Mazel tov!
The large-scale renovation work under way since last summer at the monumental synagogue on Halderstraße in Augsburg has received a boost — the Free State of Bavaria has pledged nearly €4.7 million toward the project.
Bavarian Minister of Science and Art Markus Blume visited the Augsburg synagogue last week and presented a symbolic cheque for €4,676,000 to the Jewish Community of Swabia-Augsburg.
As we posted last year, restoration work on the building complex officially started at the end of July 2022, and the renovation process — which includes structural work as well as technical and security upgrades — is expected to be completed in 2028.
The German government is covering half of the estimated €26 million costs. The city is covering 10 percent.
Designed by the architects Fritz Landauer and Heinrich Lömpel, the synagogue was built in 1913-17 and incorporates art nouveau, byzantine, and Moorish styles. Its facade is notable for three large, arched windows, and the sanctuary is surmounted by a nearly 30 meter high dome made of reinforced-concrete, whose inner surface is covered by a green-gold mosaic and extensive decorative imagery.
The only urban synagogue in Bavaria to have survived the Nazi period and WW2, it was devastated but not destroyed on Kristallnacht in November 1938, and was renovated between 1974 and 1985, when it was reopened and rededicated. The west wing houses the Jewish Museum Augsburg Swabia, which opened at that time as the first independent Jewish museum in postwar Germany.
The sanctuary has remained a place of worship, serving the local Jewish community, which, thanks to immigration from the former Soviet Union, now numbers around 1,400.
According to the Jewish community web site, the restoration will entail a complete exterior repair of the entire building, as well as
the renovation of the synagogue, the community buildings and outbuildings as well as the renovation of the museum. In addition, a multifunctional pavilion is to be attached to the museum, which will serve modern museum standards and can be used for temporary exhibitions or as a seminar room, among other things.
According to local media, a sealed up mikvah has been discovered during the renovation work, and this will be uncovered.
Read our post from last year about the renovation work