Jews in East Prussia

In the 19th century a Jewish cemetery was opened outside the city, on the edge of the Judenberg. The cemetery, laid out on a rectangular ground plan, had an area of about 0.2 ha. In the former Jewish cemetery there is a fairly well preserved war cemetery for Soviet soldiers.

Today the cemetery is located in the northeastern part of the municipal cemetery, next to the municipal stadium. The old trees of the cemetery have been preserved. (Information from POLIN Virtual Shtetl)

The small brick synagogue was built in 1860 in what was then Wormditter Street. On the occasion of the opening, the "Ermländische Aussteuerverein" was founded by those present to support poor Jewish girls. After the turn of the century, the small community could no longer afford a rabbi. The cult officials changed frequently. In 1938 the synagogue was sold to the local Baptist congregation. Nevertheless, during the Reichspogromnacht there was devastation inside the building. During the fighting in the spring of 1945, the building was destroyed, and the remains were later leveled.

This place has some peculiarities for East Prussia and for the Jews*in East Prussia: There was a very high Jewish percentage of the total population here. It is the first place in East Prussia where a Jew, Pincas Isakowitz, received the right to build a house with an inn in 1708. The synagogue was built on the main street even before churches were built in the village.
Schmalleningken, in Lithuanian Smalininkai, was located on the very old southeastern border of East Prussia with Lithuania and from 1795 the Russian Empire. 

The Jewish cemetery in Dzierzgon (German: Christburg) is located about 1.7 km southwest of the city center, at the intersection of Słoneczna Street with the dirt road, which turns at a right angle about opposite house number 3. After about 170 meters on the left you will find the breakthrough in the cemetery wall between the trees.

Allenstein was the capital of a government district in East Prussia and belonged to the German Reich until 1945. Since the beginning of the 19th century there was a Jewish community here. The building for purification (Hebrew tahara), i.e. washing of corpses and for mourning ceremonies at the Jewish Cemetery was built from 1911 to 1913 according to the plans of the Allenstein-born architect Erich Mendelsohn. After the Second World War, the building served the city of Olsztyn as an archive building for a long time.

The cemetery served the Jewish community of the East Prussian village of Nikolajken. The region belonged to the German Reich until 1945. Mixed inscriptions, in Hebrew and German, are most common. The Hebrew version was often engraved on the front of the gravestone, while the German version is on the back, or the Hebrew version is on the upper part and the German version is on the lower part of the matzeva (gravestones). The cemetery must have been devastated both before and after 1945, but it is still one of the best preserved Jewish cemeteries in the Masuria.

The village of Rosenberg (now Susz) belonged to the German Reich in West Prussia and at times in East Prussia until 1945. In the November pogrom night of 1938 most of the synagogues were destroyed. This preserved synagogue building is one of the few exceptions - it resembles the synagogue in Mrągowo (Sensburg) with its unplastered brick, exterior decoration and square floor plan. The museum of local history displays a model of the old town from the 1930s. The museum is open on the first Sunday of the month and by appointment by telephone.

The synagogue of Russ stood at the steamer landing stage. Since October 2015, a memorial to Mahatma Gandhi and Hermann Kallenbach (second picture) has stood in roughly the same place.