Jewish Life

For more than four centuries after the final expulsion of 1396, no permanent Jewish community existed in Görlitz. A few merchants passed through the city, but residence remained prohibited. It was not until Görlitz became part of the Kingdom of Prussia that conditions slowly began to change. The emancipation reforms of the 19th century, together with Prussian legal modernization, finally allowed Jews to resettle along the Neisse River.

After the expulsion of Jews from Görlitz during the Middle Ages, a new foundation for the Jewish community was laid no earlier than 1847, with the first burial taking place in 1848. However, before this could happen, in the time of the mayoralty of Gottlob Jochmann, one last legal battle had to be fought. Jochmann’s predecessor, Gottlob Ludwig Demiani, had once again raised the old decree of Duke Johann of Luxembourg from 1396 — the “Privilege” allowing the permanent expulsion of Jews and confiscation of their property. A city commission was appointed to determine whether this 450-year-old ruling still held legal force.

The turning point came when the Prussian Ministry of the Interior instructed the Görlitz authorities not to place any obstacles in the way of Jewish settlement. At last, the city abandoned its delaying tactics. By 1847, the legal basis for synagogue communities had been clarified throughout Prussia, and Jewish communal property was officially placed under state protection.

Reestablishing the Community

As in many parts of Prussia, Jewish populations in the region began to move from small villages to larger towns and urban centers. In Görlitz and its surroundings, merchants and manufacturers formed the core of the emerging community. Over time, wholesalers came to dominate the professional landscape, while agriculture, horse trading, and freight transport remained closed to Jewish participation. Teaching, medicine, law, and civil administration were also largely inaccessible in the early decades of settlement.

Among the first Jewish businessmen of Görlitz and the surrounding area were Moritz Wieruszowski (textiles), Emanuel Silbermann (veneer cutting), Kommerzienrat Emil Meyer of Köthen (mine owner in Weißwasser), Gustav Fraenkel (Orleans factory, Zittau), Salomon Wollsteiner (merchant, Hoyerswerda), and Max Steinitz, who ran a wholesale trade in grain, seeds, and animal feed with operations in Görlitz and Berlin.

Building a Synagogue Community

The newly forming synagogue community was a mosaic of traditions and temperaments, drawn from Görlitz, Lauban (Lubań), Rothenburg, and Hoyerswerda. Moritz Wieruszowski, one of the earliest Jewish settlers, played a decisive role in organizing these dispersed groups into an official religious body.

Among the founding members, Albert Alexander-Katz, Joseph Berliner, Julius Lamm, Lesser Ephraim, Lippmann Henschel, Louis Cohn, and Louis Friedländer held leading roles and made lasting contributions to Jewish civic life in Görlitz. Wieruszowski served as chairman, and by 1850 a provisional board had been formed with Wieruszowski, Henschel, and Berliner.

Wieruszowski’s first priority was to establish a place of worship. Initially, the congregation gathered at Nikolaistraße 10, but in 1853 he secured a permanent site: a former community theater located in the courtyard of the Gasthof zum Weißen Roß at Obermarkt 17, with access from Langenstraße 23. This building became the first official synagogue of the modern Görlitz community and was inaugurated on 20 September 1853.

Religious Leadership and Institutional Growth

In 1856, Wieruszowski succeeded in attracting a distinguished leader: Rabbi Dr. Siegfried Freund, previously a teacher in Breslau (Wrocław). Still a young scholar, Freund became both spiritual and organizational head of the revitalized community. Alongside him, Elias Eduard Kämpf served as teacher, cantor, and ritual slaughterer (Schochet).

The Statute of 1855 formally defined the responsibilities of the synagogue community, which included members from Görlitz, Lauban, Rothenburg, and Hoyerswerda. Under this framework, the community developed rapidly and achieved a recognized place within Prussian civic life.

Legal Equality and Expansion

In 1869, the Prussian parliament enacted the Law for the Equality of Religious Denominations in Civil and Civic Matters, guaranteeing Jews equal rights in all areas of public and private life. That same year, Görlitz abolished the discriminatory Judeneid (“Jewish oath”) formerly required of Jewish litigants in court.

Rapid community growth soon made the original synagogue inadequate. In April 1869, Wieruszowski negotiated a contract with the owner of the Gasthof zum Weißen Roß, Mr. Klennert, to authorize major renovations and an expansion. The newly refurbished synagogue was inaugurated on 23 January 1870 with solemn services and the largest Jewish congregational ceremony Görlitz had yet witnessed.

By 1880, the city counted 643 Jewish residents, forming a thriving and respected part of Görlitz’s civic and economic life.

Leadership, Philanthropy, and the Path to a New Synagogue

Moritz Wieruszowski continued to serve as chairman of the community until his death in 1884, a role he held for more than 35 years. Under his leadership, Görlitz Jewry developed a strong sense of civic responsibility and financial organization. Community finances were divided into tax groups, calibrated so that wealthier members contributed proportionally more to the community’s needs.

Charitable foundations played a vital role. Without them, much of the aid for poor but gifted youth, the funding of synagogue officials and widows, or the realization of religious and building projects would not have been possible. Donations supported students at religious schools, local welfare efforts, and — most significantly — the long-term plan to construct a new synagogue.

During the same period, B’nai B’rith lodges — fraternal and charitable organizations promoting Jewish solidarity — became an integral part of German Jewish life. Görlitz had its own chapter, the Viktoria Lodge, following the example of the famous Hamburg Lodge. Its members engaged in philanthropic and administrative work and extended aid to Jewish communities abroad, such as fundraising for persecuted Jews in Romania. Notable members included Emanuel Alexander-Katz, his nephew Arthur Alexander-Katz, Louis Wurm, Georg Kupferberg, and David Pfeffermann.

By the late 19th century, the expanding community again faced the need for a larger house of worship. Despite the renovations of 1869, the Old Synagogue no longer accommodated all congregants. The idea of a new synagogue became a recurring topic at board meetings. As early as 1870, a construction fund was established, and Kommerzienrat Emanuel Alexander-Katz emerged as a driving force behind the project. His financial generosity, along with other donors, enabled the purchase of land on Otto-Müller-Straße, where the future synagogue would be built.

Civic Life and Notable Members

The Jewish community of Görlitz participated actively in the city’s social and cultural life, celebrating milestones that underscored its integration. On 23 December 1899, the respected community representative Raphael Basch celebrated his 85th birthday in remarkable health. Delegations from the synagogue board and the Chevra Kadisha (burial society) offered congratulations, recognizing his long service to communal welfare.

In 1900, Rabbi Dr. Freund — whose tenure had guided the community for more than four decades — received one of Prussia’s highest civilian honors, the Order of the Red Eagle (4th Class), in recognition of his service to religion and education.

The turn of the century also brought the passing of several pioneering figures. Kommerzienrat Lesser Ephraim (d. 1900) and his wife Henriette Ephraim (d. 1904) had been among the first members of the reorganized community. Both were renowned for their philanthropy and leadership in social welfare. Their generosity and character were praised throughout Görlitz, and tributes from all quarters honored their lifelong service to the common good.

A year after Lesser Ephraim’s death, another prominent businessman, Adolph Totschek, passed away and was laid to rest beside his wife Ida in the Görlitz Jewish Cemetery. In 1868, Totschek had founded the Totschek Department Store at Steinstraße 2–5, famed as a purveyor of fine clothing for men, women, and children. It became a local landmark — even Kaiser Wilhelm II (then Crown Prince) visited the establishment in 1893. After Adolph’s death, the enterprise continued under his son Walter Totschek, maintaining its status as one of Görlitz’s most respected businesses.

The New Synagogue and the Passing of a Generation (1909–1914)

Every year, more funds were raised for the construction of a new synagogue, and members of the community contributed generously to this cause on various occasions. The factory owner Kommerzienrat Sally Heymann, on the occasion of his 70th birthday, donated 30,000 marks to the synagogue community for this purpose — a gift that symbolized both his devotion to faith and his civic pride.

Finally, the long-held plans became reality. With the words “Let this building rise to the glory of God, to the blessing of the community, to the further adornment of our city,” on May 19, 1909, the chairman of the Jewish community, Emanuel Alexander-Katz, laid the cornerstone for the construction of the New Synagogue.

Two months later, in July 1909, the community leaders — including Alexander-Katz, Sally Heymann, the head of the Chevra Kadisha charitable association, and the head of the Women’s Aid Association, Mrs. Helene Heymann — traveled to Bad Salzbrunn to personally extend congratulations to Rabbi Dr. Siegfried Freund on his 81st birthday, as he was convalescing there with his family.

Under Alexander-Katz’s leadership, a building committee was founded in 1909, which organized an open architectural competition. Renowned firms from Berlin, Munich, and Dresden submitted designs. The jury ultimately selected the plans of Wilhelm Lossow and Hans Kühne of Dresden, whose proposal combined monumentality and modernity, drawing inspiration from the grand synagogue of Posen (Poznań).

