Synagogue Architecture in Slovakia Towards Creating a Memorial Landscape of Lost Community
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A Dissertation Submitted to the Hochschule für Jüdische Studien, Heidelberg in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Synagogue Architecture in Slovakia Towards Creating a Memorial Landscape of Lost Community MAROŠ BORSKÝ April 2005 Advisor: Dr. Felicitas Heimann-Jelinek Second Advisor: Prof. Dr. Michael Hesse CONTENTS Introduction 3 Chapter 1: Defining the Landscape: Jewish Communities in Slovakia 13 Chapter 2: Jewish Communities and their Urban Context: A Case Study of Košice, Prešov and Bardejov 57 Chapter 3: Central European Synagogue Architecture: Religious, Legal, Regional and Local Determinants 89 Chapter 4: Classification of the Slovak Synagogue Architecture 112 4.1. Pre-Emancipation Period Synagogues 112 4.2. Emancipation Period Synagogues 114 4.3. On Search for a New Architecture: Synagogues Prior to World War I 120 4.4. Synagogue Architecture between the World Wars 121 Chapter 5: Catalogue of Synagogues in Slovakia 130 5.1. Extant Synagogues 131 5.1.1. Bratislava Region 131 5.1.2. Trnava Region 136 5.1.3. Nitra Region 140 5.1.4. Trenčín Region 147 5.1.5. Banská Bystrica Region 151 5.1.6. Žilina Region 156 5.1.7. Košice Region 161 5.1.8. Prešov Region 169 5.2. Demolished Synagogues 180 5.2.1. Bratislava Region 180 5.2.2. Trnava Region 182 5.2.3. Nitra Region 186 5.2.4. Trenčín Region 189 5.2.5. Banská Bystrica Region 191 5.2.6. Žilina Region 195 5.2.7. Košice Region 198 5.2.8. Prešov Region 203 Conclusion 209 Résumé in German Language 217 Glossary 226 Bibliography 228 List of Illustrations 240 Appendix: Picture Catalogue 252 2 INTRODUCTION Although only sixty kilometers east of Vienna, Slovakia remains one of the least known European countries, often confused with Slovenia. The Slovak nation has existed for over a thousand years, but throughout its history, it remained subsumed within different state entities; for centuries as part of the Hungarian Kingdom (MAP 1), Slovakia was referred to as Upper Hungary, Felvidék or Oberland. For the most of the 20th century, Slovakia functioned as an eastern, less developed and agrarian, appendix of Czechoslovakia (MAP 2). For only a brief period during World War II, Slovakia emerged on the political map of Europe, when Germany installed a vassal government; under the manufactured pretext of inheriting the ancient principal throne of Pribina, the Slovak State served as a submissive actor in the Nazi-orchestrated European tragedy. The Jews of Slovakia, as well as their culture and history, are also relatively unknown, perhaps even less then the Mountain Jews of the Caucasus or the Romaniot Jews of Greece. Many Jewish people with “Hungarian” roots are still not aware that Pozsony, Bártfa and Dunaszerdahely, from where their grandparents originated, are Hungarian names for towns actually located in Slovakia. Since they had an easier access to centrally located archives in Budapest and Prague, historians dealing with the Jews of Hungary or Czechoslovakia have often focused on the urban Jewish experience in the capitals; Jews in the provinces have escaped their interest. Publications about Slovak Jewry are rare, though a three-volume work, The Jews of Czechoslovakia, with a number of studies dedicated to Slovakia, appeared in the U.S. almost forty years ago. In Israel, Professor Yeshayahu Jelinek has devoted his research to Slovakia. After 1989, literature about Jews began appearing in Slovakia; in 1991, the research of Eugen Bárkány enlarged by Ľudovít Dojč was published. Since then, more works dealing the history of local Jewish communities of several Slovak towns have emerged. The volume of Pinkas haKehillot, the authoritative encyclopedia of Holocaust- decimated Jewish communities published by the Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, dedicated to Slovakia appeared only in 2003. Because the publication is in Hebrew, it remains inaccessible to the most of readers. 3 So far, no modern comprehensive monographic work on Jewish built heritage in Slovakia exists. In the future, I anticipate publishing a richly illustrated volume, to be based on my doctoral research project. The book will serve as a memorial to numerous communities that disappeared together with their rabbis, cantors and Torah scrolls in the flames of the Holocaust, leaving behind their empty synagogues as silent witnesses of what was once flourishing Jewish life in Slovak towns. After World War II, those who could, left the country; thus the pre-war Slovak-Jewish population of 136,000 sank to - only 3,000 today. An amazing Jewish built heritage remains, albeit strongly decimated by decades- long neglect. Currently, over one hundred synagogues and prayer halls in the country, two historic ritual baths, almost seven hundred