Tour · Bratislava · memorial
The Vanished Synagogue - Rybné námestie
Right here stood Bratislava's Moorish Neolog synagogue, closed in 1942 as Jozef Tiso's Slovak State deported almost 58,000 Jews and paid Germany 500 Reichsmarks for each one. Tiso was hanged in 1947, and in 1969 the communists bulldozed the synagogue itself for the SNP bridge road.
Su questo luogo
Today Rybné námestie, the old Fish Square below St Martin's Cathedral, is a quiet corner beside the roar of the bridge road, but for 75 years it held Bratislava's Neolog synagogue, a Moorish style landmark by architect Dionýz Milch with yellow glazed tiles and two domed towers, opened on 25 September 1894 right beside the coronation church where eleven kings and queens of Hungary were crowned. Early in 1942 the Slovak State under President Jozef Tiso closed it for worship and filled it with books and manuscripts taken from deported families. Between 25 March and 20 October 1942 the regime deported almost 58,000 Jews and paid Germany 500 Reichsmarks for each of them, in return for a promise that they would never come back; of more than 15,000 Jews living in Bratislava in 1940, only about 3,500 survived the war. Tiso was found guilty by the National Court and hanged in Bratislava on 18 April 1947. The synagogue itself survived the war, only to be nationalised in 1959, used as a television warehouse and, despite the protests of the Jewish community, torn down in the spring of 1969 together with almost the entire old Jewish quarter to make way for the approach road to the SNP bridge. Today a dark bronze sculpture by Milan Lukáč, standing on black granite, marks the site as a memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, and a black wall beside it carries an image of the vanished synagogue.
Fatti principali
- 58000 people deported — Between 25 March and 20 October 1942 the Slovak State deported almost 58,000 Jews, about two thirds of the country's Jewish population.
- 500 Reichsmarks — The fee the Slovak government paid Germany for every deported person, in return for a promise that none would return and that Slovakia could keep their property.
- 1969 year — In the spring of 1969 the communist authorities demolished the synagogue, together with almost the entire old Jewish quarter, for the approach road to the SNP bridge.