Friedberger Anlage  5–6, 60314 Frankfurt am Main
Friedberger Anlage 5–6,
60314 Frankfurt am Main
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Place of Remembrance: Synagogue Friedberger Anlage

The Place of Remembrance at Friedberger Anlage 5-6 documents a facet of National Socialist perfidy: In 1942 a civil defense bunker was erected by French prisoners of war on the foundation of the Israelitische Religionsgesellschaft synagogue that was dedicated in 1907 and destroyed during the November pogrom.1 Boasting 1600 seats, the synagogue was Frankfurt’s largest. It belonged to the breakaway Orthodox community founded in 1851 by Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch. Landscape architect Jeanette Garnhartner won the 1985 competition for redesigning the forecourt, commissioned in commemoration of the former synagogue.

The installation, which was dedicated in 1998, is dominated by two pairs of equal-sized massive, black granite plates, one pair facing edgewise and one longitudinally. The spaces between form a narrow gateway from the street side and at the same time guide the eye toward the now missing façade. The text on the memorial stone in one of the empty spaces between the granite plates recalls the destruction of the synagogue on the night of November 9, 1938. Completing the ensemble is a reconstructed column with a capital as well as a column fragment from the entrance portal. Since 2004 Initiative 9. November oversees the bunker, which contains a permanent exhibition on Jewish life in Frankfurt’s East End. In addition, the group is working toward turning the building into a modern meeting place.2
  1. Gedenkstätte für die ehemalige Synagoge der Israelitischen Religionsgesellschaft (1988). Hg. von der Stadt Frankfurt am Main. Frankfurt am Main: Garten- und Friedhofsamt, S. 22.
  2. Bonavita, Petra (2010): Erinnerung braucht Zukunft. Der Ort der zerstörten Synagoge an der Friedberger Anlage in Frankfurt am Main. Frankfurt am Main: Brandes & Apsel, S. 233.