The Serbian government has designated the former synagogue in Apatin a cultural monument, raising hopes that the long-vacant building, in the country’s Vojvodina region, may undergo much-needed restoration work.
Built in 1885 for the Neolog community and located in northwest Serbia near the borders with Hungary and Croatia, the synagogue is a small, simple building, known for the striking — and somewhat mysterious — painting on its ceiling: a depiction of the Ten Commandments, with the Hebrew lettering painted backwards, as if viewed in a mirror. The tablets are revealed beneath a radiant sunburst in sky filled with dramatic banks of clouds.
“The synagogue complex in Apatin represents the last preserved trace of the Jewish community of that place, which was a significant driving force and catalyst in the development and modernisation of life in the economic and cultural sense,” the Serbian government said on its web site announcing the decision.
Only about 60 Jews lived in Apatin before World War II, and the community was annihilated in the Holocaust. In the 1950s, the synagogue was sold to a Baptist church which used it for worship for around 20 years — a small cross was set up on the peak of the building’s roof.
Ivan Ceresnjes, an expert on the Jewish heritage of the former Yugoslavia, called the painting “unique” and told JHE’s Ruth Ellen Gruber in 2004 that nothing was known about either the architect of the synagogue or the artist who painted the ceiling — or why the Hebrew was written backwards. But, he said, the artist probably was local and not Jewish.
“The decision of the Government of Serbia to declare the Apatin Synagogue a cultural monument is extremely important, since the conditions are now finally being met to enter into the process of structural rehabilitation and internal protection of this complex,” an article in the news site Dnevnik stated.
In this light, it should be expected, on the one hand, that the restoration project be prepared as soon as possible, but also that, at the same time, investigation, sampling and detailed stratigraphy of the painted decoration be done, since it is still unclear whether the famous scene with the [commandments] was created at the time of the consecration of the synagogue, or perhaps it is the work of Rudolf Udvari (1898-1960), who painted the vault of the church in Apatin and the ceiling of the local House of Culture.
Read REG’s 2004 article about the painting
3 comments on “Serbia: Serbian government recognises the former synagogue in Apatin as a cultural monument. It has a ceiling painting of the 10 commandments with Hebrew letters mysteriously written backwards”
It is all nice to spend on the synagogues that are not used, more important are the people that were murdered in Serbia and to remember them. I have tried for 20 years to find out where my uncle was buried after being murdered in the death march in Chervonca. I have contacted
Jewich cemetery where I read that they were burried, I was told that they only take care off Hungarian not Romanians, but my uncle was Romanian that was taken to the Hungarian army, he was concidered Hungarian for the work camps but no to the Cerbian. I wanted to go there and light a candle so he would know that we remmber him. I read that the allied opened mass graved and burried the man in Jewish cemetary. I am 84, before my generation dies ,let us honour those who died, not the pretty synagogues.
Halp me and my uncle to remmber his exsistant.
Dear Sir,
Non of the places you have mentioned in your post are not in Serbia. To be able to help, can you please name a place in Serbia where jewish people murdered and who executed them.
I had been there on my walk from Aachen to Jerusalem. I took pictures.
Probably the artist workeed with a mirror such writing backwords.
In this synagogue the composer Paul Abraham celebrated his Bar Mizwa.