• New Synagogue Memorial, Wrocław
A memorial on the former site of the New Synagogue in the Silesian city of Wrocław (German: Breslau), recalls its destruction on November 9/10, 1938, and honours the victims of the Holocaust.
Image: Breslau, before 1938, The New Synagogue, Herder-Institut Marburg, Bildarchiv
Breslau, before 1938, The New Synagogue, Herder-Institut Marburg, Bildarchiv

Image: Wrocław, 2010, New Synagogue Memorial, Stiftung Denkmal, Barbara Kurowska
Wrocław, 2010, New Synagogue Memorial, Stiftung Denkmal, Barbara Kurowska
Wrocław (until 1945 Breslau) is the most important city of Silesia, a region which changed ownership frequently through the centuries, belonging to Poland, Bohemia, Austria and from 1742 onwards to Prussia. Jews lived here non-continuously since the 12th century. Jewish life flourished especially from the middle of the 19th century with countless Jewish organizations. Breslau was the home to many famous Jewish-born personalities such as the physicist Max Born (1882-1970) or the Socialist Ferdinand Lasalle (1825-1864).
In 1865, construction began for the new, liberal synagogue of Breslau. It was also referred to as the New Temple and was built in Neo-Gothic and Neo-Romanesque style by the architect Edwin Oppler (1831–1880). The synagogue was consecrated in November 1872. With its place for 2.000 people and its 60 meters high dome it was, after the New Synagogue of Berlin, the second largest synagogue of Germany prior to its destruction.
In the mid-1920s, Breslau was home to the third-largest Jewish community in the German Reich – after Berlin and Frankfurt – with 23,240 members. From January 1933 on, however, Hitler and the Nazis declared it their aim to expel all Jews from Germany. As everywhere, extensive anti-Jewish measures were implemented in Breslau: from operations such as the state-controlled »boycott of Jews« on April 1, 1933, to open violence, when members of the SA set fire to the New Synagogue on night of November 9/10, 1938. After the events of the »Kristallnacht«, the Gestapo arrested 2,471 Jewish men and deported them to the Buchenwald concentration camp. In mid-May 1939, there were only about 11,200 Jews left in Breslau. From November 1941 onwards, almost all Jews of Breslau were deported to ghettos and concentration camps in the occupied territories of Eastern Europe. Only few of them survived.
Image: Breslau, before 1938, The New Synagogue, Herder-Institut Marburg, Bildarchiv
Breslau, before 1938, The New Synagogue, Herder-Institut Marburg, Bildarchiv

Image: Wrocław, 2010, New Synagogue Memorial, Stiftung Denkmal, Barbara Kurowska
Wrocław, 2010, New Synagogue Memorial, Stiftung Denkmal, Barbara Kurowska
Between 1941 and 1944, the Gestapo and the SS deported over 7,000 Jewish men, women and children from the Breslau Odertor railway station to the German extermination and concentration camps in the occupied east. Hundreds of Breslau Jews committed suicide or died in concentration camps or forced labour detachments. Thousands were expelled from their Silesian home town between 1933 and 1941; about 1,000 survivors were expelled in 1945 or forcibly resettled by the Polish authorities in the following years. Altogether it is estimated that about 10,000 Jews of Breslau were killed in the Holocaust.
Image: Breslau, undated, The interior of the New Synagogue on an old postcard, Yad Vashem
Breslau, undated, The interior of the New Synagogue on an old postcard, Yad Vashem

Image: Breslau, 1939, ID issued by the Breslau police president to ten-year-old Klaus »Israel« Aufrichtig, Kenneth James Arkwright
Breslau, 1939, ID issued by the Breslau police president to ten-year-old Klaus »Israel« Aufrichtig, Kenneth James Arkwright
After the »Kristallnacht« in November 1938, the remains of the New Synagogue were torn down.
The Potsdam Agreement, signed by the Allies in the summer of 1945, granted Poland control over most of Silesia, including its capital Breslau, which was renamed Wrocław. Official Polish propaganda spoke of the »reclamation« of the area, erasing all German – both non-Jewish and Jewish – traces in the city.
Only after the collapse of the Communist regime in 1989 did a more open examination of the city's history begin. This confrontation with the past brought about the German-Polish-Hebrew monument inaugurated on the former site of the New Synagogue in 1998. It bears a picture of the synagogue, the dates 1872 (the consecration of the temple) and 1938 (the date of its destruction) as well as following inscription: »They have cast fire into thy sanctuary, they have defiled by casting down the dwelling place of thy name to the ground. Ps. 74.7. Located on this site until November 9, 1938, stood the largest synagogue of the Jewish community of Breslau. That night, it was burned down by the National Socialist regime. This act of destruction marked the beginning of the murder of the Jewish children, women and men of Breslau. Honour their memory!«
Today, the small Jewish community of Wrocław has about 290 members – it is the second-largest Jewish community in present-day Poland and has many active members, many of them young. The community archive of the Breslau Jews was founded in 1924; since 1945, it has been stored at the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw. Two Jewish cemeteries have survived in the city. The largest synagogue today is again the White Stork Synagogue, originally built in 1829. After the war, the building was derelict for decades; in 2010 it was opened following extensive renovations. It is surrounded by cafés and cultural institutions.
In 2011, the Foundation Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe published the memoirs of Kenneth James Arkwright, who was born as Klaus Aufrichtig in Breslau in 1929.
Image: Wrocław, 2014, New Synagogue Memorial, Stiftung Denkmal
Wrocław, 2014, New Synagogue Memorial, Stiftung Denkmal

Image: Wrocław, 2010, Re-opened White Stork Synagogue, Stiftung Denkmal, Barbara Kurowska
Wrocław, 2010, Re-opened White Stork Synagogue, Stiftung Denkmal, Barbara Kurowska
Image: Wrocław, 2014, Tombstones with bulletholes from the Second World War in the New Jewish Cemetery, Stiftung Denkmal
Wrocław, 2014, Tombstones with bulletholes from the Second World War in the New Jewish Cemetery, Stiftung Denkmal
Image: Wrocław, 2014, Memorial to Jewish soldiers killed in the First World War in the New Jewish Cemetery, Stiftung Denkmal
Wrocław, 2014, Memorial to Jewish soldiers killed in the First World War in the New Jewish Cemetery, Stiftung Denkmal
Image: Wrocław, 2014, New Synagogue Memorial and some of the remaining walls of the building, Stiftung Denkmal
Wrocław, 2014, New Synagogue Memorial and some of the remaining walls of the building, Stiftung Denkmal
Image: Wrocław, 2014, Detailed view of the memorial, Stiftung Denkmal
Wrocław, 2014, Detailed view of the memorial, Stiftung Denkmal
Name
Pomnik w miejscu Nowej Synagogi
Address
Łąkowa 8
50-036 Wrocław
Open
The memorial is always accessible.