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Encyclopaedia Judaica

Jews in Luxembourg

Settlement - Black Death - expulsions 1391 - pogrom 1478 - influx of Jewish refugees since 1933 - NS occupation with emigrations and deportations - resettlement since 1945 - collaboration with racist Zionist governed Israel

from: Encyclopaedia Judaica (1971), vol. 11

presented by Michael Palomino (2010)

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<LUXEMBOURG (Luxemburg), grand duchy, formerly a county, bordered by France, Germany, and Belgium.

[Settlement - prosecutions because of Black Death - expulsion of 1391 and pogrom of 1478]

Jews were first noted in the city of Luxembourg, capital of the country, in 1276. In the early 14th century immigrants from the neighboring region of Trier formed several small Jewish settlements. During the *Black Death (1349) many of the Jews were massacred and the remainder expelled from the cities of Luxembourg and Echternach, notwithstanding the protection of Count Charles IV. They must have returned soon after, for in 1367 the existence of a Porte des Juifs ("Jews' Gate") is mentioned in the capital.

The total expulsion of the Jews was decreed in 1391, but as early as 1405 some few individuals were once more living there. The homes of the Jews were destroyed and their possessions looted following an uprising in 1478. After that only two Jewish families remained, but by 1515 the number of families had grown to 15, residing in Luxembourg, Echternach, and Arlon, which was then still part of the county.

The expulsion decreed in 1530 was fully implemented with the exception of some Marranos and a few traders at the fairs. Jews disappeared from Luxembourg until the Napoleonic period, when about 15 families from *Lorraine settled there. In 1808 the number of Jews was 75. (col. 590)

[19th century and Jewish refugees since 1933]

Under Napoleonic legislation they were subject to the Trier consistory until the establishment of Luxembourg's own consistory in 1838. The first synagogue was built in 1823 and the first chief rabbi, Samuel *Hirsch, was appointed in 1843, serving untie 1866. There were 87 Jewish families (369 persons) in the city of Luxembourg in 1880 and 63 families in the rest of the duchy. The growth of this population necessitated the construction of a new synagogue in Luxembourg in 1894, and another in Esch-sur-Alzette in 1899. The Jewish population, numbering 1,171 persons in 1927, increased considerably with the arrival of refugees from Germany: in 1935, 3,144 Jews were resident in the duchy [[and the Jews in an illegal status are not mentioned]]. [S.Sch.]

Holocaust Period.

[4,000 Jews in 1940 - flight to France in 1940 - aryanization]

At the time of the invasion of Luxembourg on May 10, 1940, over 1,000 of the 4,000 Jews in the grand duchy (among them about 1,000 refugees) managed to flee to France. A new consistory was formed on the initiative of Rabbi Serebrenik, and in August 1940 the Nazis set up a civil administration under Gauleiter ("district head") Gustav Simon.

After the German annexation, discriminatory racial laws operating throughout the Reich were extended to the grand duchy (Sept. 5, 1940), and 355 commercial enterprises were handed over to "Aryans" [[aryanization]].

[Threat with deportation on 13 September 1940 - 700 emigrating overseas - 1,000 secretly evacuated to France]

On Sept. 13, 1940 the *Gestapo announced that all the Jews would be deported on the following Day of Atonement if the consistory did not succeed in arranging their emigration prior to that date. Due to the consistory's efforts particularly through a petition sent to *Himmler, this measure was postponed, but emigration remained the sole road to survival.

Between Aug. 8, 1940 and May 26, 1941, when Rabbi Serebrenik was forced to leave in peril of his life, 700 Jews possessing more or less authentic visas fled overseas. In another operation, about 1,000 people were secretly evacuated to France in small groups.

[[In South of France stayed many Jewish refugees waiting for their visas - some got and could emigrate to overseas, others not]].

After these rescue operations the consistory became the Aeltestenrat der Juden and administered the remaining 850 Jews. Of these, 127 emigrated in January 1942 and the rest [[723 Jews]] were deported; only 35 of the latter survived.

[[left dead 688, or changed names or changed religion or emigrated directly to Palestine or "USA" and never appeared any more in Luxembourg]].

Contemporary Period.

[Appr. 1,500 Jews coming back after World War II.]

After World War II approximately 1,500 Jews returned to Luxembourg. Mostly merchants, they succeeded in renewing their business activities and, with financial assistance from the state, devoted themselves to reconstructing their community. The community's institutions were revived and a new synagogue built, the old one having been destroyed in 1943. Instrumental in these achievements was the consistory presided over by Edmond Marx, in cooperation with Rabbi Kratzenstein, who served the community from 1946 to 1948, and Rabbi Lehrmann (1949-1959). In Esch-sur-Alzette a community of 40 families established itself with a new synagogue as its center. Maurice Levy was president of the consistory from 1961 to 1968 and was succeeded by Edmond Israël. From 1959 the chief rabbi was Emmanuel Bulz. In 1970, there were 1,200 Jews in Luxembourg.

[West Germany signing reparation agreement with racist Zionist Israeli foreign minister in 1952 in Luxembourg]

It was in the city of Luxembourg that the chancellor of the German Federal Republic, Konrad Adenauer, and Israel's [[racist Zionist]] foreign minister, Moshe *Sharett, signed on Sept. 10, 1952, the agreement on German reparations to [[racist Zionist governed]] Israel

[[without considering the contribution of Stalin to the Holocaust in Gulag and in Red Army and without considering the emigration movements 1933-1945 - among others to Palestine]].

[[The world wide Jewish population did not see much of that German money, but racist Zionist Jewish government in Jerusalem purchased new weapons for new wars, e.g. for Moshe Dayan's Zionist wars]].

[E.BU.]

Relations with Israel.

Luxembourg's relations with Israel have always been cordial. Luxembourg voted in the UN in Nov. 1947 in favor of the partition of Palestine and has maintained full diplomatic relations with Israel. Israel is represented in Luxembourg by her ambassador in Brussels, while Luxembourg's interests in Israel (as in most other countries) are represented politically by the Dutch embassy and economically by the Belgian embassy. Official visits of the foreign ministers of both countries were exchanged in (col. 591)

1969. Luxembourg, which plays a central role in the European Economic Community, always wholeheartedly supported Israel's application for association with the Common Market. [ED.]

[[But racist Zionist government in Jerusalem blocks itself with strange ideas of a Jewish Reich from Nile to Euphrates, and by this racism nothing is coming forward]].

Bibliography:
-- J. Stengers: Les Juifs dans les Pays-Bas au moyen-âge (1950)
-- C. Lehrmann: La communauté juive du Luxembourg dans le passé et dans le présent (1953)
-- H. Monneray: La persécution des Juifs en France et dans les autres pays de l'Ouest (1947), index
-- Algemeyne Entsiklopedye, 7 (1966), 217-20.> (col. 592)

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Sources
Encyclopaedia Judaica: Jews in Luxembourg
                          01, vol. 11, col. 590
Encyclopaedia Judaica: Jews in Luxembourg 01, vol. 11, col. 590
Encyclopaedia Judaica: Jews in Luxembourg
                          02, vol. 11, col. 591-592
Encyclopaedia Judaica: Jews in Luxembourg 02, vol. 11, col. 591-592


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