Right in front of you, you’ll see an open square with a wide and shimmering water basin-if you look for the rectangular pool on the ground, that’s actually where the old synagogue once stood!
Now, time for a step into the past-so, take a deep breath, feel the breeze around you, and let’s imagine Freiburg over a hundred years ago. Picture yourself not in a modern square, but before a striking building raised on a gentle hill, towers at either side of its grand entrance like two watchful sentinels, and a beautiful inscription announcing, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.” That was the Old Synagogue, standing proudly from 1870-its design was a marvelous mix: some bits looked like Italian palaces, others like something from a story of Arabian Nights.
The story of Jewish life in Freiburg actually goes way back to the Middle Ages, when there was already a synagogue here by 1300. But trouble was never far off. In 1349, almost the entire Jewish community was killed during the horrors that followed the plague. Over the centuries, the winds of acceptance and exclusion kept blowing-sometimes harsh, sometimes hopeful-sometimes blowing the whole population right out of the city, as happened in 1424 when Jews were forced out for hundreds of years.
Fast-forward to the 1800s: after centuries of bans, the Jewish community got a second chance. Bit by bit, families returned and, finally, in the 1860s, pooled their courage and savings to build a new synagogue. The plans were drawn by Georg Jakob Schneider, who was sort of like the superhero of synagogue-building in Baden-he looked to the great synagogues of the time and wanted this one to shine. The Old Synagogue became one of Freiburg’s jewels: sand and brick, bold arches, a beautiful rose window, and two little towers at the entrance that almost looked ready for lift-off. There was even a separate bathhouse just for ritual baths, tucked next to the main building.
When the synagogue opened in September 1870, the whole city joined the celebration. Even the Protestant ministers and city authorities came to see what all the fuss was about. Not bad for a building that-ahem-some city officials thought would look better somewhere else. Apparently, the town planners were never quite sure if it should be upstaged by the new university and theater next door, but the community held their ground.
But history can take a dark corner faster than you can walk from here to the next tram stop. In the 1930s, while the city outside was busy growing, storm clouds gathered. On the night of November 9th, 1938-a date burned into memory as the Reichspogromnacht or Kristallnacht-SS and SA men broke into the synagogue, doused it in gasoline, and set the building ablaze. The fire brigade showed up, but they weren’t there to save the synagogue-just to keep the flames from spreading to the new university nearby.
Inside, everything was destroyed-except a few treasures like the great wooden doors and a beautifully painted piece from the Torah Shrine, which amazingly survived and found a new home in Freiburg’s newer synagogue. But most of the synagogue, and the lives it touched for generations, vanished in smoke and rubble. By the next day, the SS were already tearing down what was left, and the city covered it up with a fence, as if trying to hide both the ruins and the shame.
In the years since, this patch of ground became a battleground of memory and forgetting. For a long time, there was nothing but a dusty lot and then, dare I say, a very undignified parking lot. Survivors and descendants begged for a memorial, but it took decades-and more than a few strongly worded letters-before a bronze plaque finally arrived. Even then, it kept getting lost under the grass. The city bought the land, dreamed up elaborate plans, discussed what should happen here until, I suspect, every single person in Freiburg had an opinion.
Excavations in 2016 unearthed pieces of the original foundations-amazing, right?-and there were fierce debates about whether to keep those old stones, or to cover them so children could play freely again. In the end, they created the water basin here, a peaceful mirror that quietly outlines the synagogue’s original footprint. Children splash where worshippers once prayed, university students lounge, and sometimes a heated debate still ripples across the surface, as people ask-how should we remember, and how should we go on?
So now as you stand here, you’re not just in a square, or beside a fountain. You’re on a living memory. You’re where sorrow and resilience, loss and renewal, all flow together. Look around-there’s a whole city continuing to write its story, right here on the water’s edge-sometimes splashing, sometimes arguing, always remembering. And if you ever want to remember the Old Synagogue, just dip your fingers in the basin, and ripple the past awake for a moment.
To expand your understanding of the predecessor synagogues, construction and expansion or the destruction, feel free to engage with me in the chat section below.