The resulting structure was one of the most impressive synagogues in the region. In the main hall, deep tones of blue and gold shimmered beneath a domed ceiling adorned with figural friezes, lions, medallions, and symbols of the Ten Commandments and the menorah. It stood as both a house of worship and a symbol of the Jewish community’s integration into the civic and architectural life of Görlitz.

The synagogue was officially inaugurated on March 7, 1911, in a ceremony attended by civic and religious dignitaries, city officials, and representatives of other faiths. On this occasion, Emanuel Alexander-Katz received the Order of the Red Eagle, 4th Class, in recognition of his leadership and contributions to the cultural life of the city.

In March 1913, the New Synagogue hosted a double celebration: the centenary of the 1813 uprising against Napoleon’s rule and the 80th birthday of Kommerzienrat Emanuel Alexander-Katz, whose vision had guided the community through decades of transformation.

By this time, Rabbi Dr. Freund’s health was steadily declining. His assistant, Dr. Emil Berger, had already taken over many of his duties and officially succeeded him. On April 4, 1914, Rabbi Freund was given a warm and solemn farewell after 58 years of service, and on the same day, Dr. Emil Berger was inaugurated as the new rabbi of the Görlitz community.

Born in Leipzig on October 20, 1887, Emil Berger studied at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums in Berlin and passed his rabbinical examination in 1913. Approved by the district president, he was elected rabbi, preacher, and religious teacher of the Görlitz synagogue community effective April 1, 1914. The farewell for Rabbi Freund and the inauguration of Rabbi Berger were addressed by Emanuel Alexander-Katz, the chairman of the representative council, and Dr. jur. Julius Höniger, Counselor of Justice.

The year 1914 proved fateful for Görlitz Jewry — a year of profound losses marking the end of a foundational generation.

On April 29, 1914, Royal Kommerzienrat Sally Heymann passed away at the age of 75. A member of the community board for 19 years, he was deeply respected for his generosity, civic engagement, and unfailing support of charitable causes. His wife, Helene Heymann, followed him on December 14, 1917, remembered for her warmth, spirit, and boundless compassion- especially for child welfare.

That same year, Royal Kommerzienrat Arthur Alexander-Katz, nephew of Emanuel, died in St. Blasien at age 56. In 1881, the Alexander-Katz family had acquired the manor southwest of Rauschwalde. Forty-five years later, part of this property was used by the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of St. Charles Borromeo for the construction of the St. Carolus Hospital, inaugurated on November 24, 1927 — a lasting legacy of the family’s philanthropy. Arthur Alexander-Katz, significantly promoted the development of the Rauschwalde community before the First World War. The owner of a grain and banking business in Görlitz, he generously supported the local children’s home and personally donated land for the community school (now a primary school), completed in 1910, as well as for a children’s playground and sports field. Although plans for an extension in 1914 were halted by the war, his earlier generosity had already transformed Rauschwalde’s civic landscape. A passionate supporter of art, science, and education, he was active in the OGW (Organic Society of the German People's Party), donating in 1904 to university scholarships and cultural causes, financing the OGW’s print cabinet, and supporting the 1909 publication Acheldemach, dedicated to the 125th anniversary of the Lower Lusatian Society for Anthropology and Archaeology.

A decisive factor in Rauschwalde’s growth was the relocation of the Görlitz marshalling yard to the west in 1909, an initiative strongly supported by Arthur Alexander-Katz and other civic leaders. This development attracted railway workers and craftsmen, fueling new construction activity. The foundation of a local daycare center also traces back to his wife’s initiative, continuing the family’s tradition of social engagement.
 Suffering from a heart condition, Arthur sought recovery in St. Blasien in the Black Forest but died there on August 17, 1914. Due to wartime mobilization, his body could not be transferred to Görlitz until September 7, when he was laid to rest in the Jewish Cemetery of Görlitz, alongside his relatives. In later decades, his grave was repeatedly vandalized — the copper plaque bearing his name and dates stolen — leaving it today among the most defaced and damaged in the entire cemetery. From 1927 to 1931, the present-day Paul-Taubadel-Straße in Rauschwalde was named Arthur-Katz-Straße in his honor — a quiet reminder of the family’s enduring contributions to the civic, cultural, and moral life of Görlitz. Yet the quiet removal of his name in 1931 — as political tensions and nationalist sentiments intensified — foreshadowed the antisemitism that would soon engulf Görlitz and erase the public presence of families like the Alexander-Katz from the city’s landscape.

On December 29, 1914, Royal Kommerzienrat Emanuel Alexander-Katz himself passed away at the age of 82. His death left a deep void in the community he had led for nearly three decades. Elected to the board in 1878 and serving as chairman from 1885 until his death, Alexander-Katz combined organizational skill, foresight, and generosity, shaping the Görlitz congregation into one of the most respected in Silesia.

The synagogue he helped bring into being stood as a lasting monument to his leadership — a “temple of beauty and dignity,” as contemporary accounts described it. His body lay in state in the synagogue, where a funeral service attended by the entire congregation, city officials, and state representatives honored a life devoted to faith, community, and civic harmony.

War, Loss, and Renewal (1915–1921)

The Great War brought an era of sorrow and resolve to Görlitz Jewry. In 1915 the community bade farewell to one of its most distinguished leaders: Rabbi Dr. Siegfried Freund, who had served Görlitz for nearly sixty years, died on 15 November 1915 at the age of eighty-six. His influence extended far beyond the synagogue; he was widely respected for civic engagement and moral integrity.

His funeral became a profound expression of public mourning. Almost the entire congregation gathered, with organ and choir framing an eloquent eulogy by his successor, Rabbi Dr. Emil Berger, who honored Freund’s achievements and lifelong devotion to faith and community. Rabbi Freund was laid to rest in the family grave at the Görlitz Jewish Cemetery. Within a month his wife, Dorothea Freund, followed him in death—a poignant close to a life of partnership in spiritual service.

The mantle fell to the younger Rabbi Emil Berger, whose brief tenure (1915–1918) combined pastoral energy with intellectual range. He ministered amid war and epidemic and died himself of the Spanish Flu in October 1918, leaving the congregation bereaved once more. Yet in those years he revitalized religious and social life and emerged as a nationally engaged rabbinic voice.

Wartime Service, Culture, and Civic Engagement

Despite personal losses, Görlitz’s Jewish institutions mobilized for wartime needs with striking breadth. Pastoral care extended into regional prisoner-of-war camps at Görlitz, Lauban, Sagan, Sprottau, and Neusalz, served by Rabbis Dr. Berger, Dr. Lucas, and Dr. Preiß.

Within the city, associations adapted quickly. The Jüdischer Jugendverein Görlitz, founded by Max Kupferberg, (founded 24 February 1914) suspended normal programming at the war’s outbreak but soon reopened a Soldiers’ Home offering coffee or tea, cake and fruit, cigars and cigarettes, lectures, and a field library built from Reclam booklets and steady correspondence with men at the front. By autumn 1915, a full winter program resumed; on 1 October 1916 the Soldiers’ Home reopened “thanks to support from all sides,” even welcoming interned Greek soldiers as guests.

The youth association’s ambitions broadened further on 3 November 1917, when it invited young women to join and announced systematic courses in Jewish history, Hebrew, and prayer, alongside lectures by community figures and outside speakers. Rabbi Berger marked the evening with a tribute to Heinrich Graetz, urging the widest possible diffusion of Jewish historical knowledge.

Pulpit and Platform: Rabbi Berger’s Wartime Thought

Rabbi Berger’s lectures drew large audiences and placed Görlitz in national discourse. On 4 January 1916 he spoke on “War and the Bible,” arguing that the Bible—“a book of life and reality”—had regained honor in wartime, with the God of justice invoked anew even in Christian circles; he contrasted the national narrative of the Hebrew Bible with the individual focus of the New Testament and engaged Nietzsche and the social ethics of Scripture. In March 1916 (Purim), a deeply moving Psalm Evening filled the New Synagogue, with recitations by Paul Strube, organ and quartet, and soloists Fritz Fiedler and Cantor Max Gerling—a program that married charity with aesthetic devotion and “brought our ancient psalms close to modern listeners.”

Berger continued to probe Judaism’s place in a militarized society. In September 1916, his lecture “Der Wille zum Judentum—eine Schöpfung des Krieges” reflected on self-respect, national belonging, and Jewish moral purpose under the pressures of total war. Further 1917 addresses—Die Religion unter den Entstehungsursachen des Weltkrieges (Cottbus), Wie wird der Weltkrieg die Lage des Judentums verändern? (Hirschberg), and “Die Überwindung des Pessimismus” (his last public sermon)—positioned him as a provincial rabbi with national reach, contributing to the broader theological and ethical discourse of German Jewry.

Service, Honors, and Sacrifice

The Jews of Görlitz, like those across Prussia, served with loyalty and loss. Community notes recorded bravery at the front—such as Sergeant Heppner of Görlitz and the driver, Reservist Gierte, racing an ammunition wagon under heavy fire; though a shell felled their horses near the lines, both returned unharmed and received the Iron Cross 2nd Class. (Only Heppner is identified as being from Görlitz.)

