Not only did the Germans deliberately burn down the large beautiful Strasbourg synagogue in 1941, but they compelled French companies which had insured the edifice for 1,000,000 marks to turn that sum over to them, Mayor Charles Frey today told a Jewish Telegraphic Agency correspondent.
Mayor Frey, who headed the city administration here up to the invasion and then fled to Perinaux, said that of the 10,000 Jews who lived in Strasbourg, which is the capital city of Alsace, none remain. He expressed the hope that eventually some of these will return.
All that remains of the Strasbourg synagogue is a square block piled with rubble. In nearby Metz, capital of Alsace’s sister province, Lorraine, however, the synagogue remains. Although despoiled, it is intact, and was recently rededicated by U.S. Army Chaplain Herman Dicker. Capt. Dicker, a naturalized American, who fled Germany after the rise of Hitler, told this correspondent that in Metz he had found five Jews who returned to the city immediately after its liberation.
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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.
