Post World War II: Remains
Remains of Jewish life in Zündorf
On March 5th 1945
Cologne was taken by the American troops. About 30 -
40 Jews from Cologne, who had disappeared, left
their hiding spots and in the course of one year
more and more surviving parishioners returned. On
their meeting from February 22nd 1952 the synagogue
municipality of Cologne resolved upon a new statute
which also enclosed Rheinisch-Bergische area. On May
18th 1953 the federal state government gave back the
rights of a body of the public right to the
synagogue municipality of Cologne. There hasn’t been
a new synagogue municipality established in Porz
until this day.
The British military government ordered on October
20th 1947 that the Jewishs graveyard was to be
returned synagogue municipality of Cologne free of
charge. However, this had not been necessary because
it had not come to a legal transference of the
graveyard to the municipality of Porz in 1944. In
1953 the „Jewish Trust Corporation for Germany
Limited in London “ owned the Jewish graveyard. In
1960 the synagogue municipality of Cologne took over
the property. They asked the city administration of
Porz on 10/25/154 to maintain the graveyard. The
administration agreed to the application of the
synagogue municipality on February 1st 1955; they
maintain the graveyard until then, already.
School
teacher Heinrich Schneider pointed out the
graveyard to the public in 1957 and among
other things mentioned that eight marked
tombs have been left, six out of them still
had gravestones, the other two only
enclosures. The stones were from the 1920’s
and 30’s. The names Kaufmann, Salomon, Cahn,
Tobias and Sommer were still recognizable.
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The property of the
Jewish graveyard encloses a total of 3754 square
meters. Only 412 square meters were used for the
graveyard which was enclosed by a. The garden and
cemetery velvet of the city of Porz surrounded the
graveyard in 1960 with a fence and a gate. They did
this exemplary, that’s how the head of department of
the synagogue municipality of Cologne judged in a
letter from 7/27/1964 to the city of Porz.
On 1/1/1976 the city of Porz was dissolved and
integrated as a district into the city of Cologne.
Since this time the graveyard care has been cut to a
minimum. Almost nothing is of the enclosure is left,
the area went to seed, partially it is abused as a „garbage
dump“. Pupils of the Lessing-Gymnasium cleaned the
area from the rubbish, a few years ago. Only a small
sign that was put up three years ago reminds of the
life of Jewish citizens in Porz.
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