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Synagogue reopens

— PHOTO: AFP

A rabbi holds a scroll of the Torah during the inauguration of the synagogue in Rykestrasse, Berlin, on Friday.

Berlin: Germany’s largest synagogue, an architectural and historical landmark in the centre of Berlin, will reopen on Friday after extensive restoration work. The red-brick Rykestrasse synagogue is to be reopened in the presence of former members who were forced to flee Nazi Germany. It was set on fire on Kristallnacht on November 9, 1938, when synagogues and Jewish businesses were attacked and destroyed on Nazi orders. Rykestrasse was saved from the complete devastation which befell many of the city’s 170 synagogues because it was in a residential area and the authorities ordered the fire to be put out. But it has been plundered and has deteriorated over the years because it was in what became the communist east. The architects sometimes had to enlarge photographs 400 times to study original details of the synagogue, which was built in 1904. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2007

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Synagogue reopens

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