Kristallnacht in Berlin - Synagogue Caretaker and Family Burned to Death

Berlin, Germany
10 November, 1938
Kristallnacht

This week marked 80 years since Kristallnacht.

While hundreds of synagogues were defiled or burned and some Jews were killed during the two days of rioting, it is hard to confirm whether anyone was killed inside the many synagogues that were destroyed.

In Berlin, the Prinzregentenstrasse synagogue was one of the many to be torched. It had been built only 8 years earlier, the only one constructed in Berlin during the brief rule of the Weimar Republic. On Kristallnacht it was burned to the ground and never rebuilt.

The synagogue rabbi, Manfred Swarsensky, recalls rushing to the site at 2 am.
"Then, I got up, ran to the synagogue, pushed my hat way down in my face so as not to be recognized by anyone, and there I saw German SS troopers pour gasoline into the interior of the building and over the walls, and also German firemen stand on adjoining buildings so as to prevent that they be burnt down and so they poured water over those buildings so as to keep them cool so to speak. (Wisconsin History)
He explained that the Jewish sexton, Jacob Gera, lived on the premises of the synagogue, but did not recount his fate. However, the next day, the Berlin correspondent for the Daily Telegraph reported that the caretaker of the Prinzregenstrasse Synagogue and his family were burned to death.
Prinzregenstrasse Synagogue on Fire

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