Individual distinctions reinforced the community’s visible patriotism: Lt. Hugo Lyon, manager of the G. Stiasny mechanical weaving mill in Görlitz and Heinewalde before the war, was awarded the Iron Cross 1st Class after earlier promotion from reserve sergeant. Reserve Lt. and company commander Kurt Aronheim (Infantry Regt. No. 19) likewise received the Iron Cross 1st Class. Promotions to Prussian officer rank included Max Dienstag of Görlitz, holder of the Iron Cross.

Casualty lists and association bulletins noted both honor and bereavement: the heroic death of Hans Cohn; Iron Cross awards to Curt Aronheim, Alexander Loewenberg, Dr. Eugen Kohn, Simon Wolff, Martin Sontowsky; and promotions of Curt Aronheim, Josef Guttmann, Georg Groß, Martin Sontowsky, Heinrich Getzel, Paul Rosenthal, Louis Rothschild, and others.

Civic philanthropy mirrored this ethos at home. On 5 June 1917, factory owner Alfred Weinberg endowed 50,000 Mark to fund the education of talented boys from low-income families whose fathers had fallen in the war—accepted with gratitude by the city authorities.

Associations and Public Representation

Görlitz’s Centralverein local group remained a forum for civic self-defense and practical support. At the 18 February 1917 meeting in the Viktoria-Loge, Rabbi Berger assumed the chair from the ailing Justizrat Dr. Julius Höniger; Theodor Wieruszowski reported on the Berlin general assembly, highlighting the new Main Office for Jewish Career Counseling, while Cantor Gerling became secretary and Heinrich Kunz continued as treasurer. Fifteen new members joined that day—evidence of communal cohesion and organizational vigor.

Görlitz’s hospitality extended beyond its own. During Pesach 1918, fifteen Jewish soldiers interned with the Fourth Greek Army Corps in Görlitz conveyed public thanks to the Jewish community for its kindness amid exile from “their beloved king and much-afflicted homeland,” praying for an honorable peace.

Antisemitism: Incidents and Agitation

While antisemitic agitation was comparatively muted locally during the early war years, the community still confronted episodes of hostility. In September 1915, retired royal building officer Max Michael of Moyß shouted to a Jewish war volunteer, “Die Judenbande denkt, sie ist schon am Jordan!” and denounced him to his commander to block promotion. On 15 December, the court fined Michael 100 Mark for insult, with an additional 10 Mark upon appeal—a telling illustration of wartime “Radaurantisemitismus” and the legal recourse still available.

By August 1918, in the empire’s fracturing last year of war, Oberbürgermeister Konrad Maaß of Görlitz circulated an antisemitic Deutschbund recruitment letter—even beyond Germany—framing a struggle against “the Jewish spirit” and demanding an “Aryan blood confession.” The letter was condemned by liberal and socialist papers alike as a blatant attempt to export German antisemitism and a sign of Pan-German insolence. The episode situates Görlitz—through its mayor—within the völkisch agitation network in the war’s final phase.

Aftermath and Memorialization

In the Weimar transition, Görlitz Jewry maintained strong German identification even as new political antisemitism took root nationally. On 1 March 1925, a new tablet was erected in the New Synagogue to commemorate the Jewish soldiers of Görlitz who fell in the First World War (1914–1918). It honored members of the Jewish community and others who had lived in Görlitz during their service, such as Lieutenant Hugo Lyon, who before the war had served as the manager of a mechanical weaving mill operated by the firm G. Stiasny in Görlitz and Heinewalde. The dedication ceremony was solemn and dignified, consisting of a sermon, solo, and choral performance.

The names inscribed on the memorial tablet included:
Alfred Cohn, Hans Cohn, Artur Dittrich, Leopold Dietrich, Fritz Hamburger, Martin Bruno Hamburger, Ernst Hannes, Georg Karger, Erich Kasztan, Dr. Max Kober, Arno Lindemann, Paul Meier, Eugen Müller, Arthur Pinner, Hans Schafer, Max Schlesinger, Julius Wrzesinski, Max Berger, Kurt Feldmann, Walter Heckscher, Hugo Lyon, Paul Meyer, James Moses, Walter Rosenthal, David Spiro, Wolfgang Schottländer, and Wilhelm Zeimann.

These names represented men who had lived in various cities but were all connected to the Jewish community of Görlitz—reflecting how the congregation served Jews from across the wider region. While the majority came from Görlitz itself, others hailed from nearby towns such as Lauban (including Berger, Zeimann, and Schottländer).

The inscription concluded with the verse: “How are the mighty fallen!” (2 Samuel 1:19).

This memorial tablet, like so much of Görlitz’s Jewish heritage, was destroyed during the November 1938 pogrom (Reichskristallnacht), but photographs and surviving records preserve its memory. The list of names on the memorial represents only those who fell in battle; many more young Jewish men from Görlitz served honorably in the war, including Louis Rothschild, Arthur Schlesinger, Hans Ruppin, Artur Hannes, Dr. Eugen Kohn, Carl Levy, Max Süßmann, Georg Grünfeld, Walter Cohn, and Georg Schindler.

After Rabbi Berger’s death, the congregation elected Rabbi Dr. Schüftan in 1919. Born 27 March 1887 in Hönigern (Miodary), Silesia, educated in Neisse (Nysa) and at the Rabbinical Seminary and University of Breslau (1907–1915), he had served briefly in Düsseldorf before his Görlitz call (rabbinical diploma 1917). Under his leadership, merchants, professionals, and academics continued to enrich civic life; the Women’s Association chaired by Amanda Hannes sustained social welfare and charity. Cultural life flourished in the New Synagogue, which functioned as both spiritual and artistic center. In 1921, the congregation commemorated the centenary of Louis Lewandowski with a concert of his choral works, introduced by Chief Cantor Max Gerling, affirming the community’s cultivated interwar confidence.

Community Continuity and Cultural Change (1922–1930)

The year 1922 brought another profound loss with the death of Leopold Cohn, a man whose tireless service had shaped the Görlitz Jewish community for decades. Appointed to the board in 1885, Cohn was deeply devoted to the city’s civic and religious life. His exceptional organizational talent led to the restructuring of the Jewish cemetery, introducing numbered rows and systematic grave records that made it possible to locate every burial with precision. His passing was felt as a major loss to the congregation, which mourned a leader of rare diligence and foresight.

In 1923, after more than four years of devoted leadership, Rabbi Dr. Schüftan accepted a call to serve as rabbi in Erfurt. Known for his eloquence and pastoral care, he had earned great respect among the Görlitz congregation.

The following year, Rabbi Dr. Max Katten, a graduate of the Breslau Rabbinical Seminary, assumed the rabbinate. At his festive inauguration, welcomed warmly by the community board, Rabbi Katten defined his mission in three parts: to guide and educate the youth, to renew religious practice in harmony with contemporary culture, and to serve as an advocate of peace. At that time, Leo Halpern served the community as cantor and shochet (ritual slaughterer), maintaining the high musical and ritual standards for which Görlitz was known.

In 1925, the community participated in the first elections for the newly established and Prussian-government-recognized State Association of Prussian Jews (Landesverband der preußischen Juden). According to the July 1925 census, Görlitz counted 571 Jewish residents, representing a stable and prosperous community.

Interfaith and Educational Outreach

The Jewish community continued to foster constructive relations with the city’s Christian population. In a notable gesture of openness, interfaith educational services were held in the synagogue to introduce non-Jewish residents—particularly schoolchildren—to Jewish faith and traditions. Rabbi Katten explained the meaning of Jewish ceremonies, prayers, and moral teachings, accompanied by demonstrations of liturgical music. Teachers and upper-level pupils of the municipal girls’ school attended in large numbers, and the event’s success led to similar presentations in other Görlitz schools. These initiatives reflected the community’s desire for understanding, coexistence, and mutual respect within a diverse urban society.

In 1927, the community honored Chief Cantor Max Gerling, who retired after more than forty years of service. His farewell celebration was marked by heartfelt gratitude and affection, recognizing a lifetime of dedication to synagogue music and worship.

Shifting Currents in Jewish Life

During the Weimar Republic, Görlitz Jewry reflected the broader cultural shifts taking place across Germany. While Rabbi Dr. Katten, whose family had long been rooted in German society, embodied the liberal, acculturated tradition of German Judaism, new ideological and generational movements were beginning to reshape Jewish identity.

By 1930, the community experienced another transition: Rabbi Katten departed for Bamberg, and his post was filled by Rabbi Dr. Krakauer, born in Nikolsburg (Mikulov), Moravia. After completing his studies in Breslau, Krakauer served as second rabbi in Beuthen (Bytom) and later as rabbi in Osnabrück before moving to Görlitz in 1930 with his wife Resi Krakauer, and their children.

Under Rabbi Katten and Rabbi Krakauer’s leadership, the congregation remained intellectually active and spiritually engaged — but the focus of Jewish life in Görlitz began to evolve. From the late 1920s onward, the city emerged as one of the most active Zionist centers in Lower Silesia. Once defined by its liberal, civic orientation, the community now turned toward a renewed Jewish national consciousness.

