Great Synagogue, Warsaw

The Great Synagogue of Warsaw on the Tłomackie Street in the Warsaw district Śródmieście was the largest synagogue in Warsaw.

History

In the beginning there were in the Warsaw suburb of Praga, only a Jewish suburban community. In the city of Warsaw, only privileged members of the Jewish community Praga were allowed to live.

In the time of the Duchy of Warsaw under Napoleon, the Jewish community in Warsaw flourished, particularly through the settlement of German Jews. 1802 a synagogue was built within the city walls. A later new building on the same site was designed along the lines of the Berlin synagogue on Oranienburger Strasse. The service in the synagogue in the Danilowitz Street was held in German. The Warsaw Jewish community 1851 was divided into five districts synagogue, the main synagogue was still standing in the Wierzbowa Street.

In 1862, Jewish residents of Russian Poland were residential, and commercial property rights. Warsaw was the mid-1870s a center for the resettlement of Polish Jews. The number of Jewish community members in Warsaw at that time amounted to 90,000. After the pogroms in 1881 in the Russian Empire as a result of the assassination of Tsar Alexander II, the Jewish community of Warsaw granted refuge to the persecuted, thus increasing the number of Jews increased and a third of Warsaw's population was formed.

In the years 1871 to 1926 the Jewish community in Warsaw from community leaders was conducted with state - Orthodox setting that were culturally assimilated.

You got an integration of Jewish suburban community, the Praga community, in the Jewish municipality. The synagogue, the cemetery and the mikvah of the former suburban community have been restored then.

A building committee was established, which was to build a large new synagogue for the borough of Warsaw. Due to disagreements between the assimilated, modern - orthodox community leaders set and the first contractor received Leandro Marconi (1834-1919) the contract for the synagogue. From 1875 to 1878, the sacred building was built according to plans of Marconi from 1874.

The neo-classical sacred building had a main and a prayer room, whose floor plan formed an elongated rectangle and had a high tower with a dome. Was modeled on the Brussels Palace of Justice. The main prayer hall and was 38 meters long and 28 meters wide, and had the form of a gallery basilica with classical, coffered semi-dome of the apse and Corinthian columns in the side aisles and galleries. The entrance to the apse was flanked on either side by two tall, massive, dark -veined marble columns. The two pillars Jachin and Boaz symbolized, the two pillars that stood at the entrance of the Temple in Jerusalem at the gate.

The synagogue had a square vestibule with a dome and a portico. Model for the porch was the Pantheon in Rome. The dome made ​​the porch from the street clearly visible and marked them as weekday synagogue. Model was the Berlin Synagogue on Oranienburger Strasse.

The founders of both the Warsaw and Berlin city synagogue wanted domes to show that the synagogues imitate no Christian churches, but other public secular buildings should be similar to the Paris Opera and the Brussels Palace of Justice.

At the inauguration of the sacred building on September 26, 1878 Rosh Hashanah, the Governor General of Poland was present and personally opened the main door of the synagogue. The construction costs amounted to 300,000 rubles and were applied by the assimilated Polish speaking parishioners. In the 1920s, the Rabbi of the Warsaw synagogue Samuel Abraham Poznanski translated (* 1864 in Lubraniec, † 1921 in Warsaw) for the community members who came with Hat for Shabbat, the Siddur in the Polish language.

The synagogue was blown up at the end of the Warsaw ghetto uprising on May 16, 1943 by SS-group leader Jürgen Stroop. He then sent a telegram to SS -Obergruppenführer Krüger, the resident in Krakow Higher SS and Police Leader ( HSSPF East) in the General Government:

" [ ... ] The former Jewish residential district in Warsaw no longer exists. With the breakup of the Warsaw synagogue, the large-scale action was terminated at 20.15 clock [ ... ] "

Later in captivity, he described the destruction in his view:

" [ ... ] As a nice final chord of the major action I had ordered the demolition of the Great Synagogue in the Tolmackie Street. [ ...] I hesitated the exciting moment yet also something. I finally called: Heil Hitler! and pressed the button. The tremendous explosion ripped the flames to the clouds. A penetrating bang followed, the colors were almost magical. An unforgettable allegory of the triumph of Judaism! The Warsaw ghetto had ceased to exist [ ... ] "

The prayer hall had the form of a gallery basilica with classicist coffered semi-dome of the apse and Corinthian columns in the side aisles and galleries.

Model of the synagogue in Beit Hatefutsot Museum, Tel Aviv