The synagogue on Bornplatz in Hamburg‘s Grindelviertel was inaugurated in 1906 and was one of the largest synagogues in Germany. It served as the main synagogue for the German-Israelite Community (DIG). In the immediate vicinity, the building of the Talmud Torah School was erected in 1911. The synagogue was devastated during the Kristallnacht pogrom on 9 November 1938, set on fire shortly afterwards and the ruins were demolished in 1939 by the local Nazi regime at the expense of the Jewish community. Fifty years after the destruction, the former location was redesigned, and since then a floor mosaic has indicated the location of the synagogue. Since 2019, the Jewish community, the Central Council of Jews in Germany and several organizations have been working to rebuild the synagogue. In February 2020, an application for a feasibility study was unanimously accepted by the Hamburg Parliament. In November 2020, the budget committee of the Bundestag released 65 million euros for the restoration of the synagogue. read more…
The Reparations Agreement between Israel and the Federal Republic of Germany (“Luxembourg Agreement”, “Wiedergutmachungsabkommen” or “Reparations Agreement”) was signed on September 10, 1952, and entered in force on March 27, 1953. According to the Agreement, West Germany was to pay Israel for the costs of “resettling so great a number of uprooted and destitute Jewish refugees” after the war, and to compensate individual Jews, via the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, for losses in Jewish livelihood and property resulting from Nazi persecution. read more…
Grodno is a city in western Belarus. The city is located at the Neman river, 300 km (186 mi) from Minsk, about 15 km (9 mi) from the Polish border and 30 km (19 mi) away from Lithuania. In 2019 the city had 373,547 inhabitants. Grodno is the capital of Grodno Region and Grodno District. Since 1945, the city has been a centre of one of the provinces of the Byelorussian SSR, now of the independent Republic of Belarus. Most of the Polish inhabitants were expelled or fled to Poland in 1944–1946 and 1955–1959. However nowadays Poles are still the second-most numerous nationality in the city (25%), after Belarusians (60%). read more…
Vitebsk or Viciebsk is a city in Belarus. The capital of the Vitebsk Region, it has 366,299 inhabitants, making it the country’s fourth-largest city. It is served by Vitebsk Vostochny Airport and Vitebsk Air Base. Vitebsk developed from a river harbor where the Vićba River, from which it derives its name, flows into the larger Western Dvina, which is spanned in the city by the Kirov Bridge. read more…
Homiel or Gomel is the administrative centre of Gomel Region and the second-most populous city of Belarus with 526,872 inhabitants (2015 census). Homiel is situated in the southeastern part of the country, on the right bank of the river Sozh, 302 km (188 mi) south-east of Minsk, 534 km (332 mi) east of Brest, 171 km (106 mi) south of Mogilev, 237 km (147 mi) west of Bryansk and 111 km (69 mi) north of Chernihiv. The terrain on which the city as a whole is built, is flat. On the right bank of the river, it is a gradually decreasing plain water-glacial and fluvial terrace of the Sozh river. The left bank is a low-lying alluvial plain. The highest elevation of 144 meters above sea level is found at the northern outskirts of Homiel, the lowest elevation of 115 m at the water boundary Sozh river. Novobelitskiy district, which is located on the left bank of the river (i.e., towards the south), has elevations averaging of 10–15 meters lower than the northern and central parts of the city. On the left bank of the Sozh many kilometers of beaches can be found. read more…