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.

Breznice, Czech Republic: Where Were the Women?

Březnice, Czech Rep. Synagogue.The synagogue sits in the middle of the second ghetto square; the two spaces are connected by a single street. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Synagogue. View into women's gallery from stair landing. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Březnice, Czech Rep. View of sanctuary from west women's gallery. The south gallery (on right) was added in the 19th century. Synagogue.Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Březnice, Czech Republic: Where Were the Women?

Continuing my look at  synagogues that I visited this past summer (see Rakovnik, Plzen, St. Polten, and Terezin), and looking especially at where were the women, I turn to the recently re-restored and now pristine 18th-century of Březnice, a small Bohemian town 65 kms southwest of Prague, and 15 kms south of the district town of Přibram.The Březnice synagogue stands in the middle of one of the best preserved Jewish ghettos in the region. After being used as a warehouse after World War II, it has been restored twice since the 1990s, most recently as part of the  “Revitalization of Jewish Monuments” project, known as 10 Stars. As in any modern restoration, the architects and conservators had to make choices about which elements from which periods to conserve, replicate, imitate or emphasize.

Březnice is an important example of an 18th-century synagogue and also represents change in the the 19th century (including more space for women) and in the 20th century (new wall paintings and stained glass windows). Overall, the restoration attempt refers to the latest period of synagogue use, but since everything looks so fresh and clean, this cannot really be the case. Instead, as with almost all preservation projects, we have something new. The restored building is an amalgam that allows us to identify historical bits and pieces from which we reach for teachable moments. The bimah is only an approximation, there was probably more seating around the bimah and in the sanctuary, the walls may have had more decoration - including prayer, dedication or memorial inscriptions, and there may have been rails, lamps and other metalwork around the Ark. Based on other synagogues of the period, the interior may have seemed more cluttered for use. Still, the overall architectural impression is probably correct.

The modest-sized synagogue served as a spiritual, physical, and aesthetic oasis set in the heart of the ghetto, which itself was near the heart of the town.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Model of the Ghetto from exhibition in Boskovice Jewish Town Hall. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

According to the text by provided by Daniel Polakovic (which corresponds to earlier writings of Jaroslav Klenovsky):

The earliest written records of Jewish settlement date from the second half of the 15th century. In the 15th-17th centuries, Břzenice's Jews lived in various parts of town, and in 1573-1725 they owned a total of 19 different houses at various times. On the basis of the Translocation Decree of 1726, Břzenice's Jews were forcibly concentrated within the newly established Loksany suburb. The houses of this new Jewish quarter were built in 1726-1747 on a regular town plan with two squares and two streets. The neighborhood consists of 24 baroque buildings, meticulously numbered using the Roman numerals. A synagogue was built at the center of the larger, rear, square; the smaller square was connected to the main town square by a narrow street and gate. It was a closed ghetto, connected with the rest of town by just the one street and gate.Most of the ghetto's buildings were renovated in the neo-classical or Empire style following the great fire of 14 April 1821.

The synagogue was was built in the middle of the second, larger, square in 1725. Following the destructive fire of 1821, it was rebuilt in its original size and form thanks to the help of the Count of Kolowrat. As a sign of gratitude, the Kolowrat family’s coat of arms was placed inside the synagogue.

This ghetto or Jewish quarter was no ugly slum. It was well laid out, and  by the 18th century its two dozen houses were well built with attractive facades. At least one house - that of the famed Joachim von Popper (d. 1795) - was a mansion and is still imposing today.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Second square of the Ghetto with synagogue on the right. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Popper mansion and synagogue south wall with main entrance (right)..Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018

The main hall in the synagogue’s northern part features a barrel-vaulted ceiling with lunettes and a separate entrance. Men entered into the sanctuary through a projecting doorway into a vestibule under the women's gallery, and on axis with the bimah and Ark. There is also a smaller door which entered the sanctuary at the southwest corner from a vaulted hallway. This is a traditional arrangement, similar to what we see at the Altneushul in Prague.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Synagogue.West wall. Entrance to women's gallery and school or right. Photo: Jiří Stach, Federation of Jewish Communities of Czech Republic.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Synagogue. Plans. From J. Klenovsky, The Gates of the righteous: Synagogues in Moravia, Silesia and Bohemia, p. 94.

Women entered through a more modest doorway, also on the west wall, but flush to the wall without any attention-grabbing extension. This door is used by the public today and leads into the vaulted hallway parallel with the sanctuary axis, which divided the building in two,  with the small doorway into the sanctuary on the left and a stairway to an upper floor on the right. Upstairs there was a one-room school and access to the women's gallery. It is a fairly generous stair by the standards of the time, with a wide passage and relatively low rises for east ascent.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Synagogue. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

At first the women's gallery occupied only the west side of the hall, where women would look toward the Ark and the Hebrew inscription  with the verse “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” (Leviticus 19:18). They would also have a good view of the painted ceiling. 

A second space was added in the 19th century on the east side, too. This has two spaces in the from which women could view the sanctuary, but behind a larger area was open above the vault of the downstairs hallway. This area is now used for temporary exhibition and is closed off form the rest of the prayer hall, but it was large enough even to accommodate its own female prayer leader. Since the sanctuary itself was not enlarged, this new space perhaps indicates that more women were attending the synagogue, even if  the population overall was not expanding. Presumably the benches in place now are not original, so it is hard to know the seating arrangement - but even with the expanded women's space there would only be comfortable seating for between 15-20 women in all.
 

Březnice, Czech Rep. Synagogue.Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Synagogue.Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Synagogue.Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Synagogue.Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

The women’s gallery originally ran along the southern side; the balcony on the western side was probably built in 1874, when the bimah was moved to the east and new rows of benches were added.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Stained glass window in memory of Katerina Červenka. Synagogue.Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

The early 20th-century stained-glass windows are the work of inventor Emanuel Červenka, the son of the Březnice shamash, who dedicated them to his parents Moses and Katerina. and the decorative wall paintings are by  painter Ladislav Kuba.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Synagogue. View from the west women's gallery. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Synagogue. View from the west women's gallery. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Synagogue. View from the west women's gallery.Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Synagogue. Painted ceiling seen from west women's gallery.Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Synagogue. This vaulted entry hall separates the building in two. In the 19th-century the area above was opened for more space for women.Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Synagogue. This space was originally the schoolroom. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Synagogue. View to main door to sanctuary beneath arches supporting west women's gallery with early 20th-century floral decoration Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Synagogue. Inside of main door to sanctuary beneath west women's gallery. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Synagogue. Pier in sanctuary supporting west women's gallery. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Synagogue. Detail of reconstructed Ark steps.There may have been lamp stands or some other furnishing on the two flat surfaces flanking the Ark.   Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Synagogue. Doorway from downstairs hallway into men's sanctuary. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.

Březnice, Czech Rep. Synagogue. Expanded women's space above ground floor hallway, now used for temporary exhibition. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2018.