The granting of a demolition permit provided for all kinds of inflammatory situations. All at
once, the loss of opportunity to have the building rehabilitated, while it still was in a more or
less decent condition, was regretted, for example, the building could have been converted into
a museum for local Jewish history. Also the type and location of a planned memorial plaque
was conducive to controversial discussions, with the net result that to this day it has not been
erected. The discussions continued after 1987, when the owner of the former Synagogue
premise sold it for a symbolic price of 1 DM (so it was published in the newspaper, however,
no payment was, in reality, made), so that , as planned, the Synagogue could be rebuilt in the
Open Air Museum, “Hessenpark” at Neu-Anspach in the Taunus. The owner of the premise
was happy to have rid himself, in this manner, of the “dilapidated barn”. It was later argued
“that the building should have been left in town and rebuilt there as a Synagogue” because
“this would have avoided losing the possibility of maintaining a Jewish cultural heritage in the
county”. However, the decision had been made. Soon the building was dismantled, brick-by-brick, with the assistance of staff from the Open Air Museum and forwarded there. A section
of the ceiling with the Star of David and the partially preserved framework of the Torah-Shrine
were entrusted to the Jewish Museum in Frankfurt for safekeeping. In the autumn of 1988 the
cornerstone for the rebuilding of the half-timbered building was set in the Hessenpark and its
Dedication was celebrated in the summer of 1992.
Street side of the reconstructed
Synagogue from Nentershausen
in the Open Air Museum,
“Hessenpark” at Neu-Anspach in
the Taunus, 2004.
Click:
Temporary memorial
plaque for the former
Synagogue in
Nentershausen.