TextVersion · 2nd Floor · Jews in Hamburg		PanoramaVersion
Jewish residential areas and living conditions No exclusive residential area for the jewish population existed in Hamburg as in other german cities and in eastern europe. Regulations about their right to live, their economical status and especially their need to live near communal institutions like those of synagogues determined their way of life in the course of time and led to a concentrated settling. It is known that the first portuguese Jews spread out to the west of the city in 1612, and lived at the Rödingsmarkt, the Mönkedamm, the Herrlichkeit and the Dreckwall (Alter Wall) They owned a cemetery for only a short while on the Kohlöfen, otherwise they had to bury their dead outside town in the Altonaer cemetery by the Königstraße, which was used until 1877. In 1650 they were instructed to look for apartments in the Neustadt, an area which was only partly inhabited then and which offered favourable conditions for settlement. A century later the citizens and the clergy tried to persuade the senate to determine only certain streets in the Alt and Neu Stadt as residential areas for the Jews. Here Hamburg distinguished itself by liberal living conditions in Altona and Wandsbek. During the rapid development of Hamburg to a city of a million at the end of the 19th century, strong immigration led to problems with apartments and urban immigration movements. A large number of the Jews moved from the densely populated Neustadt to the new established districts Rotherbaum, Harvestehude and Eimsbüttel. In the Grindel area a concentration of settlement of the jewish population developed which was ironically called „Little Jerusalem“. Noticeable expression of the living presence of the Jews were their synagogues. Until the beginning of the 19th century, still hidden in private houses and in back streets, they became more apparent in the townscape with the growing emancipation and the self-confidence of the Jews: The main synagogue on the Bornplatz (1906) and the school next to it were freestanding buildings. Around 1925 the number of the jewish citizens reached its peak of approximately 20.000, about 1,73% of the total population of the city. The housing conditions of the Jews and the furnishing of their apartments did not differ entirely from those of the rest of the population in Hamburg, they were, like them, dependant on the economical situation of the occupants, their heritage and the modern trend. With the persecution and the deprivation of their rights through the National Socialist party, the Jews were driven into a sort of ghetto. From 1940 housing communities between Jews and non Jews were dissolved and Jews were sent to establishments which were still in posession of jewish property. In this way, 78 so called „jewish houses“ – mostly in the Grindelviertel –were created, which, together with the restriction of the freedom of movement of the jewish occupants, made their surveillance and later deportation and extermination easier. Jews in Hamburg - The arrival of the first Jews in Hamburg - Enlightment and emancipation - Jews in the german empire - Jews and the Weimar Republic - Persecution and the holocaust under the national socialist leadership - Jewish Schools - Jews and business in Hamburg - Living conditions and Jewish residential areas - The Synagogue
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