Zionist lecturers, youth movements, Hebrew classes, and fundraising efforts for Erez Israel infused Görlitz Jewry with fresh energy and purpose. The shift mirrored broader European trends, as Jews throughout Germany sought to balance loyalty to their homeland with the spiritual and cultural revival inspired by Zionism. In Görlitz, this transformation was embraced with enthusiasm, linking the centuries-old community on the Neisse to the new Jewish awakening taking shape far beyond its borders.

The earliest evidence of this transformation comes from the local Zionist group’s lectures and cultural evenings, reported frequently in the Jüdische Rundschau. In June 1929, Berlin lecturer Kurt Loewenstein opened the “winter work” season with a talk on “The Situation in Palestine and in Zionism”, offering Görlitz members a detailed picture of the new Jewish Agency’s role in Palestine. By 1930, Görlitz lawyer Moritz Sommer had emerged as a leading local Zionist figure. His lecture “England and Us” provided a forceful critique of British policy under the Mandate and the White Paper, while reaffirming Jewish rights to national development. The meeting concluded with a special contribution to the Keren Hayesod (Palestine Foundation Fund), symbolizing the community’s commitment to the building of the Jewish homeland.

In April 1931, Görlitz hosted the regional convention of the Zionist Group Association for Central and Lower Silesia, attended by delegates from across the region. The event featured Kurt Blumenfeld, president of the German Zionist Federation, as keynote speaker — a clear indication of Görlitz’s growing prominence within German Zionism. Around this time, Grete (Margarete) Sommer, Moritz’s wife, became one of Görlitz’s most dynamic Zionist activists. In her open letter, “Where Are the Zionist Women?” (Jüdische Rundschau, November 27, 1931), she appealed to Jewish women throughout Germany — especially in smaller towns — to take an active role in fundraising and community work for the Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael (Jewish National Fund).

In addition to her national influence, Margarete Sommer also served as Görlitz’s Hebrew teacher, organizing language classes for both youth and adults. These lessons reflected the Zionist ideal of reconnecting with Jewish heritage through Hebrew — transforming the ancient language into a living bridge to the future homeland.

Destruction and Defiance: The Nazi Rise to Power (1931–1937)

Until 1930, the number of Jewish merchants and manufacturers in Görlitz continued to grow, forming the backbone of the city’s commercial life. But only a few years later, everything changed. The appointment of Adolf Hitler as Reich Chancellor in 1933, and the ensuing seizure of power by the National Socialist Party (NSDAP), marked the beginning of the end for Jewish life on the Neisse River.

Political sentiments hardened rapidly, and antagonism toward Jews intensified year by year. Even modest expressions of opposition by Jewish citizens or institutions attracted the scrutiny of the secret police. A letter from October 1933, written by Else Löwenberg of the Görlitz branch of the Centralverein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens, vividly captures the new climate of fear. She reported that Rabbi Dr. Hugo Krakauer had been summoned by the local police to explain “the origin and meaning of the Talmud,” following an anonymous denunciation from Hamburg alleging that Jewish law promoted disloyalty to the state. Rabbi Krakauer firmly rejected these accusations, citing Talmudic passages emphasizing obedience to lawful authority. Nevertheless, he was warned of possible further interrogations by the public prosecutor.

This episode reflected the growing suspicion and hostility toward Judaism itself, even before systematic persecution began. Within months, Görlitz witnessed the first organized boycotts of Jewish businesses, a prelude to the destruction that would follow.

The earliest wave of overt violence occurred on March 29, 1933, when the courthouse was surrounded by armed SA formations. Jewish judges, lawyers, and shopkeepers from Berlinerstraße and neighboring streets were rounded up and paraded through the city in single file, escorted by shouting SA men and jeering crowds. They were brought to the town hall and ordered to leave the city immediately — a calculated act of public humiliation.

Among those targeted was lawyer Moritz Sommer, who lived on what is now James-von-Moltkestraße with his wife Margrete and their three daughters. On that same day, Sommer was arrested in Weisswasser O.L. en route to Berlin and returned to Görlitz, where he was forced to walk barefoot from the train station to the courthouse, carrying a placard reading, “We all read the Volkszeitung.” This cruel spectacle became emblematic of the violence and degradation that Jews in Görlitz faced from the very onset of Nazi rule.

Although antisemitic measures were being enacted across Germany, the riots in Görlitz were particularly severe and attracted national attention. In April 1933, SA guards stationed themselves in front of Jewish shops, medical practices, and law offices, armed with rifles to prevent customers from entering.

Paul Mühsam, a Jewish lawyer and writer, later recalled the events surrounding the book burnings of so-called “Jewish-Marxist” works. After his law license was revoked and his books publicly burned, he and his wife Irma fled Görlitz on September 6, 1933, emigrating to Palestine. Mühsam is believed to have been the first Jewish emigrant from Görlitz.

Already in the early 1930s, antisemitic hostility was visible in public spaces. In 1931, community member Kurt Fischer remembered seeing “Juden raus” (“Jews out”) scrawled at the entrance to the city park — graffiti that foreshadowed the escalating hatred to come. After 1933, Fischer recalled, “At first, services were deliberately interrupted; later, vulgar graffiti was smeared on the synagogue doors.” The sanctity of the New Synagogue, once a proud symbol of faith and scholarship, was repeatedly violated by Nazi provocations.

A report in Die Neue Welt on May 12, 1933, confirmed such harassment. During the Passover holidays, SA men entered the Görlitz synagogue to “collect donations” for their own organizations — an act of intimidation disguised as charity. These incidents revealed that the Jewish community could no longer depend on the protection of law or civic custom. Small aggressions escalated into a systematic campaign of degradation, sanctioned by the state and enforced by the street.

The Erasure of Jewish Civic Leadership: The Case of Hugo Cohn

Hugo Cohn (1865–1933) – industrialist and civic leader – was among the most respected figures of Görlitz before the Nazi seizure of power. A co-director of the family paper factory, he was also a member of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and served from 1930 to 1933 as President of the Görlitz City Council, one of the highest offices ever held by a Jewish citizen of the city.

On April 5, 1933, the Oberlausitzer Frühpost ran the headline “Görlitz – Jew-Free City Parliament Meets” after the Nazi Party (NSDAP) seized control of the council. The article celebrated the purge of Jewish and Social Democratic officials. Hugo’s successor, Edmund Hoeltje (NSDAP), proclaimed: “With today, a new spirit enters the City Hall — a spirit of work, fulfillment of duty, and willingness to make sacrifices.”

Hugo Cohn died suddenly and under suspicious circumstances in January 1933 while visiting Berlin. His body was never returned to Görlitz, where he should have been buried beside his family — a symbolic erasure of the Jewish civic leadership that had shaped the city’s public life for decades.

Hugo’s daughter Charlotte “Lotte” Cohn Oppenheimer (1896–1942) married Dr. Erich Oppenheimer (1894–1942), a physician remembered today for founding the Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund (Workers’ Samaritan Federation) in Görlitz and pioneering sports medicine in the city. A street in Görlitz still bears his name, yet until recent research by historian Lauren Leiderman, few realized that his connection to Görlitz came through his wife Charlotte, whose family had been central to its Jewish and civic history.

Already in the early 1930s, antisemitic hostility was visible in public spaces. In 1931, community member Kurt Fischer remembered seeing “Juden raus” (“Jews out”) scrawled at the entrance to the city park — graffiti that foreshadowed the escalating hatred to come. After 1933, Fischer recalled, “At first, services were deliberately interrupted; later, vulgar graffiti was smeared on the synagogue doors.” The sanctity of the synagogue, once a proud symbol of faith and scholarship, was repeatedly violated by Nazi provocations.

A report in Die Neue Welt on May 12, 1933, confirmed such harassment. During the Passover holidays, SA men entered the Görlitz synagogue to “collect donations” for their own organizations — an act of intimidation disguised as charity. These incidents revealed that the Jewish community could no longer depend on the protection of law or civic custom. Small aggressions escalated into a systematic campaign of degradation, sanctioned by the state and enforced by the street.

Exclusion and Professional Persecution

As Nazi policy tightened, Jews were excluded from Görlitz’s professional and public life. Even long-assimilated families who had converted to Christianity were not spared.

One such case was Paul Arnade, owner of a successful suitcase factory employing many local workers. Though baptized decades earlier and active in civic affairs, Arnade was forced to resign as chairman of the Görlitz Tourist Association after the NSDAP seized control of local institutions. Soon after, the association’s statutes were rewritten to require all “non-Aryan” members to resign by year’s end.

The same pattern repeated across the city. Professor Ernst Polaczek, director of the Oberlausitzer Gedenkhalle (Upper Lusatian Memorial Hall), was forcibly retired. Dr. Albert Blau, founder of the Carolus Hospital in Rauschwalde, and his wife Minna, both converts to Christianity and active members of the Frauenkirche congregation, were relentlessly targeted. After years of bureaucratic obstruction, they finally managed to flee to Sweden, escaping only through last-minute intervention and personal courage.

