History
The plans to raise a new synagogue in Katowice arose around 1890, when the Old Synagogue (Katowice) became too small for the local worshippers of reform Judaism. The construction begun in 1896, and the architect in charge was Max Grünfeld, son of Ignatz Grünfeld who designed the old synagogue. The construction was finished in 1900 and the synagogue was opened on 12 October 1900.
In 1901 the newly built synagogue hosted the World Zionist Congress.
The synagogue was set on fire by Nazis on 4 September 1939, soon after they gained control of the city after the invasion of Poland (1939). After the war the few Jews who survived the Holocaust were unable to gather enough resources and support to rebuild the synagogue. Today in the place where this building once stood is a square (Synagogue Square). In the 1988 a monument was raised in the square, dedicated to the Jewish inhabitants of the city who perished during the Second World War.
Read more about this topic: Great Synagogue (Katowice)
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“It gives me the greatest pleasure to say, as I do from the bottom of my heart, that never in the history of the country, in any crisis and under any conditions, have our Jewish fellow citizens failed to live up to the highest standards of citizenship and patriotism.”
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“History, as an entirety, could only exist in the eyes of an observer outside it and outside the world. History only exists, in the final analysis, for God.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)