History of the Jews in East Germany

The Jewish community of East Germany, a Communist state, numbered only a few hundred active members. Most Jews who settled in the German Democratic Republic did so either because their pre-1933 homes had been in eastern Germany or because they had been politically leftist before the Nazi seizure of power and, after 1945, wished to build an antifascist, socialist Germany.

History

At the end of 1946, the Jewish population in the Soviet occupation zone was estimated at only 1,200-1,500 people, and an additional 2,442 Jews lived in East Berlin. The Soviet authorities preferred to reintegrate survivors into their countries origin; therefore, they did not allow the building of Displaced Persons camps in East Germany. It was even reported that 600 Jews had been arrested by Soviet authorities in December 1945 when they entered the Soviet sector of Berlin. Soviet troops were ordered to evacuate Polish Jews who temporarily lived in two camps in the Soviet Occupation Zone and to close these camps in January 1946. In 1945 Jewish communities were established in several eastern German cities. There were 53 members of the Jewish community in Chemnitz, 70 in Dresden, 200 in Leipzig and several dozen in Magdeburg. A community of 150 Jews followed in Erfurt in 1946, one with 50 members in Halle in January 1947, and one with 74 members in Schwerin in 1948. In addition, a small community existed in Zwickau for a few years. When the German Democratic Republic was founded in October 1949, it had 1250 Jewish citizens in eight communities of Brandenburg (68), Chemnitz (49), Dresden (188), Halle (95), Leipzig (338), Magdeburg (167), Schwerin (81), and Thuringia (264)- among them only 124 people under the age of 18. At that time, about 2,500 Jews lived in East Berlin.

See also

• List of German Jews
• Yekke
• Ashkenazi Jews
• The Holocaust
• Germany-Israel relations
• HaGalil Online - an online magazine of Jews in German-speaking countries

References