Jewish physicians faced professional ruin. Among those stripped of their rights or licenses were Dr. Hans Frankenstein (who quickly fled in 1934 with his family to Italy), Dr. Berthold Krebs, Dr. Arnold Malinowski, Dr. Rudolf Nürnberger, Dr. Erich Oppenheimer, and Dr. Martin Schwarz (a physician who lived in Penzig O.L. and passionate zionist- one of the first to leave the community for British Mandate Palestine) . 

Zionist Resilience under Persecution

Despite the tightening noose of antisemitic laws, Görlitz Jewry displayed remarkable resilience. The community’s Zionist and educational activities continued with vigor, reflecting both spiritual conviction and pragmatic foresight. Reports in the Jüdische Rundschau describe an active cultural scene centered on the Palestine Art Centre, Hebrew classes, youth groups, and hachsharah (training) programs for young pioneers (chaluzim) preparing for emigration.

Leading these efforts were Dr. Günther Friedländer, Dr. Martin Schwarz, and Rabbi Dr. Hugo Krakauer, who sustained an impressive breadth of Jewish education under constant surveillance. By 1933, several Görlitz families — including the Sommers, the Müshams, the Schwarz, the Meyer, and the Warschawskis — had already emigrated to British Mandate Palestine, with others following soon after.

The local Zionist group met fortnightly, hosting lectures and debates on Jewish nationalism, pioneering (chaluzut), and Jewish–Arab relations in Palestine. Meetings often concluded with the singing of Hatikvah — an act of defiance and hope amid oppression.

In January 1934, Dr. Friedländer lectured on “The Path of Zionism,” while Rabbi Krakauer spoke at Hanukkah on “The Jewish Present in the Light of the Maccabean Period.” On December 1, 1935, the Görlitz synagogue hosted a screening of the Jerusalem-produced film Land der Verheissung (Land of Promise), distributed by Keren Hayesod, reflecting Görlitz’s deep engagement with the idea of Jewish nation-building.

Even in 1937, as Nazi repression intensified, Görlitz remained intellectually alive. On March 8, Dr. Walter Pietrkowski delivered a lecture titled “The Claims of the Jews and Arabs to Palestine,” demonstrating the community’s ongoing participation in the global Jewish discourse — a testament to its courage and moral resilience in the face of escalating persecution.

By the late 1930s, Görlitz had become a microcosm of German Zionism: a community transformed from civic integration into a movement for spiritual renewal and self-determination. Its leaders and teachers used education and culture as tools of resistance, preparing the next generation for survival and rebirth in Erez Israel. Many descendants of Görlitz’s Jews would indeed make their home there, a living legacy of faith and perseverance.

The Shadow Deepens

By 1935, daily life for Jews in Görlitz had become increasingly perilous. Schools were saturated with Nazi ideology and were no longer safe for Jewish children. Classmates taunted and ostracized them; Jewish teachers were dismissed.

A chilling report in the Jüdische Zeitung of August 2, 1935, revealed one of the first Görlitz cases of racial persecution. Four Jewish men and four so-called “Aryan” girls were arrested and placed in “protective custody” on charges of Rassenschande (“racial defilement”). They awaited transfer to a concentration camp — one of the earliest documented instances of Görlitz Jews being targeted under Nazi racial law.

By the mid-1930s, Nazi racial ideology had penetrated every layer of Görlitz society. What had once been a flourishing, educated, and civically engaged Jewish community was now systematically humiliated and erased. For many, these years confirmed the urgency of the Zionist vision — that the only future for the Jews of Görlitz lay not in Germany, but in the Jewish homeland they had long dreamed of rebuilding.

Aryanization, Terror, and Exile (1935–1944)

In September 1935, the National Socialists in Görlitz intensified their tactics of humiliation and persecution. A particularly harrowing example was the case of Artur Dresel, a respected Jewish clothing manufacturer and businessman. As part of a broader Nazi campaign to disgrace Jewish citizens, Dresel was falsely accused of “Rassenschande” (racial defilement)—allegedly for having inappropriate relations with underage non-Jewish clients.

The scandal caused a sensation throughout Görlitz. His shop windows were defaced with antisemitic graffiti such as “Jew pig” and “dirty swine,” and his family lived in constant fear of assault. His wife, crushed by the terror, reportedly collapsed under the strain. Local and regional newspapers—serving Nazi propaganda—published defamatory articles that turned Dresel’s ordeal into a public spectacle.

In court, however, Dresel was acquitted, after two apprentices testified that they had been coerced by Nazi officials to make false accusations. Seeking respite from the trauma, Dresel traveled to the Silesian spa town of Krummhübel (today Karpacz) to recover. Yet even there, he was not safe. A so-called “popular movement” was orchestrated against him, leading to his re-arrest and transfer to Breslau (Wrocław) prison.

According to Die Wahrheit (November 1, 1935), Dresel’s wife later received official notice that her husband had “died in custody”—a phrase concealing the truth that he had been murdered by the Gestapo on September 22, 1935. His business was destroyed and forced to close. News of his death spread throughout Germany and abroad, sparking outrage even in foreign newspapers despite Nazi censorship.

The fate of Artur Dresel epitomizes the Nazi campaign of terror in Görlitz—a deliberate effort to annihilate Jewish dignity through propaganda, humiliation, and judicial persecution. In 2024, Lauren Leiderman discovered one the only photos currently known in existence of the attack on Artur Dresel’s store.  It is one of the only such photos in existence demonstrating Jewish violence in what is today east Saxony.

The Dismantling of Jewish Economic Life

The Aryanization of Görlitz proceeded gradually through the mid-1930s, transforming the city’s once-vibrant Jewish commercial landscape into a wasteland of confiscation and theft. Following the segregation of Jewish traders from the Görlitz fair in 1935, Jewish-owned shops and workshops disappeared one by one—either forcibly closed or transferred to “Aryan” ownership under duress.

Among the first to vanish was Adolf Totschek’s department store, once a prosperous local institution. Soon after, the shoe shops of Fritz Rauch and Ludwig Kafka, long-standing family businesses, were seized. In early 1936, the Arnade suitcase and leather goods factory, owned by a family that had converted to Christianity decades earlier, was Aryanized and taken over by Dr. Eberhard Neuhaus. For the Arnades, who had believed themselves fully integrated into Görlitz society, baptism offered no protection. Their life’s work was reclassified as “non-Aryan property” and stolen from them.

By the autumn of 1938, three more Jewish entrepreneurs—Friedrich Guhrauer, Georg Miodowski, and Arthur Schlesinger—were forced to deregister their businesses entirely. These systematic “transfers” not only destroyed livelihoods but erased generations of Jewish presence from Görlitz’s civic and economic life.

For those who remained, survival depended increasingly on emigration. The Görlitz community, already deeply engaged in Zionist organization and education, now concentrated all efforts on helping families prepare to leave. Emigration to British Mandate Palestine became both a spiritual aspiration and a desperate necessity.

Kindertransports and the Price of Survival

For many Görlitz families, escape came at unbearable emotional cost. As antisemitic decrees multiplied, parents faced agonizing decisions: whether to send their children abroad through the Kindertransport program—knowing they might never meet again.

Nearly 10,000 Jewish children were rescued through these transports, which brought them to safety in Britain. Among them was Ursula Totschek, daughter of Walter and Bianca Totschek, owners of the department store on Steinstraße 2–5. Ursula left Görlitz for England and later reached the United States, where her mother and sister Gerti joined her. Her father, however, died in 1944, before the family could be reunited.

Another Görlitz family, the Slotowskis (Slowotskis), endured a similar tragedy. Walter and Ibolyka Slotowski, active members of the Görlitz synagogue, decided in 1939 to send their eleven-year-old son Tibor on a Kindertransport to England as persecution worsened. It was their final farewell. Shortly afterward, Walter, Ibolyka, and their younger children fled to Shanghai—one of the few havens that still accepted Jewish refugees without visas. Both parents died of typhus there in 1940, while their children survived only through the care and generosity of fellow refugees.

Years later, Tibor Slotowski in England and Ursula Totschek in America would represent a lost generation of Görlitz’s Jewish children—uprooted but alive, their survival owed to their parents’ courage and sacrifice.

Faith in Bureaucracy — and the Tragedy of Return

Some Görlitz families perished not because they lacked opportunity, but because they trusted too long in German order and legality. Two cases stand as haunting examples: the Fischer and Kupferberg families.

Kurt Fischer and Erwin Kupferberg had both emigrated to British Mandate Palestine in the late 1930s. Their parents—Siegismund and Betty Fischer, and Hedwig Kupferberg—visited them there on temporary tourist visas. Despite their sons’ pleas to remain, the parents insisted on returning to Görlitz to “settle their affairs” and apply for legal immigration.

When they finally sought permanent certificates, it was too late. The British White Paper of May 1939 had drastically restricted Jewish immigration to 75,000 over five years—a quota soon filled. For the Fischers and Kupferbergs, bureaucratic scrupulousness became a death sentence. Their faith in proper procedure, once a hallmark of German-Jewish respectability, sealed their fate amid the machinery of genocide.

