The earliest Jewish community of Breslau dated back to the 1100s and included two synagogues as well as a Jewish cemetery. A Judenbischof (Bishop of the Jews) served the four roles of rabbi, cantor, kosher butcher and teacher. However, most of the community was massacred in 1349 when Jews were blamed for the Black Death.

Over the next few centuries, Jews’ rights were restricted and they were subject to discriminatory policies. For example, a 1577 law required all Jews to wear a yellow disc on their clothing. It was not until the 1700s that a more permanent Jewish community began to take root in Breslau. A new synagogue and cemetery were completed in 1761, one year after a new Jewish hospital opened to serve the community’s growing needs.

At the end of the 1700s, the Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment) movement gained popularity. Followers of the Reform movement used German rather than Hebrew in their worship services, often leading to conflict with the more traditional Orthodox community.

In 1812 the Prussian Edict of Emancipation finally granted Jews equal rights as citizens. Societies for social and charitable work included the Israelite Study and Reading Club founded in 1842. The city’s Jewish Theological Seminary was founded in 1854 and became one of Europe’s premier Jewish seminaries.

While Orthodox Jews usually worshipped in the White Stork Synagogue built in 1829, Reform services were held in the grand New Synagogue that opened in 1872. The competing factions reached a historic compromise in 1856 by agreeing to two community rabbis that would be funded by a common organization.

The Jewish population grew exponentially, increasing from 3,255 in 1810 to 19,743 by the turn of the century. This time period also saw the rise of nationalist antisemitism. In 1892 a member of the Reichstag (German national parliament) gave a speech in Breslau on “Why Anti-Semitism Must Succeed.” However, the town council rejected proposals to bar Jewish teachers from public schools. Questions about the Jewish religion were even asked on the “Abitur” exam required for high school graduation.

From 1911 to 1918, the Jew Eduard Bernstein represented Breslau in the Reichstag. During World War I (1914-1918) Jews and Christians joined the military to fight for Germany. Survivor Simon Margoliner remembered how his father was drafted in 1916, leaving his family to forage for potatoes to feed themselves. In total, 450 Jews from Breslau died in battle during the conflict.

By the 1920s children and teenagers could choose from about 80 clubs, including the Griffins scouting group. Most families spoke German at home and Breslau was known for its high integration of Jewish citizens in community life. Explained Margoliner, “Most of the Jews were first Germans and then Jewish.”

Although the majority of Jewish children attended public schools, by 1932 about 15 percent of Jewish children were enrolled in the Orthodox school and about 30 percent of Jews attended Orthodox synagogues. Survivor Renate Berk recalled that her parents attended an Orthodox synagogue on high holidays though the family did not keep kosher at home.

Attacks on Jews began to rise as the Nazi party became increasingly influential. In 1920 a Jewish political leader was murdered in Breslau. A few years later more than 100 Jewish stores were looted during a 1923 demonstration in which many Jews were wounded and some killed. In 1932 Nazi students hurled tear-gas bombs into the university lectures of a Jewish professor. That year 43.5 percent of Breslau residents voted for the Nazi party. The following January Hitler became Chancellor of Germany.

The New Synagogue (built in 1872) was burned down during the Kristallnacht pogrom of November 1938. Margoliner remembered, “I was in[side] when they started to smash on the windows, the big windows.” He described how the Gestapo took him to the police station, then “they took us to the railroad to Buchenwald.”

The last remaining Jews of Breslau were transported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in the summer of 1943. Only 160 members of the Jewish community of Breslau survived the Holocaust.