(JHE) — The former synagogue in the town of Sisak was among the many buildings and historic sites in several towns that suffered serious damage in the 6.4 magnitude earthquake that struck central Croatia on Tuesday.
At least seven people died in the quake, which struck around lunchtime on Tuesday and was followed by strong aftershocks Wednesday morning. The epicenter was in Petrinja, about 15 km to the southwest of Sisak.
The City of Sisak posted pictures of the synagogue — now the Fran Lhotka Music School — on its Facebook page, showing that parts of the roof and upper facade had crumbled. Pictures show parked cars in front of the building crushed by piles of fallen rubble.
On its Facebook page the school said the building had suffered “severely.” It has opened an account for donations to help reconstruction.
Believed to have been designed, in neo-Romanesque style, by the architect Franjo Klein, the synagogue was built around 1870-1880.
It was used for worship until the Holocaust. A memorial plaque to the destroyed community was installed on the facade in 1999.
The synagogue was one of many more than century-old buildings in the Sisak town center, including other historic and cultural sites, to suffer serious damage in the earthquake.
Other damaged sites in Sisak included schools, a tower in Sisak’s Old Town, the railway station on the Old Masonry Bridge, and the Sisak Cathedral.
7 comments on “Croatia: Former synagogue in Sisak among the many buildings seriously damaged in Tuesday’s earthquake”
Does somebody know if the synagogue , which today is a Music School, has been returned to the Jewish community.
As far as I know, there is no Jewish community in Sisak that it could be returned to. I think there is only one Jewish family still living in Sisak. I believe this synagogue, as many others in former Yugoslavia (of the few alltogether surviving the WW2), was either sold or donated to the Municipality or the State.
My late husband and I participated, as OSCE colleagues, in the 1999 re-dedication of Sisak, Croatia’s former synagogue. Sometime after World War II, the building was converted into the Sisak Music School. This was still the building’s function in 1999, and later. My late husband was Ambassador Carlo Ungaro. From Spring, 1998 until about February, 1999, he was head of the Sisak regional office for the OSCE- Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. (This was long before Ambassador Ungaro and I married.) I attended the synagogue re-dedication as OSCE Sisak regional communications director, and one of the three founding staff members of OSCE Sisak, in Fall, 1997. I am Black American. I distinctly remember meeting and talking with the late Rabbi Benno Heisz’s grandson, Reuven Incardona, and his younger sister (the Rabbi’s granddaughter), whose name I cannot recall at the moment. They came together from Italy to Croatia to take part in the re-dedication ceremony. I must write and publish an article about that day in 1999, and my impressions of Sisak, in view of the 1941 confiscation of the synagogue and its deconsecration as a Jewish religious and community site.
Dear Rachel,
Ivo Goldstein at Zagreb University could certainly help you : he mentions Moshe Margel in his book Zidovi u Zagrebu 1918-1941 and should be able to locate where his brother was active.
Best regards
Catherine Horel
I had two great uncles who were orthodox Rabbis in Croatia. I know Rev Moshe Margel was in Zagreb but I’m looking for Rev Juda Margel, moshe’s brother, to find out what synagogues they were Rabbis. Can you help me?
I think he was Rabbi in Nova Gradiska !
Dear Rachel, Juda Margel, the brother of Dr Mojsije Margel, was district rabbi in Pozega 1919 – 1920 and community Rabbi in Nova Gradiska 1920. to 1936. Do you have any further documents or materials about the two of them? I am assembling a monograph with biographies of Croatian rabbis.