The Polish-Jewish prayer house in Remscheid 1928–1933
Polish-Jewish families living in Remscheid were also affected by the expulsion. Whereas whole families were affected in other towns, in Remscheid it was almost exclusively men. Heinrich Mandelbaum, the man who had painted the pictures in the prayer house, was arrested on 28th October 1938, expelled to Neu-Bentschen on the borders of Poland and finally interned in the German-Polish border town of Zbąszyń. His son, Felix, had already emigrated to Palestine as a young man in1933. For years he attempted to get an exit visa for his parents and brother: and in 1938 he received the longed-for papers. Whereas Mandelbaum’s wife Riva and his son, Hans managed to get to Jaffa from Remscheid via Holland and France, Heinrich Mandelbaum was refused a transit through the German Reich; and finally escaped to Palestine via Romania.[13] He was one of the few Polish Jews who managed to emigrate to a country outside Europe after they were expelled. Most of the Remscheid Jews, and their families who were expelled from Germany in the following months, were annihilated after the German invasion of Poland. The sole reminder of the former Polish-Jewish congregation in Remscheid, alongside the reminiscences of the few people to survive, was the article in the Israelite Family Sheet “East Jewish Folkloric Art in Germany”.[14]
Sabine Krämer, May 2017
[13] Heinrich Mandelbaum died on 11. March 1956 in Israel. (Written information from his granddaughter in Israel.) His daughter Anna, married name de Swarte, lived in Holland, from where she was deported to Auschwitz and murdered. Mandelbaum’s sons, Robert und Max, and his daughter Erna, married name Fischbein, also emigrated to Palestine. See Bilstein / Backhaus, Names and dates, p. 218.
[14] Backhaus, Gruppe der Ostjuden, pp. 186-188: and Polenaktion, pp. 2-4. Bilstein, Juden in Remscheid, pp. 104-164.
Further reading
Aschheim, Steven E.: Brothers and strangers. The East European Jew in German and German Jewish consciousness, 1800-1923, Madison 1982.
Backhaus, Frieder: Die Gruppe der Ostjuden in Remscheid, in: Geschichte der Remscheider Juden. (Hrsg.) Jochen Bilstein and Frieder Backhaus, Remscheid 1992, pp. 177-188.
Backhaus, Frieder: Die „Polenaktion“ (Teil 2) in: Remscheider General-Anzeiger, Beilage „Geschichte and Heimat“. Mitteilungsblatt des Bergischen Geschichtsvereins, 71. Jg. Nr. 2 2004, pp. 1-4.
Bilstein, Jochen: Die Juden in Remscheid in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus, in: Geschichte der Remscheider Juden. Hrsg. v. Jochen Bilstein u. Frieder Backhaus, Remscheid 1992, pp. 55-175.
Ders. u. Backhaus, Frieder: Namen und Daten jüdischer Bürger Remscheids zwischen 1933 and 1944, in: Geschichte der Remscheider Juden. Hrsg. v. Jochen Bilstein u. Frieder Backhaus, Remscheid 1992, pp. 206-228.
Bilstein, Jochen: Ostjuden in Remscheid, in: Hier wohnte Frau Antonie Giese. Die Geschichte der Juden im Bergischen Land, (ed) Trägerverein Begegnungsstätte Alte Synagoge Wuppertal, Wuppertal 1997, pp. 50-55.
Ders.: Ostjüdische Volkskunst in Remscheid, in: Remscheider General-Anzeiger, supplement „Geschichte und Heimat“. Mitteilungsblatt des Bergischen Geschichtsvereins, 60. Jg. Nr. 2 1993, pp. 1-2.
Grunwald, Max: Beschreibung der Malereien in den Synagogen Polens, in: Breier, Alois; Eisler, Max; Grunwald, Max: Holzsynagogen in Polen, Wien 1934, pp. 49-60. At: http://www.europeana.eu/portal/de/record/09320/1BC53FF9541E269D7EFDF96D…
Ders: Zur Ikonographie der Malerei in unseren Holzsynagogen, in: Breier, Alois; Eisler, Max; Grunwald, Max: Holzsynagogen in Polen, Wien 1934, Anhang pp. 1-23. At: http://www.europeana.eu/portal/de/record/09320/1BC53FF9541E269D7EFDF96D…
Kurth, Alexandra; Salzborn, Samuel: Antislawismus und Antisemitismus. Politisch-psychologische Reflexionen über das Stereotyp des Ostjuden, in: Hahn, Hans-Henning u.a. (eds.): Deutschlands östliche Nachbarschaften. Eine Sammlung von historischen Essays für Hans Henning Hahn, Frankfurt am Main, New York 2009, pp. 309-324.
Maurer, Tude: Ostjuden in Deutschland 1918-1933, Hamburg 1986.
Panter, Sarah: Zwischen Selbstreflexion und Projektion. Die Bilder von Ostjuden in zionistischen und orthodoxen deutsch-jüdischen Periodika während des Ersten Weltkriegs, in: Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung 59 (2010), pp. 65-92.
Pracht-Jörns, Elfi: Article „Remscheid“, in: ibid.: Jüdisches Kulturerbe in Nordrhein-Westfalen. Regierungsbezirk Düsseldorf, Köln 2000, pp. 256-261.
Rüthers, Monica: Sichtbare und unsichtbare Juden - eine visuelle Geschichte des „Ostjuden“, in: Osteuropa 60/1 (2010), pp. 75-93.
Sidur Sefat Emet, translated by Selig Bamberger, Basel 1956/1960.
Tomaszewski, Jerzy: Auftakt zur Vernichtung. Die Vertreibung polnischer Juden aus Deutschland im Jahre 1938, Osnabrück 2002.
Tomaszewski, Jerzy: Przystanek Zbąszyń, w :Olejniczak, Wojciech; Skórzyńska, Izabela (Red.): Do zobaczenia za rok w Jerozolimie. Deportacje polskich Żydów w 1938 roku z Niemiec do Zbąszynia, Zbąszyń 2012, pp. 71-83.
The article ‘Eastern Jewish folk art in Germany’
The east side of the prayer house
![South wall on the left with illustrations of the Mishneh tractate ‘Pirkei Avot’ [Chapters of the Fathers] - In: „Aus alter und neuer Zeit“.](/sites/default/files/styles/width_100_tiles/public/assets/images/suedwand_links.jpg?itok=2lMG07mE "South wall on the left with illustrations of the Mishneh tractate ‘Pirkei Avot’ [Chapters of the Fathers]")
South wall on the left with illustrations of the Mishneh tractate ‘Pirkei Avot’ [Chapters of the Fathers]
On the right side of the south wall
West wall on the left with illustrations of the ‘patriarchal age’, quote from Genesis 9:13
West wall on the right with illustrations of the Book of Jonah and north wall on the left with the ‘Cave of Machpelah’
The Mandelbaum family in Remscheid
The Mandelbaum family
