former Jewish community center Ohestraße

The teacher training seminar in the front house ceased in the economic crisis of the early 1920s  its activity, successor became the Jüdische Gemeinde Hannover with religious school, community offices and apartments, as well as facilities of the Jüdische Wohlfahrtspflege. The kindergarten remained in the garden house. In 1940, the only remaining school for Jewish children in the city was forcibly housed in the buildings of the Ohestra&szlig. It closed as early as September 1941 – before the deportations, its rooms became the Jewish House for about 200 of the 1600 Jews still living in Hanover. From 1942, they were used to house prisoners of war.

After the liberation of Hanover, the Allies registered tens of thousands of foreigners as Displaced Persons (Dps). The Jewish DP community in Hanover was, after Bergen-Belsen, the largest in the British zone, with at times over 1200 members. Polish survivors of the Shoa in particular organized themselves as a Jewish committee in the former Ohestra&szlig community center, a center of (East) Jewish life with apartments, vocational training, utilities, a synagogue and cultural activities.

After the emigration of most of the survivors, the buildings were taken over by the city of Hanover in 1949 and demolished in 1970 in favor of a vocational school center. Today, only a monument and stumbling blocks commemorate the rich Jewish history of the site.