The Kaiser Franz Josef Jubiläumssynagoge (Emperor Franz Joseph Jubilee Synagogue) of St. Pölten, Austria: Where Were the Women?

St. Pölten, Austria. Synagogue. Theodor Schreier and Viktor Postelberg, architects, 1913. Restored 1984. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

St. Pölten, Austria. Synagogue. Theodor Schreier and Viktor Postelberg, architects, 1913. Restored 1984. View form women's gallery. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

St. Pölten, Austria. Synagogue. Ark with inscription noting women's donation. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

The Kaiser Franz Josef Jubiläumssynagoge (Emperor Franz Joseph Jubilee Synagogue) of St. Pölten, Austria: Where Were the Women?

by Samuel D Gruber
 

I recently wrote about one of the most recent Central European synagogue restorations at the Old Synagogue of Plzen and asked the question about the synagogue, "where were the women?" Now, I take a look a look at one of the first Central European synagogue restorations, that of the Kaiser Franz Josef Jubiläumssynagoge (Emperor Franz Joseph Jubilee)  of St. Pölten, Austria, dedicated in 1913, ruined on Kristallnacht in 1938, and restored in the 1980s, and ask the question again.

St. Pölten, Austria. Synagogue.  Entrance from main vestibule to women's staircase.Stairs to women's gallery. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

St. Pölten, Austria. Synagogue. Stairs to women's gallery. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

St. Pölten, Austria. Synagogue. Stairs to women's gallery. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Since 1988 the former synagogue has housed the Institute for Jewish History in Austria, founded by historian Klaus Lohrmann. I want to thank the Institute's long-time director Martha Keil for her enthusiastic welcome (on short notice) and her tour and history of the building. Though I have known of the St. Pölten restoration since I first entered the field of Jewish heritage preservation in 1988, this was my first visit. While Martha was apologetic about the deficiencies of the restoration of more than thirty years ago, in fact, the work at St. Pölten was ahead of its time and the restoration has held up reasonably well. Much of that is due to Martha's own long commitment to the building, which, when it was saved from extremely derelict condition had no real plan for future use. The creation, development, and sustenance of the Institute has protected the building, and also done much to recovery and present important aspects of the Jewish history and culture of St. Pölten and of Austria. The Institute maintains a full schedule of events, workshops, courses, and exhibits.

St. Pölten, Austria. Synagogue.Elevation. Source: Center for Jewish Art.

The long planning history and the relatively quick construction history of the St. Pölten synagogue are well-documented and are reported in an essay by Christoph Lind .Restoring History? St. Pölten’s Jewish Past and online here. The process was familiar. Need for a new and bigger building, requests denied and then reconsidered, negotiations with city officials, solicitations of designs from noted architects, and then the drawn-out fund-raising campaign. In the end Viennese architects Theodor Schreier and Viktor Postelberg were selected for the job (it should be noted that Schreier was deported at age 70 to Terezin in 1943, where he died). 

St. Pölten, Austria. Synagogue. Portrait of Emperor Franz Joseph commissioned for the synagogue by Samuel and Bertha Mandl. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Unusual, perhaps, is correspondence about plans to place a bust of the Emperor Franz Joseph – after whom the synagogue was to be named – in the building’s vestibule. Happily, the idea was scratched, but a portrait painting of the Emperor was commissioned by congregants Samuel and Bertha Mandl instead. The portrait was rediscovered and identified by Martha Keil in 2000 and is back at the synagogue. it is possibly the very last evidence of the widespread Jewish devotion to the Austro-Hungarian imperial ideal before it all collapsed in World War I and that relatively tolerant age ended forever.

The accounts of the August 1913 dedication are detailed, too. There were many long speeches by Jewish community officials and government leaders. Not surprisingly, everyone who spoke was a man and I suppose they all wore elegant coats and top hats. But we know there were women there crowding the galleries, and they had played a role in the building of the new synagogue, too, and it must have been a pretty prominent role. Though they did not address the assembled dignitaries and congregants on dedication day, acknowledgment of their gift took pride of place in an inscription on the Ark.

St. Pölten, Austria. Synagogue. Ark. Detail with inscription noting women's donation. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

A women’s charitable association was founded in St. Pölten in 1902 and on the Ark is written in German but in Hebrew letters (with an umlaut over the aleph) the inscription  “Gespendet vom Frauenverein St. Pölten" ("donated by the St. Pölten’s Women’s Association").

St. Pölten, Austria. Synagogue. View from Ark to women's galleries and choir loft. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

St. Pölten, Austria. Synagogue. Theodor Schreier and Viktor Postelberg, architects, 1913. Restored 1984.  Stairs to women's gallery. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

At St. Pölten, as in Plzen and almost all the other synagogues in the Empire, women were in the gallery. The inscription, set high on the Ark is one element of the sanctuary of which they would have had a good view. The galleries in St. Pölten were spacious and probably comfortable, but the original seating does not survive. The proportions of the building were much different than the Old Synagogue in Plzen. The main sanctuary was wider, and the distance from the women’s galleries to the main floor was less. Women could sit closer and see more, and probably the sound carried better. An additional gallery space for choir is also set above the women's gallery at the entrance end of the sanctuary, opposite the Ark wall.

The women entered the same door from the outside as the men, but then took one of two stairways upstairs. These were elegant sweeping stairways, much more accommodating – and better to look at – than the tortured twisting stairs at Plzen. With their elegant iron railing, these stairs recalled a concert hall more than traditional Jewish separation – but still, the women were separated and had their special place. From there, however, they could look at the Ark.  Their Ark. The one they’d donated.

St. Pölten, Austria. Synagogue. Memorial tablet in front of building.. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018

Of course, after the Anscluss of March 2, 1938, and then the Kristallnacht Pogrom on November 10, 1938 when the synagogue was looted, the interior gutted and its contents burned, few Jews remained in St. Polten. Many fled or went into hiding, others were deported. By 1945, however, at least 575 men, women, and children of the Jewish community St. Pölten known by name were murdered by Nazis and their collaborators. A large tablet with the names of many of these victims is erected in front of the synagogue. It was first set up in 1998, the two outer panels were added in 2008, and then the small one (in metal), was installed in 2016. The memorial grows as more names are learned. Reading the tablet, where the women were in the synagogue doesn't seem to matter much. Women and men were joined in death, or in the best circumstances, into exile.

We mourn the victims and remember their suffering and loss. We remain indignant that it took the Austrian government until the 1990s and even more recently to admit and discuss Austrian complicity in Nazi oppression and atrocity. We are grateful that the Institute for Jewish History in Austria is telling the stories of Jewish victims, and the history of their communities.