In the summer of 1898, the synagogue was solemnly consecrated in the former Bahnhofstraße, today's Martin-Luther-Straße.

The brick building, which had been constructed from a mixture of the neo-Islamic and Romanesque styles, was located directly opposite a Protestant church and was a popular motif on picture postcards of the city.

During the November pogroms, the synagogue was set on fire. The inventory was destroyed. The Protestant pastor Wilhelm Veit saved one of the Torah scrolls that night. This is now in the Jewish community center in Krefeld.

It is the former residence of Jonas Leffmann. He had been a resident of Viersen since 1807 and, as a trader in ellewaren, was one of the few Jews to hold a trade patent in Viersen since 1818. In 1822, he is even listed as a cotton manufacturer in the address directory of the city of Viersen, which shows that he had at least succeeded in advancing to the middle class of Viersen tradesmen. Nevertheless, Jonas Leffmann had to declare bankruptcy in 1824 and was not able to register a trade patent again until 1829.

The house Rektoratstraße 10 was acquired by the Jewish community in 1862. The building served different purposes. In the basement was the Jewish school. The private school was nationalized in 1905. It existed until 1932, when the last Jewish teacher - Israel Nussbaum - retired.

On the second floor of the building, the Jewish community built a prayer hall, which existed until the expropriation of the property around 1939/1940. The building passed into municipal ownership.

In 1907 David Katzenstein rented the commercial building on Hauptstraße 137/139 from the company Pongs and Zahn. In the same year, the Katzenstein fashion and textile store opened. The opening had previously been publicized by a large newspaper campaign. In 1919, Katzenstein acquired the building.

In the Nürnberger address book  1923 the following entry is found: Kahn III, Gust,.Dr.jur., lawyer, Frauentorgraben 5, office: Pfannenschmiedsgasse 6 II. In the  „Mitteilungen der Reichs-Rechtsanwaltskammer“ No. 12 of December 1, 1938, the lists of banned Jewish lawyers in Bavaria were published. By order of the president of the Nuremberg Bar Association, 43 Jewish lawyers had to resign because their license to practice had been revoked. Among the names listed for the Nürnberg-Fürth Higher Regional Court and Regional Court was also the name of Dr. Gustav Kahn III in Nürnberg.

In the Augsburg address book 1914 the following entry can be found: Thanhauser Alfred Kaufmann, Mittlere Maximilianstra;e A 6/II  -  Born on September 15, 1883 in Kriegshaber, Alfred Thanhauser was deported from Augsburg über München-Milbertshofen to Piaski on April 2, 1942. The exact date of Alfred Thanhauser's death is not known.

The Berlin address book 1875 contains the following entry: H. Sternberg jr., Cravatten- u. Wäschefabrik, Neue Königstr.10, Verkaufslokal: Spandauerstr.45 I.E. C.P. Inh. Hermann u. Max Sternberg.

The 2,170 m² large cemetery served the Jewish community Anröchte already before 1800 as a burial place. The last burial took place in 1997. The 46 gravestones (mazewot) are partly heavily weathered.

The cemetery itself is bordered by a rubble stone wall; numerous poplars provide shade.

Source: Wikipedia

The first indication of the cemetery are maps from 1680, which show a short branch channel on the Lippe, which was probably dug for the extraction of earth with which the site was fortified. On the map of Johann Peter Roscher from 1776 it can be seen that the cemetery had already grown up to the Burgmühle by then. A further enlargement did not take place and until its abandonment the area measured 2.85 acres.

The street is named after David Gans (1541 - 1613), the famous Jewish scholar born in Lippstadt.