Dr. Isidor Caro

Isidor Caro grew up in Znin, Poznan in a traditional scholarly family that could trace its lineage back to the 15th century to Joseph Caro (1488-1575). He attended the Gymnasium in Gniezno and subsequently studied in Giessen and Berlin. For religious reasons, he transferred from the University of Berlin (now Humboldt University) to the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums (HWJ) and completed his education in 1905 with a rabbinical diploma. It was also in Berlin that he met his future wife Klara Beermann.

Afterwards, Isidor Caro earned a doctorate in philosophy and history at the University of Giessen. The title of the thesis was "The relations of Henry IV with the Roman Curia during the years 1190-1197".

In 1909 he moved to Cologne, where he was offered the post of rabbi of the Jewish community.

The Caro s couple moved into a floor in a large Gründerzeit house at Ehrenfeldgürtel 171 in Cologne in 1909 . In addition to his duties as rabbi and preacher, he taught as a religion teacher at the Kreuzgasse Gymnasium. Caro also devoted himself intensively to the pastoral care of Jewish prisoners in Cologne and the surrounding area. During the First World War he was a prisoner chaplain, an activity he continued after the war. Caro was active in various clubs and associations for liberal Judaism. In 1912 he was a co-signatory of the "Guidelines for a Program for Liberal Judaism," in 1913 a board member of the "Association for Jewish History and Literature," from 1914 chairman of the Rhenish Westphalian Rabbinical Association and a member of the board of trustees of the "Jawne" as well as the Rhineland Lodge in Cologne's Cäcilienstrasse.

He was liberal-minded and, moreover, a convinced Zionist. In 1933 he professed his belief in the ideas of Theodor Herzl. In his work as a rabbi, he pleaded for a stronger return to Judaism and its religious teachings. Within the community, he placed particular emphasis on Jewish communal consciousness and the Jewish will for self-assertion.

On the occasion of the Caros' 25 years of activity in the synagogue community of Cologne, the anniversary of Klara Caro's voluntary work and their silver wedding anniversary, the community presented the couple with a gift of a trip to Palestine in 1934. The community bulletin (number 13, 1934) devoted a long article to Isidor Caro under the inscription "Triple Jubilee in Rabbi Caro's House".

Isidor and Klara Caro started the journey to Palestine in 1935, but returned to the community in Cologne afterwards. They missed further opportunities to emigrate to Cuba or Great Britain, so that they could continue to be there for the community.

Even under the repressions of the National Socialists, Caro continued to care for the pastoral care of Jewish people in need of help. For example, after the November pogroms in 1938, he managed to gain access from the Gestapo to those arrested in Brauweiler. Most of the other rabbis were already imprisoned at that time. He was not arrested.

In 1941, however, the situation for Mr. and Mrs. Caro deteriorated drastically. They had to leave their apartment at Ehrenfeldgürtel and move with 13 other people into the rabbi's apartment in the rear building of the synagogue at Roonstraße 50.

The following year the first transport of Jewish citizens of Cologne to Theresienstadt was called. Mr. and Mrs. Caro volunteered to accompany the members of their community. The deportation took place on June 15, 1942.

In the Theresienstadt ghetto, Isidor Caro continued to devote himself to the pastoral care of his parish, offering people support and comfort. On August 28, 1943, he died of malnutrition. Because of his outstanding dedication to the imprisoned, the Council of Elders granted him a special burial. Isidor Caro was given a solitary burial, for the purpose of which an urn was carpentered and decorated.

In order to hide the traces of the Shoah, the Nazis ordered the sinking of all urns in the Elbe River in October 1944 - Caro's urn was also sunk.

The self-sacrifice and devotion to duty of Isidor Caro, the last acting rabbi in Cologne during the Nazi era, are unforgotten to this day and testify to his personal resistance to the Nazi regime.

After the war, Caro was honored by the newly formed Jewish community. First, the new community rabbi Dr. Asaria prayed the prayer for the dead together with the Jewish community on Sabbath, July 03, 1954. The following day, community members, representatives of the city and government authorities, board and representation of the community, representatives of Christian denominations, guests from Germany and abroad, the press, as well as his wife Klara Caro gathered at the Jewish Cemetery Bocklemünd to honor Isidor Caro.

A memorial plaque to him was unveiled at the cemetery. In addition, the Isidor Caro Street in Cologne-Stammheim, named after him, commemorates the rabbi, as well as two Stolpersteine at the Kreuzgasse high school and in front of his former residence at Ehrenfeldgürtel 171.