Interior view of the synagogue without furniture.

Stylised wall painting with Hebrew script: Love your neighbour, for he is like you.

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|  Monday 20th May 2024

 

Welcome! Shalom!


Drohnenaufnahme, © Julian Kriesche

The Arbeitskreis Landsynagoge Roth, a project circle dedicated to preserving the synagogue in the village of Roth near Marburg in Hesse, Germany, welcomes you to our website. We would like to introduce you to our goals and inform you about our projects and activities. 

We provide guided tours of the memorial site, the synagogue in Roth, and of the Jewish Cemetery, as well as a variety of cultural activities. Join us in solemn remembrance of the displacement, persecution, and murder of our Jewish neighbors during the Nazi Regime. Perhaps you’ll find our multi-faceted memorial work so interesting that you yourself would like to become a member of our group. You are warmly welcome to join us! Newcomers are always welcome to get involved in our activities and participate in our various projects.

We would also like to introduce you to the history of the Jewish Community that shaped and influenced life in Roth over the centuries before being violently eradicated within less than ten years of Nazi reign. Roth lost an essential part of its cultural heritage. We are trying to preserve what has survived and discover and reconstruct what once was. The physical witnesses of this lost culture: the synagogue, the place of the mikveh, the Jewish cemetery, are here for you to see and experience. Historically, the Jewish communities in Roth and Fronhausen were closely linked. We also include valuable information about Fronhausen’s Jewish past and remaining artifacts on our website.

Yours truly,

The Managing Board of the Arbeitskreis Landsynagoge Roth

 

2021, We celebrate our birthday: 25 years of the Arbeitskreis Landsynagoge Roth!

With a festive event on July 10, 2021 at 3:00 p.m. at the synagogue in Roth, the Arbeitskreis Landsynagoge Roth celebrates its 25th anniversary (due to pandemic reasons, unfortunately, only for invited guests).
Annegret Wenz-Haubfleisch, Gerhard Fischer, Gabriele C. Schmitt
sitzend: Dietmar Haubfleisch, Barbara Händler-Lachmann, stehend: Harald Händler, Renate Blöcher

Deliberately founded on the first nationwide Holocaust Memorial Day, January 27, 1996, the seven founding members Renate Blöcher, Gerhard Fischer, Harald Händler, Barbara Händler-Lachmann, Dietmar Haubfleisch, Gabriele C. Schmitt and Annegret Wenz-Haubfleisch formulated as the purpose of the association "the preservation of the former synagogue in Weimar/Lahn, village of Roth, and its use as a memorial, museum, place of learning and site of cultural encounters". In 1998, after the building had been restored and could be put to public use, the association concluded a contract of use with the district of Marburg-Biedenkopf as owner and has since been solely responsible for the cultural work in the building.

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The main focus of the activities in and around the synagogue can be characterized by the terms commemorative, cultural and educational work. Over the years, a great variety of forms have been developed, sustainable partnerships have been formed and firm cooperations have been entered into, for example with the Jewish Community of Marburg, the Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation, the History Workshop Marburg, the Philipps University, similar initiatives in Hesse, the Comprehensive School Niederwalgern, the Ricarda Huch School in Giessen and its partner school Eldad High School in Netanya (Israel), to name but a few. In all these years, special importance was attached to maintaining relations with the survivors of the Shoah in the USA and their continuation with the next generations, which to everyone's delight has succeeded and led to warm-hearted friendships.

A book documenting all these aspects has been published for the anniversary. However, it is not a "classic" chronicle of the association, but reflects the many facets of the association's work in personal texts by survivors and descendants, cooperation partners and friends, members and board members of the association, illustrated with expressive pictures. Taking into account the relations with the friends in the USA, it was published bilingually in German and English. The book is available from the association for 19 euros: “Love Your Neighbor …“. 25 Years of Commemorative, Cultural and Educational Activity in the Rural Synagogue in Roth, ed. by Annegret Wenz-Haubfleisch, Weimar-Roth 2021.