Parchment Burning

During Sukkot, 1939, German soldiers forced their way into the synagogue in Siedlce, Poland. They beat the Jews who were praying inside. When people tried to escape, they were shot. Yosef Rubin was killed in this way. ( Association of Siedlcers in Israel ) A few months later, the synagogue was burned to the ground. According to some reports, homeless Jews who had been living in the synagogue died inside. ( Yizkor Book )

Skalat 1942 At the end of August, 1942, the Nazis began deporting the Jews of Skalat. They began with the weakest segments of the population - orphans and the elderly. 600 Jews were brought to the local synagogue, where they were kept overnight. During this time, some of them were killed. The next morning, when it was time to transport the Jews to the extermination camp in Belzec, the dead bodies were thrown onto the truck along with the living. ( Virtual Shtetl ) Testimony from that evening corroborates this. A woman, Mrs. Weissbrod, who had taken the place of her elderly mother in the synagogue reported that "The shul was crowded, suffocating. Screams! Sobs! The old people sigh, cough, clamor and faint. All that time in the heat without even a drop of water. A few of the aged and sick, lacking stamina, had already died." She continues that when the Nazis arrived to load the victims onto trucks, "When all the victims had been loaded aboard the trucks, one of the mil

Kharkov, Ukraine 1941 In late 1941, the Nazis ordered that all Jews in Kharkov relocate to some huts on the outskirts of the city. Those who were not able to relocated were locked into the synagogue on Meshchansky Street. These were mostly elderly, disabled or very young Jews. According to testimony gathered in 1943, "a large number of them from to death and others died of hunger. Altogether 400 persons died in the synagogue building." ( Yad Vashem )

Vienna, Austria Aug. 29, 1981 In 1981, the Stadttempel of Vienna was attacked by the Abu Nidal Organization in a terrorist attack.  Many guests had come to the synagogue to celebrate a bar mitzva, something the attackers knew about and chose to exploit. ( Arutz Sheva ) Two Palestinian gunmen tried to break into the synagogue, but the gates to the compound were closed. Instead, they open-fired with machine guns and tossed four grenades into the crowd. Two people were killed: a mother, who had thrown herself on top of a friend's baby to shield him from the grenade blast, and an elderly man. ( JTA ) Another 21 people were injured. ( New York Times )  The windows of the building shattered, and the facade was riddled with bullet holes. A pool of blood formed at the front door.  The same synagogue had been attacked in 1979, but without casualties. Another attack was foiled in 2016. ( The Jewish Press )

Lubieszow, Ukraine 3 November, 1942 On 3 November, 1942, the Nazis rounded up dozens of Jewish artisans and their families and locked them in the synagogue. One of these Jews, Machmendler, attacked the Nazi commander in a desperate attempt, cutting his throat with a knife. In retaliation for this attack, Machmendler and several other Jews were killed in the synagogue. The rest were shot outside the building. ( Yad Vashem ) A German report from 1945 described the event: "As many as up to 200 Jews were taken under guard to the synagogue, where they were stripped naked and ... abused. Afterward, the Gebietskommissar read aloud a document stating that the Jewish people didn't exist any longer since they all had been annihilated. At that moment a dentist, I don't remember his last name, attacked the Gebietskommissar and wounded him seriously in the throat with a razor; the dentist was killed [on the spot] by blows from [weapon] butts...Others were shot to death between

Antwerp, Belgium 20 October, 1981 Exactly a year after a similar bombing of a synagogue in Paris , a bomb exploded outside a synagogue in Antwerp, killing three and wounding 106 people. ( NY Times ) The Palestinian terror group Black September, which also carried out the attack at the Munich Olympics, placed a bomb inside a truck parked outside the building. It was detonated in the morning of Simchat Torah, blowing in the doors of the synagogue as well as storefront windows along the street. Eight buildings were significantly damaged. ( UPI ) The synagogue was located in the middle of the Antwerp diamond district, so the explosion also scattered diamonds amidst the debris. Police closed down the street and gathered the rubble so that diamond brokers could sift through to find the gems. "Survivors told of scores of injured, stumbling through clouds of smoke and dust, blood streaming from their faces and dead and injured on the street." ( Reading Eagle )

Polonnoe July, 1648 Nathan Hanover was the author of Yeven Metzula, one of the main Jewish sources that tells of the Chmielnicki Massacres. In that book, he tells of the death of his teacher, Rabbi Samson, a Kabbalist, in the city of Polonnoe. "Every day an angel would come to him and learn with him the secrets of the Torah. The Kabbalist wrote a commentary on the Zohar based on the Kabbala of the Ar"i, but it was never published. The angel told him before the pogrom that they needed to repent greatly, so as to avoid the evil decree. So he spoke several times in the synagogue and warned the people to repent, and on the impending tragedy. And they did repent, in all the communities, but it was to no avail, since the decree was already sealed. When the cruel enemies reached the city, the kabbalist went to the synagogue with three hundred wise men, all dressed in shrouds and their prayer shawls on their heads, and they busied themselves with prayer, until the enemies reache