-war period. It was only after 1990, with immigration from Eastern Europe, that the number of congregation members increased from about 1,300 to over 5,000 [2011]. Finally, a second location was created in 2003/04 with the "Jewish Welfare Center" in Ehrenfeld.

"When children go, and a world goes out..."

In the Cologne Lützowstraße was until 1938 the municipal Israelite elementary school at home, until 1941 also the Israelite children's home including synagogue. Its history lay buried under ruins for a long time...
The last stop of this city walk leads to an (almost) forgotten place: to Lützowstraße, only a few minutes walk from the Roonstraße Synagogue. Coming from the north, on the left is the renovated school building Lützowstraße 8-10, today part of the municipal "Berufskolleg an der Lindenstraße". The fact that until 1938 the largest public Jewish elementary school in Germany was located here, where up to 950 students from Cologne and the surrounding area came and went every day, can hardly be guessed - if it weren't for a bronze memorial plaque from 1987. Layer by layer, Dieter and Irene Corbach had uncovered the buried history of the "Städtische Israelitische Volksschule", and both of them also gave the impetus for naming it "Rektor-Kahn-Haus" - in honor of the former principal Emil Kahn (1885-1942). In 1870, the former religious school of the synagogue community was taken over by the city, and from 1874 it was housed in a new building at Schildergasse 82, after 1909 at different locations. The school building on Lützowstrasse, erected in 1913/14, was initially used as a war hospital, so that the eight-class elementary school could not move in until 1917 or 1922. Although German-liberal in orientation, it now also became attractive for children from Eastern Jewish families. In 1933, they made up half of the 800 or so students. Under Nazi rule, the influx continued - more than ever, the school became a place of refuge. Since 1922, it had been working closely with the "Israelite Children's Home", which had been built in 1907-09 at Lützowstraße 35/37 - diagonally across the street. In 1919/20, a synagogue was added in the courtyard area, and the neighboring house 39 was purchased. After 1933, the elementary school and the children's home endeavored to prepare the children for emigration: with intensive English and Hebrew lessons and their own household and crafts school. - As early as mid-1938, the elementary school was forcibly relocated to the southern part of the Old Town, merged with the "Morijah" and "Jawne" schools in 1939, and dissolved in 1942. The children's home and synagogue survived the November 1938 pogrom, but were confiscated in March 1941. The remaining children were deported from the "ghetto house" on Cäcilienstraße to Minsk in 1942... Their former home perished in the rubble of war - and with it the memory. Only the school building remained.

"... so that the peace and reverence of their cemetery is not too close." (Cologne "Judenprivileg" of Archbishop Engelbert II, 1266)
. Only in 1922, the medieval Jewish cemetery at the "Judenbüchel" in Raderberg was rediscovered. In 1936, the city had him expropriated and built over with the wholesale market. The dead rest in Bocklemünd.

Who has time and desire, may also still explore the various Jewish cemeteries of Cologne. The oldest, dating from the 12th century (perhaps as early as Roman times), was located in front of the Severin Gate, south of the medieval city, on archbishop's territory. Although recorded on historical maps as "Judenbüchel" or "Am Toten Juden" west of Bonner Straße, the exact location of the cemetery was unknown for a long time. It was not until 1922, during construction work on the Bonntor freight station, that the old graves were discovered, southwest of what was then Bischofsweg / Raderberger Straße - including the bones of an execution site that had been located right next to it since 1163. First mentioned in 1146, the cemetery was extended in 1174. The annual rent of four denarii was paid to the Cologne monastery of St. Severin. In the "Judenprivileg" of 1266, Archbishop Engelbert II had guaranteed the undisturbed use of the cemetery, but Wilhelm von Gennep had it destroyed in the plague pogrom of 1349 and several gravestones in Cologne, Lechenich and Hülchrath were buried. From 1372 the area could be used again, after the final expulsion in 1424 the dead from Deutz and Mülheim on the right bank of the Rhine found their final resting place here. After the construction of the Deutz cemetery (1695/99), the "Judenbüchel" was built over. The place was now associated in Cologne with all kinds of festivals and - until around 1900 - dance halls. The popular Willi Ostermann song "Am dude Jüdd" (1907) bears witness to this. After rediscovery in 1922, the synagogue community was able to erect a memorial hall on a small part of the site in 1928 - but at the same time had to defend itself against various building projects of the city and the first desecrations. In 1936, under National Socialist rule, the cemetery was finally expropriated and built over with the Grossmarkthalle (1936-40). The graves were moved to Cologne-Bocklemünd, where on August 29, 1937, the "Lapidarium" with 58 gravestone fragments could also be inaugurated. On site, at the access road via Sechtemer Straße, today there is only an information board of the "Kulturpfad Rodenkirchen".