cemeteries with an unknown number of cemetery chapels are extant in one form or another throughout Slovakia, though only about five to seven synagogues function as houses of Jewish worship today, and some of them, only occasionally. A few synagogues have been painstakingly restored and are used for cultural purposes, though most of them have met different fates. Some were demolished during World War II, while many more were destroyed during the Communist totalitarian regime within the framework of megalomaniac urban projects or as a result of a targeted cleansing of the last traces of the former Jewish presence in many cities. Other synagogues have been altered by their new owners to serve different purposes, resulting in the original character of the buildings having been changed beyond recognition. Many stand unused, dilapidated, and face imminent collapse. Empty and looted synagogues, whose communities vanished during the Holocaust, remain in many Slovak towns as the last dying witnesses to the rich cultural past of one of Europe’s once flourishing Jewish communities. Most preserved synagogue buildings in Slovakia date from the 19th century or the first decades of the 20th century. Valuable buildings include the Baroque synagogue in Svätý Jur, the neo-Classical synagogues in Huncovce, Šarišské Lúky, Šaštín-Stráže and Liptovský Mikuláš and the nine-bay synagogues preserved in Stupava and Bardejov. Several examples of the once fashionable Moorish style synagogues remain in Vrbové, 4 Prešov or by architect Wilhelm Stiassny in Malacky. Leading Art Nouveau architect Leopold (Lipót) Baumhorn designed the synagogues in Nitra and Lučenec, as well as the restored synagogue in Liptovský Mikuláš. A valuable Art Nouveau synagogue also remains in Trenčín. Significant interwar synagogues can be found in Bratislava, Košice and Žilina, the last of which was built by renowned architect Peter Behrens. The city of Košice features an invaluable grouping of Jewish monuments. Prior to the Holocaust, this eastern Slovak city was home to several different Jewish communities representing a broad spectrum of religious streams. Communal buildings of former Hassidic, Orthodox, Neolog and Status Quo Ante congregations, some still with their original furnishing, have been preserved until today. STATE OF KNOWLEDGE AND PREVIOUS RESEARCH: Several surveys and documentation activities had been conducted before my research. A prominent survey was performed by the Architect Eugen Barkány in the 1960s (Bárkány, Eugen and Dojč, Ľudovít: Židovské náboženské obce na Slovensku. Bratislava 1991), when many synagogues were still standing. Cemeteries were less overgrown or had not been plundered by the locals. Although outdated, this survey remains the most authoritative and the most consulted. Several surveys from the 1990s are also available, notably, one done by the US Commission for the Preservation of America‘s Heritage Abroad, a private overview of cemeteries by the Central Union of Jewish Religious Communities in Slovakia, and an unpublished survey of the National Monument Office conducted through its regional offices. This last one I consulted with for my project. In the late 1980s and in 2002, Rivka and Dr. Ben-Zion Dorfman of Jerusalem traveled around Slovakia within the framework of their private synagogue research project (Dorfman, Rivka and Ben-Zion: Synagogues Without Jews: And The Communities That Build and Used Them. Philadelphia 2000). Well-known as well are the activities of a Bratislava-based physician Tomáš Stern. Most recently, an issue dedicated to synagogues in Slovakia of Architektúra a urbanizmus, a journal of the Institute of 5 Construction and Architecture of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava, appeared. MY RESEARCH: The initial impulse for this project came during the advanced stage of my studies at the Department of Art History of the Comenius University in Bratislava. An advisor to my MA thesis on the Architect Szalatnai-Slatinský, Professor Dana Bořutová, suggested the synagogue architecture in Slovakia as a theme of further doctoral research. Supported by Professor Mária Pötzl-Malíková, I embarked on a great journey that determined my further years of university schooling and research. In 1999-2001, I continued in my studies in the “Jewish Civilization” program at the Rothberg International School of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Aside from studying, I was generously granted a research internship at the Center for Jewish Art, where I could learn the bases of synagogue documentation that later proved a fundamental prerequisite for my project. My methodology has been informed by various research projects, while adapting them to local conditions and my shoestring budget. Two publications have been of particular interest to me: Hammer Schenk’s magnum opus on synagogue