The Jewish community

In Cologne there is a large Jewish community with 4500 members. The synagogue can be found in Roonstrasse, which invites all Jews in Cologne to worship and pray. "Not by might and not by strength, but by my spirit, says the Lord of Hosts". (Secharja IV, 6.) This is written as an inscription on the Cologne synagogue.

Oldest congregation in Germany

The Jewish community in Cologne is the oldest community - with a Jewish faith - in all of Germany! It must have been created before the year 321 AD, as it was mentioned once in a document by the Emperor Constantine at that time.

The Jewish Cologne

In Cologne there is a lot of history and also a memorial to a bad time. There is a memorial in the NS Documentation Center (the EL DE House ) on Appelhofplatz. The Cologne Gestapo was active in this house from 1935 to 1945. In the basement of the house, several hundreds of people immortalized themselves with inscriptions in the stones before they were tortured and then murdered. It is incredible that this building was not destroyed at all in WWII.

In the neighboring building, the former court, the Nazis condemned all "enemies of the Reich" with "racial laws".

Kurt Lischka

A Nazi criminal named Kurt Lischka was born an incredible 34 years after the Nazi era Cologne regional court on Appelhofplatz convicted and sentenced to ten years in prison. The German Bundestag made it possible to prosecute Nazi crimes and so the Cologne authorized representative could finally be convicted. So in 1979 he was found guilty of the murder of over 70,000 Jews. He then died in 1989 - as a free man - in a retirement home in Brühl.

Memorial by Ruedi Baur

On September 1st, 2009 a memorial by the artist Ruedi Baur was inaugurated. It has a chain text that we would like to briefly introduce here: "Homage to the soldiers who refused to shoot, to the soldiers who refused to shoot, to the people who refused to kill, to the people who refused to kill (... ) ". A text dedicated to the victims of Nazi military justice.

The Cologne City Museum

There are many pieces of Jewish history in the Cologne City Museum. There you can find a large number of Judaica, i.e. evidence of Jewish history. In a courageous action, the museum management secured all pieces of history from the regime by protecting them and storing them. This was in 1933. Among the almost 2000 exhibits are tombstones and Torah scrolls.

The Oppenheim family

There is another famous bank in Cologne that has Jewish roots. The Bankhaus Sal. Oppenheim was founded by the Salomon Oppenheim family. When the company was 17 years old, Salomon Oppenheim (1772-1828) opened a bureau de change as the cornerstone of the bank. He invested extremely successfully in the insurance business, but also in railway construction. The bank survived a long time and many wars (two world wars) before it was finally taken over by Deutsche Bank. On the bank's website it was not possible to tell that this was one of the oldest private banks with Jewish roots!

The family converted to Christianity to protect themselves from the regimes of the time. The bank was still considered "Jewish property". In order to save the bank, the partner Robert Pferdemenges even took over the business from 1938. Until 1947 even completely under his own name. However, the Oppenheim family was very brave and tried to defend themselves and they even dared to assassinate Adolf Hitler. This failed and so at least one brother Carl Friedrich Oppenheim (the other escaped) was supposed to be murdered for "undermining the power of the people". The US armed forces prevented this at the last second.

The Oppenheim family was always there for the city of Cologne and even supported the construction of the cathedral. Abraham Oppenheim is named here as the donor. But that's not all! The other family members Eduard and Albert Oppenheim even supported the construction of the following attractions in the cathedral city:

1. East Asian Museum
2. Museum of Applied Arts
3. the flora
4. the Cologne Zoo

Increase from 1798

Since a so-called settlement ban had existed since 1424, it took until 1798 for the first Jewish families to settle in Cologne again. Now everything went very quickly and in the "St. Apern Str." the first synagogue was built. In 1899 the first liberal synagogue in the city was built in Roonstrasse.

Due to disagreements within the two communities, a so-called exit community with the name "Adass Jeschurun" was formed. This community is recognized as a corporation under public law and has now acted as an umbrella organization for all Jewish communities in Cologne. Thus schools and other institutions could now also be founded. An example is the Jawne-Gymnasium, which is the only - Jewish - secondary school in the whole of Rhineland!

The atrocities

A long time ago there were 20,000 Jews living in Cologne. Today there are only about 4500 , which are spread over the two communities in Roonstrasse and Riehl. The bad times from 1933 onwards are to blame, of course. The destruction of life with other beliefs has left deep wounds. The Jews call this time "Shoah" and not, like most of society and history: "Holocaust".

The two communities have integrated themselves wonderfully into Cologne's culture and everyday life. You are an asset to the city.

Welcome to Cologne

We look forward to welcoming you to the Rhine metropolis. Your Weihofen family! When will you visit us again? Your overnight stay in Cologne ! Your Ferienwohnung-Koeln.com .