Official East German media outlets have publicized restoration efforts for a former synagogue and a Jewish cemetery ravaged by the Nazis in the late 1930’s, the World Jewish Congress reported here.
The East German News Agency said the synagogue on Berlin’s Orienburger Street, which was set on fire by the Nazis during the Kristallnacht anti-Jewish rampage of 1938, is to be rebuilt on the basis of the existing structure. The reconstruction project is to be in line with the original building.
The press department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported the reopening last month of the Adas Yisroel cemetery in Berlin. “Members of the Jewish communities in the German Democratic Republic and descendants of members of this community, blotted out by the Nazis in 1939, from the Federal Republic of Germany, France, Great Britain, Israel, Sweden, Switzerland, the United States and West Berlin took part in the ceremony,” the Foreign Ministry said.
A memorial stone was inaugurated bearing the names of Jews killed in concentration camps whose urns were installed in the cemetery between 1939 and 1942. The Foreign Ministry also said that the day’s ceremonies included the unveiling of a commemorative plaque on a building situated in East Berlin where there had been a community center, a synagogue, and a rabbinical seminary of the Adas Yisroel Congregation.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