House of Eternity

The oldest preserved Jewish cemetery on Cologne city territory is located on the right bank of the Rhine: since 1698, the dead of the surrounding communities were buried at the Deutzer Judenkirchhofsweg, and from 1801 also from Cologne.

No more than three kilometers as the crow flies from the old "Judenbüchel" is the Jewish Cemetery Cologne-Deutz. Here, on the right bank of the Rhine, some of the families expelled from Cologne in 1424 had settled under the protection of the archbishop, and until around 1580 Deutz was even the seat of the regional rabbinate - but the dead still had to be buried "on the side of Cologne". The crossing was dangerous, especially in winter. In 1693, the Deutz community therefore turned to Archbishop Joseph Clemens of Bavaria, who leased them a piece of land "near the mill on the Sandkaule" in 1695. In August 1698, the first burial could take place there. The "Judenbüchel" had to be handed over to the archbishop in 1700. From then on, the dead from Mülheim (before 1774), Cologne (from 1801) and Ehrenfeld (until 1899) also found their final resting place in Deutz - a district of Cologne since 1888. Already around 1850, the space became cramped. At the same time, in 1855, the Prussian military laid out a "Friedenspulvermagazin" to the north, which was converted into the lunette "Am Judenfriedhof" in 1859-64. Thus the old area could be extended to the southeast in 1859 and enclosed (the Cologne municipality now also took over the administration), but the gravestones had to be relocated from 1859-82 - since they were oriented to the northeast, in the direction of the fortifications - in order to give the military a free field of fire to the south! While negotiations with the city of Cologne for a new cemetery on the left side of the Rhine dragged on, two more extensions were necessary in Deutz in 1875 and 1895/96. A guard's house was erected in 1887. Only after the opening of the burial grounds in Ehrenfeld (1899), Deckstein (1910) and Bocklemünd (1918) was the Deutz cemetery officially closed in 1918 - burials still took place until 1941. In 1928 it became the sole property of the Cologne synagogue community. While the area survived the Nazi period almost unscathed, it was the target of right-wing extremist desecrations several times after 1945 (1964, 1983 and 1996). Since 1989, the Jewish Cemetery Cologne-Deutz has been under monument protection and has been documented several times since then. Of the approximately 5,500 graves, more than 3,350 have survived - including many well-known Cologne names such as the Oppenheim and Offenbach families, or Zionist figures such as Moses Hess and David Wolffsohn. Even "forgotten" stories can be found here, such as that of Adolf Buschhoff (1841-1912), who was the victim of the Xanten "ritual murder" accusation in 1891/92. Very much more can also tell Erich Reichart, which cares since 1998 in cooperation with the BUND for the horticultural care of the approx. 18,000 square meter large area - today a designated nature reserve.

"The righteous will live in his faith." (Habakkuk 2:4)

The Jewish Cemetery Cologne-Bocklemünd was inaugurated in 1918 - and serves the synagogue community as a burial ground to this day. Like no other, it reflects the fractures and catastrophes of the 20th century.

