The Jewish community in Frankfurt an der Oder existed as early as 1294. This very early presence of Jews in the town was associated with its status of the main "gateway" to trade with the East. Frankfurt was a crossing on the Oder River and a site of fairs. The medieval Jewish quarter was situated in the northwest part of the town. The first local synagogue was built in the district. After the expulsion of Jews from Frankfurt in the 16th century, it was pulled down and replaced with a university building – Collegium Philosophicum et Artistorum.

Jews returned to the town after 1671. As a result, Frankfurt became home to the second largest Jewish community in Brandenburg after Berlin. The local university, Viadrina, was the first university in Germany where Jews were allowed to study. They mainly enrolled in the Faculty of Medicine.

At the turn of the 19th century, the community maintained a Talmud Torah school. In 1819, a religious school was opened in the town, transformed into a primary school in 1846. In 1823, the new synagogue at Vollenweberstraβe was consecrated; the building as partially burnt on Kristallnacht (9/10 November 1938). In 1836, the community split into a Reformed and an Orthodox community. The Reformed community kept the synagogue, while the Orthodox Jews opened a prayer room at Spormachergasse.

As was the case throughout Germany, the first organised boycott of Jews in Frankfurt took place on 1 April 1933. Following the campaign and subsequent acts of anti-Semitism, many local Jews began to close their businesses and leave the town; those who remained were mainly the poor, as well as the residents of the old people's home. In 1932, the community's property included a synagogue, a prayer room, a cemetery, a mikveh, and a Jewish hospital on Rosenstraße. In May 1939, there were 184 Jews living in Frankfurt alongside 122 people of mixed Jewish origin.

In November 1941, the last remaining Jews of Frankfurt were banned from leaving the town; forced deportations began soon afterwards. Only six Jews survived in the town until 1945. The community was revived following the arrival of migrants from the former Soviet Union. In 1998, they established a new religious community. Today, the modern Jewish community has about 250 members.

The Description

The Jewish cemetery in Słubice, that is the former cemetery of the Jewish community in Frankfurt an der Oder, is located south-east of the town centre, at the intersection of roads running to Krosno Odrzańskie and Rzepin, at Transportowa Street. Mentioned in documents from 1399 and established by the early community that existed in 1294, it is certainly one of the oldest Jewish burial sites in Central Europe. In 2013, it was entered in the register of monuments with the number L-622/A.

The cemetery covers an area of 1.1 hectares. It is situated on hilly terrain which before 1945 used to be called Judenberge – "Jewish Mountains." It originally consisted of three parts established in successive stages of spatial development. The first one was used until 1867. Its boundaries were marked by a wall made of fieldstones, ca. 60 cm high. This allowed – in accordance with the rules of ritual purity – to see the tombstones from the outside without entering the cemetery. The oldest documented graves dated back to the second half of the 17th century. The gravestones faced west, and inscriptions were often framed with Baroque ornaments. Among them there were nine graves of rabbis. Most of the matzevot in this part of the cemetery were made of sandstone.

The second part of the cemetery was in use since 1868. A funeral home and residential quarters for the Christian gardener were erected at the premises. The mortuary was covered with a dome. The gilded Star of David mounted on the very top was visible from a large distance. This part of the cemetery was surrounded by a wall 2.5 m high, based on a foundation made of field stones. It ran along today's Transportowa Street and then joined the low wall of the oldest part of the cemetery. The wall was too high to see the cemetery from the outside, which bears testament to the influence of Progressive trends on the community. Long sections of the foundation are still visible today. The tombstones were mostly made of marble and granite. They bore both Hebrew inscriptions and symbols and more universal markings.

In the early 20th century, a parcel was purchased to establish the third part of the cemetery. In the summer of 1937, a monument in memory of 17 Jewish soldiers from Frankfurt killed in World War I was unveiled at the site, founded by the Association of Jewish Front Soldiers. This part of the cemetery came into use in 1940 and was officially closed in 1944. The area was surrounded by a wire mesh fence on a low concrete foundation. Jewish prisoners from nearby labour camps were also buried at the site. Officially, the last Jew buried in this part of the cemetery was Doctor Hermann Marcus, who was one of the few people whose graves were marked with tombstones.

In February 1944, during a British air raid of Frankfurt, two bombs fell on the cemetery. The graves were damaged, and the northern wall of the funeral home collapsed (the Nazis had previously removed the tin plate from the roof).

Following the post-war border agreements, the cemetery became part of the Polish town of Słubice. Untended and overgrown, it formally existed until the mid-1970s. In 1972, a decision was made to liquidate it, implemented in the autumn of 1975. An inn called Zajazd Staropolski was erected at the site. In 1988, the Nissenbaum Foundation fenced off most of the former cemetery premises. In 1999, the city founded a commemorative plaque with the following inscription in three languages (Hebrew, Polish, and German): "Respect the place of eternal rest. Jewish cemetery founded in the 14th century. Inhabitants of the towns of Frankfurt (Oder) and Słubice 1999." New tombstones were placed on the supposed burial sites of the three most famous rabbis associated with the town (Theomim, Mendel of Pidhaitsi, and Jechiel Margolis). Every year in May, the graves are visited by Hasidim from the United States, the Netherlands, and Israel. Research is currently underway with the aim of fully revitalising the cemetery.

Właściciel praw autorskich do opisu: Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich POLIN.