page_title: History of the Jews in Speyer
section_title: The Jewish community in the 20th century and today
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Jews in Speyer / The Jewish community in the 20th century and today
caption_attribution_description: English: Memorial plaque for the Jewish community in Speyer Deutsch: Gedenktafel für die jüdische Gemeinde in Speyer.
context_page_description: The history of the Jews in Speyer reaches back over 1,000 years. In the Middle Ages, the city of Speyer, Germany, was home to one of the most significant Jewish communities in the Holy Roman Empire. Its significance is attested to by the frequency of the Ashkenazi Jewish surname Shapiro/Shapira and its variants Szpira/Spiro/Speyer. After many ups and downs throughout history, the community was totally wiped out in 1940 during the Holocaust. With the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 Jews again settled in Speyer and a first assembly took place in 1996.
context_section_description: By 1933, the number of Jews in Speyer had fallen to 269, and by the time their synagogue was torched in the November pogroms of 1938 (Kristallnacht) there were only 81 left. In the night of 9 November, SA and SS troops looted the synagogue on Heydenreichstraße, taking away the library, precious cloths, carpets and ritual utensils and setting the building alight. The firemen only kept an eye on the neighbouring buildings. Along with the synagogue the Jews also lost their school. The same night the Jewish cemetery was also vandalized. The debris of the synagogue was removed in the following days, which was billed to the Jewish community. A member of the community supplied a prayer room in his house on Herdstraße. The city later used this house as a storage for furniture left behind by deported Jews.
  On 22 October 1940, 51 of the 60 Jews remaining in Speyer were deported to the internment camp of Gurs in southern France. Some of them managed to escape to Switzerland, the USA and South Africa with the aid of locals, while others were deported to Germany and murdered at Auschwitz. Only one Jew survived the Nazi era hidden in Speyer.
  In 1951, the city of Speyer considered putting a parking lot on the site of the former synagogue. In 1955 the council decided on a payment of 30,000 DM to the German Jewish community (as settlement of a restitution procedure). In 1959 the department store company Anker bought the whole block, including the empty lot of the former synagogue, for Speyer's first department store on Maximilianstraße (today Kaufhof). At the recommendation of the German Cities Council, Speyer bought development bonds from the State of Israel worth 2,000 DM in 1961.
  In 1968, a commemorative plaque was unveiled in the court of the mikveh commemorating the fate of the Speyer Jews. In 1979 another plaque was attached at the back wall of the Kaufhof department store building where the synagogue once stood. Right in front of the site a monument was erected in 1992. Shortly after it was moved across the street to its present place because of the restricted space. There was no majority for a 2007 motion in the council by the Social Democratic Party to have commemorative brass cobblestones (so-called Stolpersteine or "stumbling stones") placed in the pavement in front of buildings where Jews lived until their deportation. This has been done in many other German cities.
  Up to the 1990s there was no Jewish community in Speyer. It was only in October 1996 that a first assembly took place. Ten Jews who had emigrated from Eastern Europe decided to found a new Jewish community. It was also decided to build a new synagogue by extending the former medieval church of St. Guido. The cornerstone of the Synagogue Beith-Shalom was laid on 9 November 2008. Consecration took place on 9 November 2011 in the presence of President Christian Wulff, Premier Kurt Beck, Speyer Mayor Hansjörg Eger, Bishop Karl-Heinz Wiesemann and Church President Christian Schad. A very honoured guest was Jack Mayer, born 1930 in Speyer, who had fled with his mother and brother to the United States in 1938.
  The medieval Jewish cemetery of Speyer lay opposite the Judenturm (Jews' tower) to the west of the former Jews' quarter in Altspeyer (today between Bahnhofstraße and Wormer Landstraße). After the pogroms of 1349 it was ploughed under and in 1358 the city returned some of it as leasehold estate. After the expulsion of 1405 the area was owned by a Christian but in 1429 the Jews were able to retrieve it. After the expulsion of 1435 the city confiscated the cemetery and leased it to Christians. In the 18th century it was the garden plot of the poor house (Elendherbergsacker). After Jews resettled in Speyer in the 19th century, a new cemetery was built at St. Klara Klosterweg and remained in use until 1888. The former mortuary and a part of the western wall are still in place. In 1888, the Jewish cemetery was moved to the new city cemetery built in the north of Speyer along Wormser Landstraße, where it now occupies the southeastern section.
caption: Memorial plaque in the Speyer Judenhof
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