A German Patriot’s End — The Death of Martin Ephraim

Among Görlitz’s most distinguished Jewish citizens was Martin Ephraim, an industrialist, philanthropist, and ardent German patriot. Married to a Protestant woman and long retired from his successful ironworks, Ephraim lived quietly in Schreiberhau (today Szklarska Poręba) from 1922 onward. He refused to believe that Germany—the country he had served and loved—could ever turn on its Jewish citizens. “A German would never do that!” he insisted.

After the November 1938 pogrom, Ephraim finally left his villa in Silesia, believing Berlin would offer greater safety. But by 1943, he had been interned in the Jewish Hospital on Iranische Straße, which by then functioned as a deportation holding center. His daughter Marianne (“Tante Janni”) later recalled his final months:

“In his little room with the window barred with wood, during the coldest winter in 34 years, he was an example of courage and calm. ‘I can console others on the way, and so will have something to do,’ he said.”

Despite invitations from his son Herbert, who had escaped to America, Martin refused to emigrate: “I was born here, and I will die here too.”

On January 10, 1944, at the age of 83, Martin Ephraim was deported from Berlin on Transport I/105 to Theresienstadt, one of 123 so-called Alterstransporte (“transports of the elderly”). There he was confined in a barrack with other frail men, succumbing to exhaustion, hunger, and despair.

A witness later wrote: “He had noticeably aged… Above all, he had lost his sense of humour, which had never left him in Berlin.” Martin Ephraim died in Theresienstadt on April 6, 1944. His remains were cremated, and his urn—like those of thousands of others—was desecrated when SS units ordered the ashes of more than 25,000 victims dumped into the River Eger.

“Kristallnacht” in Görlitz and its Aftermath (1938–1942)

Hatred and the desire to obliterate everything Jewish spread across Görlitz. The culmination came with the Reichspogromnacht of November 1938. As elsewhere, shops, workshops, businesses, and homes belonging to Jewish citizens were vandalized and destroyed. Particularly shocking was the attack on Dr. Albert Blau’s apartment: although Blau had practiced as a Christian for over thirty years, SA and SS men smashed their way in with axes, looting and brutalizing solely on the basis of his Jewish origins.

Fritz Cohn, head of the Görlitz Jewish community, was likewise targeted. The mob broke into his villa beside the New Synagogue on Otto-Müller-Straße, overturning furniture, smashing mirrors, and tearing paintings from the walls. Cohn later recalled the grotesque climax: as belongings flew across the room, a man clambered onto the grand piano and danced on it, laughing while others looted—an intimate, mocking scene that encapsulated the city’s moral collapse and the humiliation imposed on its Jews. For Cohn, it marked the end of the world he had known.

On Bismarckstraße 29, the shop of Betty and Siegismund Fischer was wrecked; goods were stolen or strewn into the street. At dawn, neighbors watched Betty step outside, take in the ruin, raise her hands to the sky, cover her eyes, and cry out: “Mein Gott, was kommt denn noch?”—“My God, what comes next?” Her words captured the terror and uncertainty that descended in a single night of state-sanctioned hatred.

Although nationwide violence officially began on November 9, 1938, evidence suggests that in western Lower Silesia, including Görlitz, much of the destruction and arrests occurred on November 10. Eyewitnesses reported that the Görlitz synagogue was attacked and briefly set on fire, possibly twice that night. The building ultimately survived—either because firefighters intervened on professional grounds or because Jewish men inside extinguished the flames themselves to protect the Torah scrolls.

Early research by Roland Otto (1990) identified 24 Jewish men arrested and deported to Sachsenhausen for so-called “protective custody,” twelve of whom later perished; others fled abroad to Bolivia, England, Argentina, Chile, California, and via Shanghai. Recent work by Lauren Leiderman and Dr. Daniel Ritsau, drawing on archives in Israel, the United States, and testimonies in Germany (including Dr. Rudolf Nürnberger), refines this figure to 26 men, likely seized inside the synagogue itself:

Max Berkowitz, Georg Breslauer, Siegmund Fischer, Julius Fränkel, Georg Freundlich, Max Goldberg, Friedrich Guhrauer (died in Sachsenhausen), Leo Halpern, Rudolf (Rudi) Hamburger, Arthur Hiller, Max Kafka, Ludwig Kasztan, Bernhard Kirsch, Dr. Berthold Krebs, Alfred Kunz, Rudolf Kunz, Georg Miodowski, Erich Oppenheimer, David Osinsky, Walter Pinoff, Willi Prager, Herbert Rund, Günther Rund, Martin Ruppin, Robert Schaye, and Georg Schlesinger.

Twelve later perished in concentration or extermination camps; others managed to flee abroad. Naming all 26 restores individuality to what had long been an anonymous statistic and confirms who bore direct witness to Görlitz’s night of destruction.

In the aftermath, the damaged synagogue could no longer serve as a house of prayer. In 1939, during a closed city-council meeting, Görlitz resolved to purchase the property and convert it into an indoor swimming pool—a plan never realized. No further services were held there. Under Günther Rund, who led the community from 1938 to 1941, Jews met privately. The synagogue organ was sold to St. Boniface Church in Zgorzelec.

On 8 September 1939, Fritz Cohn—a native Görlitzer and the last leader of its Jewish community—wrote a letter that captures the final days of Jewish life in the city. Once the owner of a hosiery factory (Strümpfabrik), Cohn had seen his business confiscated and converted into a Judenhaus. Writing days after the outbreak of war and shortly before his flight to Brazil, he described with restrained despair a community reduced to 109 souls. Even High Holiday services had been abandoned. Families such as the Feldmanns, Levys, and Fränkels were still seeking passage to Brazil, Chile, and Bolivia; others had already escaped.

Cohn also recorded a chilling local assault: Frau Amanda Hannes—longtime chair of the Jüdische Frauenhilfsverein—was deliberately struck by a cyclist after being recognized as Jewish, suffering a severe head wound. Daily life for Görlitz’s remaining Jews meant eviction into Judenhäuser, exclusion from professions, constant police surveillance, and even denial of hospital care. Paul Arnade—ethnically Jewish, a practicing Christian for nearly forty years—was expelled from a hospital ward the day he was admitted with pneumonia, solely because of ancestry.

Yet the letter also preserved faint threads of hope. Cohn mentions news from the Löwenberg family—former Görlitzers who had resettled in Portland, Oregon, opening a small fruit and marmalade business. Their messages offered encouragement and sorrow in equal measure—a fragile bridge between survival and loss.

Among the rare surviving testimonies from Görlitz’s last Jewish residents is a letter by Suse Dreyer, a patrilineal Jew who lived at Jakobstraße 3—a house that once belonged to Fritz Cohn and had been designated a Judenhaus after November 1938. There, under police supervision, the city concentrated Jews prior to deportation. Residents included the Rund family (from Lauban): Flora, her sons Herbert and Günther, Günther’s wife Hanne, and their daughter Gitta; Amanda Hannes; and Dr. Erich Oppenheimer with his wife Charlotte and son Werner. Dreyer describes armed guards posted outside, curfews, and inspections—yet also daily acts of solidarity: “Not a day went by when I was not with your family, even if only for a quarter of an hour.”

Each person sought to preserve dignity. Herbert Rund worked for the saddler Mr. Liebe, who quietly opposed the regime and shared food and foreign news. Hanne Rund earned a little by sewing and crafting felt flowers, aided by Frau Kühn, one of the few sympathetic employers left. Günther Rund, serving as religious leader, kept Shabbat and the festivals at Jakobstraße 3, sustaining Jewish life within the narrowest confines. Little Gitta, bright and cheerful, is remembered by Dreyer as “a very intelligent child, kind and easy to manage.”

Together, these voices—of Cohn, Dreyer, and their neighbors—form a last, irreplaceable record of Görlitz’s Jews on the brink, bearing witness to a community that, even as it was being erased, refused to surrender its humanity.

Roundup and Deportation to Tormersdorf (Nov 1941–Aug 1942)

At dawn on 10 November 1941, police trucks halted before Jakobstraße 3. Under armed guard, families were given only hours to pack. Suse Dreyer stayed with them through their last night: “it was very difficult to part in the morning, although at that time we did not yet foresee the cruel end.”
 Sixty-seven of the last members of the Görlitz Jewish community—and two Christian, ethnically Jewish citizens (Paul & Margarete Arnade)—were deported to the Tormersdorf labor camp near Rothenburg. These are their names:
 Margarete Arnade (née Pinoff), Paul Arnade, Eugen Bass, Jenny Boehm, Paul Böhm, Rosalie Brauer (née Stiasny), Ernestine Bruck (née Schwedenberg), Helene Dingel (née Birkenfeld), Rosa Fels (née Schwalbe), Betty Fischer (née Zaduk), Siegmund Fischer, Elli Gottheimer (née Pototzkyl), Georg Gottheimer, Estera Graumann, Amanda Hannes (née Auerbach), Sophie Heilbronn (née Getzel), Arthur Hiller, Hans Hiller, Johanna Hiller (née Egenos), Ursula Hiller, Marie Hochfelder (née Seelig), Wally Horn (née Brinnitz), Fritz Kafka, Margot Kafka (née Weiss), Max Kafka, Marie Karlik, Ludwig Kasztan, Martha Kasztan (née Rosenthal), Bernhard Kirsch, Hedwig Kupferberg (née Centawer), Erich Leyser, Berta Loewy (née Meyer), Dr. med. Felix Miodowski, Emanuel Miodowski, Henriette “Jette” Miodowski (née Jacobius), Regina Miodowski (née Rotholz), Agnes Namm, Margarete Neumann (née Ebstein), Hugo Oliven, Jenny Oliven (née Janas), Charlotte “Lotte” Oppenheimer (née Cohn), Dr. med. Erich Oppenheimer, Werner Oppenheimer, Julia Osinsky (née Scheiner), Isidor Pese, Liesbeth Pese (née Richter), Walter Pinoff, Amalie Reich (née Wolf), Markus Reich, Brigitte Rund, Flora Rund (née Wrzesinski), Günther Rund, Herbert Rund, Johanna Rund (née Guttmann), Elsbeth Schaye (née Rubensohn), Hugo Schaye, Robert Schaye, Rosa Schindler, Cäcilie Schlesinger, Rike Schlesinger (née Galewski), Therese Schmerl, Magnus Matthias Schwalbe, Margarete Schwalbe, Ruth Schwalbe, Kurt Skala, Elise Tischler (née Schlesinger), Hugo Valentin, Emil Wurm, Hildegard Margarete Wurm (née Kuschnitzky).

