Travel Impressions
About five hundred Jews live in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) They are dispersed over eight communities. Two hundred live in East Berlin.
The East Berlin Jewish community is the only one in East Germany which maintains Sabbath services throughout the year. The services are held at the Rykestrasse synagogue. This synagogue was destroyed during the Crystal Night of November 1938 and rebuilt after World War II.
There is also a Jewish old age home in East Berlin as well as a kosher butcher shop which is open three days a week. The community has no rabbi, only a cantor. Last Passover the Jews of East Berlin and those of other cities in East Germany received matzot from Hungary.
The community consists mainly of elderly and of people of middle age. Last year a boy was born to the community. He was circumcised by Dr. Peter Kirchner the chairman of the community who is a physician by profession.
The Nachrichtenblatt, which is published every three months by the Jewish communities of East Germany noted at the time that this was the first circumcision of a newborn in East Berlin in 16 years.
The offices of the community occupy several rooms in a building which was once an annex to the great synagogue on the Oranienburgerstrasse. This synagogue, a liberal temple with a seating capacity of 3000 was dedicated in 1866. It was destroyed during Crystal Night. The ruins can still be seen.
Adjacent to the community offices is the community’s Jewish library. It was organized several years ago by Mrs. Renate Kircher, the wife of Dr. Peter Kircher. Some time ago the Berlin authorities presented the library with photo copies of documents relating to the history of the Jews in Berlin.
Thousands of Tourists from the free world cross daily from West Berlin into East Berlin for a short visit. They do so at the official crossings points of the divided city. Many former Berlin Jews come from all parts to the world to East Berlin to visit the graves of relatives and friends in the large Jewish cemetery of Weissensee.
Several months ago my wife and I visited East Berlin. It was our second visit to the city. As soon as we had passed through “Checkpoint Charlie” – one of the crossing points – we took a taxi to the offices of the Jewish community.
We spent some time with Mrs. Renate Kircher, the librarian. She complained that only a small number of Jews made use of the library. Onf the nearly two hundred registered readers, only fifteen were Jews. They great majority of the library’s members were Christians, who were interested in Jews and Judaism.
Some time before we were in East Berlin, a group of Israeli journalists visited there. I found their signatures in the visitors’ book of the library among them that of my good friend, the poet and novelist Yaakov Even Hen (Edelstein) who is a member of the editorial board of the Mizrachi daily “HaTzofe.”
A few minutes’ walk from the community offices in the Grosse Hamburger Strasse, several sites of Jewish interest. Until 1942 a Jewish boys’ school was found there. Today the building houses a vocational school. Nearby stood the first old age home of the Berlin Jewish community. In 1942 the Gestapo took over the building and turned it into a transit camp for more than fifty thousand Berlin Jews: men, women and children who were deported to Theresienstadt and Auschwitz. The building is no more. A large stone recalling the martyrdom of the deportees, marks the site. Behind the old age home was Berlin’s first Jewish cemetery. It was opened in 1672 and closed in 1827. Twelve thousand Jews were buried there. During World War II, the Germans desecrated the cemetery. Of the old tombstones, only those which had been built into the wall of a neighboring building have survived. Today, the entire burial area is empty of tombstones, with the exception of the grave of the philosopher Moses Mendelsohn, on which a new tombstone has been erected. In 1949 the Jewish community of Berlin affixed a plaque with Hebrew and German inscriptions – to the wall of the neighboring building, in memory of the desecration oft he Cemetery by Germans.
We had difficulty in getting a taxi at the Grosse Hamburger Strasse and had to walk some distance ot the subway, which took us to lively and bustling Alexander Platz. There we visited the large and interesting department store and took a taxi back to “Checkpoint Charlie.”
The Jewish Press, Friday, March 2, 1984