Oberhausen

"In the community, which was only elevated to the status of a town in 1874, a Jewish community could only establish itself very late. At first, the 22 Jewish residents attended the synagogue in Mülheim, and it was not until 1899 that the synagogue in Friedensstrasse was inaugurated. Today a memorial plaque commemorates the destroyed synagogue. On November 9, 1938 the synagogue was burned down. In large parts of the population the act did not meet with approval. However, there was fear of reprisals controlled by the „Brown House“, the headquarters of the SA. It was not easy to express one's opinion, or at least there were risks involved. In 1933 there were about 600 Jews living in the town. They were integrated into life. In personal conversations with older residents, the department store Tietz was mentioned again and again, although the building had already been used as a department store in the 1930s, and later as a government building. Also the butcher Servos and the department stores Alsberg and Stern are älteren Bürgern geläufig. In the district of Holten there was a synagogue from 1858 in the Mechthildisstrasse. It was abandoned in 1927, the house was sold and used as a residential building until today. The orthodox eastern Jews had a large prayer house in the upper Marktstraß it was located in the yard of the Servos horse slaughterhouse, was preserved for a long time after the end of the war and was then rebuilt. From 1968 the Jews of Oberhausen, Mülheim and Oberhausen joined together to form a congregation  and built a synagogue in Duisburg s outer harbor. The community, mainly due to the influx of people from the east, comprises several thousand Jews."

Dr. Wolfgang Heumann, 2019