Synagogue Juttastraße (Vechta)

At the latest in the second half of the 18th century Jewish services were held in the city. In 1784 a synagogue is mentioned, whereby it was probably a prayer room in one of the Jewish houses. When in 1803 the Jews of Vechta had to pay homage to the new sovereign (Duke of Oldenburg), a Torah scroll was taken from the synagogue for this purpose. 
  
In 1825/26 a synagogue was built on the site of the demolished community servant's house at Klingenhagen (today Juttastrasse 4). It was a one-story building with a crippled hipped roof. 
 
Already around 1900, the number of Jewish inhabitants had decreased so much that the required minyan (ten men of religious age) could hardly be found for services. Nevertheless, services continued to be held according to a simplified rite; non-Jews were also gladly invited to the synagogue. The Jews of Vechta were considered deeply religious.
  
When after 1933 the number of Jewish residents was only small, the community decided to rebuild the synagogue building in 1935. The reason was that the former cattle dealer Max Marx, who was also a synagogue servant and who lived with his family with a Christian family for rent, the apartment had been canceled. Thereupon the synagogue building was rebuilt, an apartment was set up and a small prayer hall was redesigned behind it. The old Torah shrine was placed there, also the pulpit, the lectern, the prayer lectern and even a - more symbolic - women's gallery was installed. 

During the November pogrom of 1938, the synagogue building was desecrated and demolished. SA men entered the house on the night of November 10, 1938, ransacked it, threw some of the household goods into the street and set it on fire. The Marx family living in the house had fled to the Gerson family. On the evening of November 10, 1938, SA men again came to Vechta with a truck, stormed the building again, and threw the furnishings of the prayer room, including the Torah scroll, the remaining household goods, and the excavated windows and doors onto the truck. On the Neumarkt two pyres were erected and set alight. 
The synagogue property was confiscated by the city and sold the following year 1939. After 1945, the city had to pay compensation for the synagogue building it sold in connection with the restitution proceedings.  
  
Since 1981, at the corner of Juttastraße / Klingenhagen / Burgstraße, there is a memorial stone designed by the Vechta artist Albert Bocklage and executed by stonemason Werner Pufahl, which is adorned with a Star of David and the word Shalom in Hebrew script. The inscription reads: "In this street stood the synagogue, the house of worship of our Jewish fellow citizens, sacrilegiously desecrated on November 9, 1938. In memory and reminder".