Lost Jewish Communities: Roermond, Netherlands

by CrownHeights.info

A surprisingly beautiful southern city in the Netherlands, Roermond has a long general and Jewish history.

While the town received rights in an official compacity in the year 1231, its Jewish presence can be traced to 1275 through 1443, when severe pogroms chased the Jews out of the entire area. Hardly any Jews lived in the town the early 19th century, while the town was conquered by different countries.

Most notable of the conquests was the Spanish Empire, which brought the Inquisition along with it. While under Spanish rule, the Inquisition encouraged people to report suspects of witchcraft and heresy, leading to the largest witch burning that occurred in the Netherlands. In 1613, 64 alleged witches were burnt on the Galgeberg hill, where a memorial stands today.

From 1822 on, the Jews of Roermond gathered to pray in a private home. By 1850, the Roermond community had grown to the point that it was able to purchase a house with an adjacent plot of land on which to later build a synagogue. The newly-constructed synagogue was consecrated in 1853 while the existing house was converted into a school.

During that time, the community used the local cemetery, with two Jewish sections opening around 1826 and 1860.

The Jewish community suffered a decline in numbers at the end of the 19th century, as Jews started to move to larger cities in other parts of the Netherlands.

Under the German occupation of the Netherlands during the Second World War, Jewish children were expelled from Roermond’s public schools at the start of the 1941 school year and a separate Jewish school was established. The school remained open until the last Jews were deported from Roermond in April of 1943. The majority of the Jewish population of Roermond was deported between August 1942 and April 1943 and subsequently murdered in Nazi death camps in Poland.

A Star of David and Tablets of the Law inscribed in stone on the façade of the building of the former Jewish school is all that is left to remind us of the vanished Jewish community at Roermond. In May 2007 a monument in remembrance of the 133 Jews from Roermond who were murdered in the Second World War, was unveiled at the courtyard of the former synagogue on the Hamstraat.

Jewish population of Roermond by year:

1840 – 132
1869 – 139
1899 – 113
1930 – 55
1951 – 19
1971 – 16