“Zoar”/Martinshof: A Transit and Labor Camp

The Zoar Care Home in Tormersdorf—originally a Protestant nursing home—was seized by the Gestapo in 1941 and rebranded “Martinshof” (the biblical name “Zoar” deemed “too Jewish”). Reclassified as a closed Jewish settlement (Judenlager), it held deportees from Breslau, Görlitz, Glogau, and smaller towns across Lower Silesia. On 10 December 1941, fifty-five Görlitz Jews—including the Rund, Hannes, Oppenheimer, Schindler, and Löwy families—were forced from Jakobstraße 3 and transported there with only minimal belongings.

Conditions were severe: overcrowding, hunger, winter cold, illness, suicides, and deaths. Prisoners were driven to forced labor in Rothenburg, Niesky, and Görlitz (e.g., Christoph & Unmack arms works; Pötschke sawmill; Lausitzer Marmeladenfabrik; Eduard Riedel textiles). Even children sewed buttons for uniforms.

A survivor later called Tormersdorf “terrible”: windows jammed, doors uncloseable, toilets broken, water fetched from the street. After one inmate attempted a village walk, the Gestapo banned leaving houses or visiting other barracks, declaring that Martinshof’s garden was “enough” air—fruit-picking forbidden; shopping only via the camp office. A separate internal footpath was later marked to spare villagers from “constantly encountering Jews.”

Despite everything, Jewish life persisted. Günther Rund organized Shabbat and holiday services as best as possible; a makeshift synagogue was furnished with benches quietly supplied by Pastor Kurt Zitzmann of Rothenburg, who risked punishment to help.

Lives within the Camp: Rose & Herbert; Berta Löwy

Rose (Rosa) Schindler (b. 1903, Schildberg; raised in Görlitz) had worked as secretary to a major timber merchant who kept her employed to the end. Even the Landrat (whom she had also worked for) sought her exemption; Rose refused, unwilling to leave Herbert Rund, whom she loved. In Tormersdorf she did clerical forced labor at the Lausitzer Marmeladenfabrik (today Kelterei Neubert in Rothenburg O.L.). Her asset declaration (Apr 1942) and inventory (Jun 1942) record total dispossession: 22.50 RM of household goods.

Berta Loewy (née Meyer) (b. 8 Apr 1886, Lessen) a long time member of the Jewish Community of Görlitz who was very active in children’s ministry, was forced into a Judenhaus in 1940 at Adolf-Hitler-Straße 27 (today Berliner Straße 27). By 1941, she was a widow- her husband Richard had been buried in the Görlitz Jewish Cemetery in 1939 after he was denied medical care. In Dec 1941; the Görlitz tax office seized Berta’s remaining effects—a life reduced to a list (bedding, furniture, stove, radio, family photo) valued at 133.50 RM. In Tormersdorf she formed a circle of care with Amanda Hannes and Hedwig Kupferberg.

Among the prisoners were Dr. Erich Oppenheimer and Charlotte “Lotte” Oppenheimer with their son Werner. When orders came for deportation east in spring 1942, Dr. and Mrs. Oppenheimer took their own lives rather than be transported. Werner refused to follow; according to family recollection he had secretly married a fellow prisoner and boarded the transport on 3 May 1942. Neither was heard from again.

Transports East: Osowa/Sobibór District & Majdanek

On 3 May 1942, most Tormersdorf inmates—including twenty-seven Görlitz citizens—were deported via Breslau to the Lublin District. For decades their fate was unknown. While some elderly (including Berta Loewy) were sent directly to Majdanek and murdered shortly after arrival, a small cache of family letters later revealed the destination for others: the forced-labor camp at Osowa, near Sobibór.

Two messages from Rose & Herbert survive, relayed via Breslau to family in British Mandate Palestine:

25 May 1942 — “We have arrived safely. We are eagerly awaiting your news… Please inform our parents. Warmest kisses — R. & H.”
 19 Aug 1942 — “Why no news? We are well. I am secretary; Herbert is guard service leader. Don’t forget us… With love — R. & H.”

Through autumn 1942, brief notes continued. Dreyer recalled sending medicines and warm clothing: “Meanwhile many have been felled like a few trees”- a message Dreyer mentions that everyone knew the meaning of. Rumors spread of mass shootings and gassings. An SS officer at Osowa, said to be comparatively “well-disposed,” was later denounced, dismissed, and imprisoned; soon orders “from above” arrived to gas the remaining inmates. By late 1942, all contact ceased. Tormersdorf was liquidated in November 1942; remaining prisoners were sent to the Grüssau (Krzeszów) ghetto. Those deported east—including Rose and Herbert—disappeared into Operation Reinhardt.

Death, Burial, and Quiet Returns

Amanda Hannes (b. 1861), longtime chair of the Jüdische Frauenhilfsverein, was among the oldest prisoners at Tormersdorf. She died on 13 June 1942; the official record says heart failure. Letters and oral accounts suggest her housekeeper Martha Kunze covertly brought Amanda’s body back to Görlitz for burial beside her husband Max—despite prohibitions. Wally Horn was likewise returned. In 2021, after research by Lauren Leiderman, the Hannes family restored Amanda’s name and dates to her husband’s stone.

Official records state that a burial plot across the Neisse (now the Polish side) was purchased from Hans von Martin near the Tormersdorf forest cemetery. Coffins—white-painted inside, raw wood outside per Jewish custom—were made by Otto Henke of Rothenburg. Paul Böhm, having converted to Protestantism, was buried in the local Evangelical cemetery. The fate of most others remains unclear.

By August 1942, the Tormersdorf ghetto had ceased to exist—a small but integral cog in the machinery of annihilation. What remains—letters, inventories, municipal lists, recovered names—restores fragments of humanity to those the perpetrators sought to erase.

The history of Tormersdorf/Martinshof and related Lower Silesian transit and labor sites is still being reconstructed. Ongoing work—by Lauren Leiderman (with Martinshof), building on foundational research by Dr. Alfred Konieczny, Dr. Niels Seidel, and Manja Krausche—continues to recover names, routes, and lives. Every rediscovered document returns another voice to Görlitz’s story.

“Privileged Mixed Marriages” and Narrow Escapes

A handful of Jews remained in Görlitz after 1942, spared only through marriage to non-Jewish partners under the category of “privileged mixed marriages.”

• Arthur Hiller avoided deportation to Auschwitz-Birkenau due to the protection of his wife Johanna. Research by Lauren Leiderman suggests both were initially sent to Tormersdorf because Johanna was a converted Jew, but that her “Aryan” classification by descent later secured their release—explaining why the Hillers were deported while other mixed-marriage families were not.
   
• Others shielded (temporarily) included Bianca Voss, Dr. Benno Arnade, Irma Alter, Felix Bloch, Heinrich Getzel and Georg Schlesinger. Though spared deportation, they lived under surveillance, isolation, and severe economic restrictions.
   
• Children of such unions—Ruth Pilz, Johanna Dreyer, Suse Dreyer—classified as Mischlinge ersten Grades, survived precariously, dependent on non-Jewish relatives and local officials’ whim, excluded from schools, jobs, and public life.

Not all were protected longterm. Irma Alter and Felix Bloch, widowed of their non-Jewish spouses, lost privileged status and were deported and murdered—proof that survival hinged on bureaucracy, ancestry, and chance, not faith or conduct.

Gross-Rosen Subcamp and the Mass Grave (1943–1945)

Between 1943 and 1945, 323 Jewish prisoners from Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovakia were transported to AL Görlitz – Biesnitzer Grund, a subcamp of the Gross-Rosen complex. Forced into brutal labor, many were executed in the war’s final months. Their bodies were interred in a mass grave at the Jewish Cemetery on Biesnitzer Straße. In 1951, a memorial ceremony dedicated a plaque on the grave; it read “murdered comrades”, and only the Star of David signaled the Jewish identity of the victims—an early postwar remembrance that muted the specificity of Jewish suffering.