The Jewish Cemetery on Venloer Strasse in Cologne-Bocklemünd (now Vogelsang) was inaugurated on December 8, 1918. Plans had already existed since 1910, in connection with the construction of the Westfriedhof, but it was not until 1917 that the synagogue community acquired the five-hectare site east of Militärringstraße. According to designs by Karl Bing, a symmetrical, north-facing park was created, with space on the sides for monumental family graves. Accordingly, the cemetery regulations of 1918 caused a sensation, breaking with the old principle of equality of all in death. Like the Roonstraße Synagogue (1899), the new cemetery was intended to reflect the position and self-confidence of liberal Cologne Jewry. The neoclassical ensemble of buildings at the entrance, designed by the community architect Robert Stern, could only be inaugurated in May 1930: in the center - with Star of David and colorful interior - the mourning hall, which replaced a provisional wooden building; to the left, connected by colonnades, the tahara house for washing the corpses, to the right the residential and administrative wing including the nursery. From the main entrance (with Netilat Jadajim for ritual purification) the path leads directly to the oldest, often artistically designed graves in the southeast, including many well-known Cologne families from the time before the Shoah (corridors 1-10). The youngest graves for the community members, most of whom immigrated after 1990, are found in the northwest (corridors 28-38), adjacent to the Cemetery of Honor of the City of Cologne. The total number of gravesites around 1990 was about 2,800, today [2020] there are about 6,800. In between there are various memorial sites: At the northern end of Mittelallee the Cologne chapter of the "Reichsbund jüdischer Frontsoldaten" (RjF) inaugurated its monumental memorial "Unseren Gefallenen" (Our Fallen) on July 8, 1934 - at that time with 3,000 participants the largest Jewish demonstration in National Socialist Cologne. In 1938, after the destruction of the Roonstraße synagogue, the memorial plaque from 1924 was erected on the left with the names of the 230 fallen. In memory of the more than 11,000 Cologne victims of the Shoah, the synagogue community erected another memorial in the center of the cemetery in June 1948 - supplemented by an inscription for Dr. Isidor Caro (1877-1943), Cologne's last acting rabbi. In 1978, various religious objects - including the remains of 30 Torah scrolls - were recovered from the cemetery, which had been buried there after the November pogrom in 1938. At the burial site, a monument commemorating the destroyed Cologne synagogues has been in place since 1979. Its upper part - a 750 kg bronze sculpture with six Stars of David, menorah, wall remains and Torah scroll - was stolen in November 2010. Finally, further northwest, in corridor 26/27, is the "Lapidarium", erected in 1936/37 as a memorial hall for 58 gravestone fragments from the medieval "Judenbüchel". Thus the circle of history is closed in Bocklemünd - quasi as Cologne's youngest and at the same time oldest Jewish cemetery. The liberal community "Gescher LaMassoret", founded in Cologne-Riehl in 1996, uses a separate part on the western cemetery next door.

"They don't even want to be buried with us!" (quoted from A. Carlebach, 1984)
After leaving the synagogue community, the dead of the Orthodox "Adass Yeshurun" were buried in Cologne-Deckstein from 1910 to 1944/45. The cemetery is today hidden behind hedges and houses.

To conclude this walk through "Jewish Cologne", a trip to the Outer Green Belt to Deckstein (Lindenthal district) - before 1918 still part of the fortress area - is worthwhile: in 1910, the Orthodox secessionist community "Adass Jeschurun" (founded in 1876), with the permission of the military authorities, established its own cemetery there, hidden behind the small municipal cemetery (1869) on Decksteiner Straße. The inner-Jewish conflict had been smoldering for some time: after the consecration of the synagogue including the community and school center in St.-Apern-Strasse (1884), the Orthodox members still remained in the synagogue community, but there were disputes over questions of taxation and shechita, as well as over an organ for the Roonstrasse synagogue (1899). After its installation, the "Adass Yeshurun" finally split off in June 1906. What remained undecided was their demand for their own burial area at the Jewish Cemetery Cologne-Deutz - without "modernizations" such as flowers and wreaths, ash urns or classification according to the three-class tax system. With the support of the entrepreneur Isaac van Cleef, it was finally possible to acquire the plot (2,723 square meters) in Deckstein. It remained exclusively reserved for the "Adass Yeshurun" and members of other Orthodox communities in the Rhineland and Westphalia. A corresponding cemetery ordinance came into force in April 1911. The charity association "Chewrass Kothnauss Aur" took care of the care of the dying and burial. Right at the entrance (presumably in the area of today's residential buildings at Decksteiner Strasse 45-47) there was a wooden mourning hall with a separate mortuary (under its own roof). Thus, the Kohanim could also attend the mourning ceremonies - and the military could dismantle the wooden buildings in case of war! According to "egalitarian" Orthodox tradition, the graves were simple, mostly with Hebrew or a few German inscriptions, and oriented to the east. From the period of 1910-44/45 [according to another source: ca. 1965?] a total of 298 gravestones have survived. 71 graves had been damaged during a first desecration in July 1927, the alleged perpetrators - six members of the NSDAP - were never convicted. A second desecration is documented for 1933. After 1945 the cemetery of "Adass Yeshurun" remained closed, the unoccupied areas at the entrance were sold as building plots. Only at the grave of Therese Wallach (1895-1942), from 1924 head of the Israelite Orphanage Foundation at Aachener Straße 443 ("Abraham Frank House"), former pupils set a new stone in June 1987. Hidden behind houses and hedges, the cemetery, which is protected as a historic monument, is accessible today only by arrangement with the Cologne synagogue community. In the meantime, even its Orthodox members are buried in Bocklemünd - once unthinkable for the "Adass Yeshurun"...