Metadata: Jewish Community Ostrowo (Ostrów Wielkopolski); Jewish Community Schildberg (Ostrzeszów)
Collection
- Country:
- Germany
- Holding institution (official language):
- Stiftung Neue Synagoge Berlin - Centrum Judaicum, Archiv
- Postal address:
- Oranienburger Str. 28-30, 10117 Berlin
- Phone number:
- 0049-30-88028-425
- Web address:
- www.centrumjudaicum.de
- Reference number:
- CJA, 1 A Os 2; 1 A Schi 1
- Title:
- Jewish Community Ostrowo (Ostrów Wielkopolski); Jewish Community Schildberg (Ostrzeszów)
- Title (official language):
- Jüdische Gemeinde Ostrowo; Jüdische Gemeinde Schildberg
- Creator/accumulator:
- Jewish Community Ostrowo; District administration of Ostrowo; Jewish Community Schildberg; Central Archives of the German Jews
- Date(s):
- 1824/1912
- Language:
- German
- Hebrew
- Polish
- Extent:
- 0.44 linear metres (36 archival units)
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- Good
- Scope and content:
-
The collection from Ostrowo (now Ostrów Wielkopolski, Poland) comprises a total of 35 files. 24 files from the years 1824-1908 have survived from the Jewish community itself.
Two files contain general administrative documents of the community, including finances and religious matters, including a printed synagogue ordinance from 1867.
The minute book of the meeting of representatives for the years 1847-56 is unfortunately severely damaged. Another file concerns the fines imposed for unexcused absences from meetings of representatives (1847). One file contains petitions and complaints to the representatives, 1834-1848. In a separate folder there are also typewritten copies of individual applications; they may have only been made once the material was held in the general archive. Among them is, for example, a request from the tailors' association from 1839 to be allowed to continue to hold religious lectures.
There are also correspondence journals of the board, 1834-1838, and the representatives, 1837-1840. In terms of community property, there is one file relating to the lease of the mikveh and the community rooms, 1834-1846, and one relating to the Beth Hamidrash, 1890-1908 (including inventories). The financial files mainly deal with accounting, receipts and support, including the 1862 tariff for privileges. There is also a cash book in Hebrew script, 1825-1830, a file for the revision of the ‘Krupke’ (meat tax), 1834-1846, and a series of orders relating to privileges, 1873-1879. Six other files contain material relating to legal disputes, mostly due to money claims, 1843-1844, 1860-1871.
Two files concern the ban on religious service gatherings outside the synagogue (1829-1847, 1870-1871), including a drawing of how additional seats could be created in the synagogue. Finally there is a file on the Chevra Kadisha, 1875-1878.
From the ‘Landratsamt’ of Ostrowo, the administrative authority of the district, there are six files from 1834 to 1870 which concern the affairs of the Jews in Ostrowo. They comprised a separate series in the collection. The files concern, among other things, the civil rights of the Jews (1834-1852), elections and management of the representatives and administrative officials (1835-1848), budget and accounting, taxes and regulation of the schools. Another file concerns the charitable association (hospital and funeral association), i.e. the Chevra Kadisha, 1835-1846.
The collection also includes a transcription of Jan Jerzy Przebendowski's privilege for the Jewish community in Ostrowo from 1724 (Polish with German translation), a gift from Aron Freimann (1871-1948) to the General Archive. (Aron Freimann's father Israel Meir Freimann (1830-1884) worked as a rabbi in Ostrowo from 1871 until his death.)
Also attached to the collection are a number of printed items: statutes of the Jewish Nursing and Burial Association (Chewra Kadischa) in Ostrowo from 1911, statutes from 1903 and reports for 1903-1912 of the Jewish Women's Association as well as statutes from 1905 and a report for 1912 of the Loan Aid Society in Ostrowo (formerly the Chevra Gemiluth Chassodim charity association).
From Schildberg (now Ostrzeszów, Poland) only a minute book with the resolutions of the representative assembly for the years 1876-1882 has survived.
- Archival history:
- The files of the Jewish communities of Ostrowo and Schildberg as well as of the district office of Ostrowo were held in the former General Archive of German Jews. Printed items from Jewish associations and organisations were mostly kept in a separate collection (Sammlung Süßmann, i.e. Süßmann collection) in the former General Archive. In 1996 the collection was transferred from the Federal Archives to the archive of the New Synagogue Berlin – Centrum Judaicum.
- Administrative/biographical history:
-
The Jews in the Greater Poland area were mostly descendants of Ashkenazi Jews who had migrated to Poland-Lithuania since the Middle Ages. The settlement of Jews was encouraged by the Polish kings and later also by the nobility; from the 16th century onwards the latter increasingly founded their own towns and granted settlement privileges there in order to promote economic development. After the dissolution of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the late 18th century these areas with a large proportion of Jewish population came under Prussian rule, as did large parts of Greater Poland upon the second partition of Poland in 1793. Under French rule the territory belonged to the Duchy of Warsaw, in 1815 it returned to Prussia as the Grand Duchy of Posen (after 1848 Province of Posen). The “Preliminary Ordinance Concerning the Jewry in the Grand Duchy of Posen” issued in 1833 defined, among other things, the boundaries of the community districts, regulated the election of representatives and administrative officials, compulsory schooling and the requirements for naturalisation. The Prussian law of 23 July 1847 was initially not applied to Posen; only after 1848 were the Jews granted civil rights with the Prussian constitution.
After the First World War, most of the province of Posen became part of the Second Polish Republic, which existed until 1939. Since 1945 it has again been part of Poland. This area largely corresponds to what is now the Greater Poland Voivodeship (województwo wielkopolskie).
Jews settled in Ostrowo around 1715, encouraged by the landowner Jan Jerzy Przebendowski, who refounded the town. In 1724 a privilege granted by Przebendowski allowed twelve families to settle in a specific street, as well as the construction of a synagogue and a cemetery. At the beginning of Prussian rule (1793), 381 Jews were living in the town, about 15% of the population and including 31 tailors. In 1833 there were more than 1,200 Jews, in 1840 it was just under 1,500 (over 30%), in 1861 more than 1,900 (27%). After that their number dropped - in 1890 there were 1,080 people, in 1910 still some 700. After 1815 Ostrowo first belonged to the district of Adelnau (the seat of the district administration was in Ostrowo); in 1887 the new district of Ostrowo was created from the eastern part. From 1857 the community built a new synagogue, which was inaugurated in 1860; the building still exists today.
Jewish families lived in Schildberg from the mid-17th century. After 1815, the number of Jewish residents in the district town increased from around 150 (1820) to around 400 in the second half of the 19th century; in c. 1890 it was 85 families.
- Access points: locations:
- Ostrowo
- Schildberg
- Yerusha Network member:
- Centrum Judaicum
- Author of the description:
- Barbara Welker; Stiftung Neue Synagoge Berlin - Centrum Judaicum; 2021
