Metadata: Synagogue Bourtange
Collection
- Country:
- Germany
- Holding institution:
- Leer Municipal Archive
- Holding institution (official language):
- Stadtarchiv Leer
- Postal address:
- Rathausstrasse 1, 26789 Leer
- Phone number:
- +49 491 9782-546
- Email:
- archiv@leer.de
- Reference number:
- Dep. 55
- Title:
- Synagogue Bourtange
- Title (official language):
- Synagoge Bourtange
- Creator/accumulator:
- International Military Tribunal Nuremberg
- Date(s):
- 1945/1984
- Date note:
- 1945/1946; 1984
- Language:
- German
- Extent:
- 23 volumes
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
- The collection contains only “The Nuremberg Trial of the major war criminals from 14 November 1945 to 1 October 1946“ (“Der Nürnberger Prozess gegen die Hauptkriegsverbrecher vom 14. November 1945 bis 1. Oktober 1946“), Delphin Publishing House: Munich 1984, 23 volumes. These are source books about the original trial documents.
- Administrative/biographical history:
-
From 1464 to 1806 the region East Frisia (Ostfriesland) formed the county of East Frisia, becoming the Principality of East Frisia in 1667. During this time it was a part of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1744 the area fell to Prussia, from 1806 to 1810 it was a part of the Napoleonic satellite state "Kingdom of Holland", from 1810 to 1813 a part of Napoleonic France, until finally from 1815 to 1866 Prussia again became a part of the kingdom of Hannover. With the annexation of Hannover by Prussia, the area was again administered by Prussia and in 1871 also became part of the Prussian-dominated German Empire. This remained the case beyond the time of the Weimar Republic. During National Socialism from 1939 to 1945 it formed part of the so-called “Gau Weser-Ems“. After the Second World War it became in 1946 a part of the newly formed federal state of Lower Saxony in the administrative district Aurich. Since then it has been a part of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Jewish residents in the city of Leer can be tracked in sources from the year 1602. For Jewish traders the market of Leer was interesting for the trade of grain, flax, wool, livestock, colonial goods or textiles, not for luxury goods or financial business. In a general decree of 1645 about the Jews in East Frisia by count Ulrich II three Jewish names of 35 can be definitely located in Leer. The Jewish cemetery at Groninger Strasse was probably created in the first half of the 17th century. A storehouse functioning as a synagogue is known since the year 1695 and was located at Kirchstrasse. For the year 1767 it is recorded that 26 Jewish families lived in Leer. From the year 1852 on, the religious education could be organised in the building of the Jewish Congregation at Kirchstrasse, where the apartment of the Jewish teacher was also located, as well as the congregational poorhouse. Between 1883 and 1885 the Jewish Congregation constructed a new synagogue at Heisfelder Strasse. This synagogue was destroyed by the Nazis in the so-called Reichspogromnacht on 9-10 November 1938. About two third of the Jews of Leer were soon after murdered in the Holocaust [Information on the Jewish population of Leer taken from Manfred Wagner: Die jüdischen Familien in Leer und ihre Herkunft. Aurich 2015.]
- Access points: locations:
- Leer
- Subject terms:
- Literature
- Post-WWII trials
- War crimes
- System of arrangement:
- The material is arranged in chronological order.
- Finding aids:
- The AUGIAS database can be accessed online only.
- Links to finding aids:
- https://www.stadtarchiv-leer.findbuch.net/
- Yerusha Network member:
- Institute for the History of German Jews
- Author of the description:
- Matthias Springborn, 2019