The Last Path of Dr. Heinrich Getzel

Dr. Heinrich Getzel, a Görlitz-born lawyer, survived for a time through a “privileged mixed marriage” with Anna-Liesbeth—later derided by officials as a “privileged sham marriage.” In 1944, after eviction, the non-Jewish attorney Dr. Walter Schade hid and helped them, as corroborated by Dr. Benno Arnade’s correspondence.

Newly uncovered testimony by a former Gross-Rosen prisoner (preserved in Australia and identified by Lauren Leiderman) provides the first verified account of Getzel’s end: deported in September 1944 to the Grüntal subcamp, he endured brutal imprisonment. In February 1945, during a death march toward Gross-Rosen, the witness walked beside “Rechtsanwalt Getzel aus Görlitz.” Exhausted, the First World War veteran urged fellow prisoners to maintain “Prussian order” to preserve dignity. Moments later, he collapsed and died—likely of heart failure—on the frozen road. Four prisoners buried him in a roadside ditch under a thin crust of earth before being forced onward.

“I often think back to him,” the witness wrote. “He meant well. But he did not understand that the centuries-long struggle for a symbiosis between Judaism and Germanness was already lost.”
 Thus, deported (Sept 1944), enslaved in Grüntal, dead on a death march (Feb 1945), Dr. Getzel’s fate returns—at last—to Görlitz’s historical record.

Aftermath and the Vanished Community

A citizens’ registry (19 June 1946) counted only twenty-two Jews in Görlitz—just six from the prewar community. Listed were Arthur, Johanna, Ursula, and Hans Hiller; Dr. Benno Arnade; Jakob Abramowitz and his sister Ida Biederstädt (née Abramowitz); and Anneliese Getzel—the ethnically Aryan widow of Dr. Getzel, strikingly included despite no synagogue record of conversion. Most survivors soon left Görlitz. Their presence was a faint echo of a community annihilated between 1941 and 1945 through deportation, forced labor, and murder.

When Nazi terror ended in 1945, the once-thriving Jewish community of Görlitz lay destroyed. Hundreds of Jews living in or originating from the city had been murdered; the few survivors were scattered across the world. After 1945, Jewish life in Görlitz largely ceased, leaving documents, gravestones, and fragments of memory—the traces of a people once integral to the city’s cultural and social fabric.

Epilogue: Memory, Return, and Renewal

After the war, a few Jewish families quietly returned to Görlitz — survivors and new arrivals who carried with them the memory of an extinguished world.

Among them were Schoel (Shaul) and Adelheid Gurewitsch. Born on 25 December 1887 in Kahowka, Ukraine, Schoel had survived the Holocaust in Germany. Together with his non-Jewish wife Adelheid (née Brodtke), he settled in Görlitz in the postwar years, becoming one of the very few Jews to live there after 1945. According to research by Felix Pankonin, Schoel maintained contact with the reestablished Jewish community in Dresden, serving as a bridge between Görlitz and the small network of postwar Jewish congregations in Saxony. He died in 1957; his wife lived until 1996.
 Remarkably, although Adelheid never converted to Judaism, she was buried beside her husband in the Görlitz Jewish Cemetery. Their shared gravestone, inscribed in both German and Hebrew, stands as one of the last tangible testaments to Jewish presence in Görlitz — a quiet monument to endurance, coexistence, and love beyond the boundaries of faith.

Another Görlitz-born survivor was Hans Nathan, who came from a religious family but later identified as an atheist. Having escaped to England with his family, he later returned to Berlin, became a member of the Socialist Unity Party, and rose to prominence as one of the GDR’s leading lawyers. In 1971, Görlitz named him an honorary citizen — a symbolic tribute to a vanished community and a destroyed world.

The Synagogue’s Second Life

The synagogue on Otto-Müller-Straße, one of the few in Saxony to survive the Reichspogromnacht of 1938, entered a long twilight after the war. Transferred by the Soviet Military Administration to the Jewish community of Dresden, it was later sold to the city in 1963 due to financial hardship. Used briefly as a theater storage hall, the building fell into decay.
 By the 1970s, it was recognized as a protected monument, and on 9 November 1979, local youth began an annual candle-lighting ceremony at its doors. In the 1980s, community cleanup efforts began, and in 1986, historian Dr. Ernst Ketzschmar gave the first public lecture on Görlitz’s Jewish history. On the 50th anniversary of the Reichspogromnacht, 9 November 1988, a memorial plaque was unveiled at the synagogue in the presence of Else Levi-Mühsam, daughter of Paul Mühsam.

After reunification, the building’s entrances were sealed to prevent vandalism. Following a lawsuit by the Jewish Claims Conference, legal ownership was clarified, and restoration began in 1996.
 In 2004, the Förderkreis Görlitzer Synagoge (Friends of the Görlitz Synagogue Association) was founded, reopening the space to the public. The 70th anniversary of the pogrom in 2008 marked its symbolic rebirth.
 Full restoration—costing 10 million euros—was completed in 2021, delayed by the pandemic. Now reopened as the Cultural Forum Görlitz Synagogue, it serves as both a cultural and educational center and a place of prayer. In 2022, the Star of David was reinstalled atop its dome through the efforts of Alex Jakobowitz, a visible affirmation of Jewish continuity and hope.

Remembrance and the Work of Memory

Throughout the 1990s and beyond, Görlitz continued to reckon with its past. Streets were renamed in honor of Martin Ephraim, Albert Blau, Jonas Cohn, Johanna Dreyer, and Paul Mühsam. In 1992, Else Levi-Mühsam became an honorary citizen.

The Stolpersteine project, initiated by Gunter Demnig, was brought to Görlitz by Bernd Bloß, who from 2007 to 2020 laid 21 stones to honor former Jewish residents. After his passing, Lauren Leiderman and Daniel Breutmann expanded the initiative, adding 63 more Stolpersteine—including three in Zgorzelec, across the Neisse River. These small brass memorials for families such as Schaye, Oppenheimer, Fischer, Warschawski, and Arnade embed remembrance into the city’s very streets, ensuring that history is encountered with every step.

In 2005, students from Görlitz and Löbau organized a memorial march from Biesnitzer Grund to Rennersdorf, marking 60 years since the 1945 death march. One of its last survivors, Shlomo Graber, walked alongside them — a living bridge between past and present.

Resurgence and Reckoning

The 1990s also brought a troubling rise in antisemitic attacks, especially against cemeteries — assaults not only on graves but on memory itself. The Jewish cemetery in Görlitz was attacked twice in 1994, echoing similar desecrations in Zittau and elsewhere. While largely ignored at the time, these acts revealed how fragile remembrance remained in post-reunification Germany.

Even so, a new generation began confronting this legacy. Projects in schools, archives, and museums turned toward the descendants of Görlitz’s Jewish families, inviting them to share memories and return to a city that had once expelled their ancestors.

Among them was Michael Guggenheimer, grandson of Fritz and Käthe Warschawski. Born in Tel Aviv in 1946, he grew up in the shadow of silence; his mother, Ellen, who fled Görlitz as a child, could not bear to speak German. When she returned in 1993, she left after only a few hours, overwhelmed. Michael, however, returned again and again, slowly reconstructing his family’s story and later publishing a book — a bridge between memory, silence, and rediscovery.

Two Görlitz-born survivors, Evelyn Loewe Apte and Renate Muhr-Langeani, later shared their memories through the Jewish Museum Berlin. In 2023, Renate returned as the guest of honor at Jewish Remembrance Week, joining descendants from around the world — a moment of reunion between absence and return, grief and gratitude.

The Mitzvah Project: Continuing the Work of Memory

Our project continues this legacy. The MITZVAH Project began with the research of Lauren Leiderman, whose devotion to uncovering Görlitz’s Jewish roots since 2019 has reconnected the city to its lost history. Through her tireless work and the network of hundreds of descendants she brought together, a new foundation for remembrance has been laid.

In June 2023, volunteers from Poland, Germany, the Czech Republic, and the United States gathered for the first Project Week at the Görlitz Jewish Cemetery. They learned about Jewish burial traditions, tended graves, and restored neglected sections of the cemetery — a shared act of remembrance that built bridges across borders and generations.

Today, the project’s mission continues: to preserve the memory of Jewish life in Görlitz and Lower Silesia, to document family histories, and to make this heritage accessible to all through a virtual cemetery and educational initiatives. By involving young people in active remembrance, we ensure that the stories of Görlitz’s Jewish community — and the moral lessons they embody — endure.

It is always the right time to do a good deed — a mitzvah — and to remember.
 Through each restored name, each cleaned gravestone, and each act of remembrance, we reaffirm the simple truth that the lives of Görlitz’s Jews were — and remain — an inseparable part of the city’s soul.

© 2025 Lauren Leiderman. All rights reserved. Research, transcription, and biography authored by Lauren Leiderman for the Mitzvah Project

Additional Research & Editing: Ania Latoszek, Felix Pankonin