During the Middle Ages, the town of Wrocław contained one of the largest concentrations of Jews in Central Europe settled during the Middle Ages. It is certain that a Jewish community council already existedl here by the first half of the 12th century. According to the Czech chronicler Kosmas, the founders of this community could have been Jewish refugees from Prague. The oldest tangible evidence of a Jewish presence in Wrocław is the tombstone of the cantor, Dawid, son of Sar Szalom, who died on the 4th of August 1203 (according to the Gregorian calendar). This is evidence that a cemetery already existed here by the turn of the 13th century.

Originally, the legal status of the Jews from Wrocław was very favorable, as they were under the specific protection of a Duke. This changed in 1267 when the new regulations of the synod of the Provincial Archdiocese of Gniezno in Wrocław were introduced. Jewish liberties were restricted and special settlement zones (ghettos) were created for them. Each town had to have only one such zone. Moreover, the Jews were allowed just one synagogue for their religious gatherings.

Between 1273 and 1290 dukes issued many documents and privileges in order to protect the Jewish community. A document of this kind was issued by Duke Henry IV Probus after 1273, which guaranteed the Jews from Wrocław personal safety and security of their property and also the sanctity of cemeteries. These privileges were approved by Duke Henry V (Henryk V Gruby). Jews were traders, money lenders (they would give loans) and some were craftsmen. There were butchers, bakers and cooks. There were as many as 12 Jewish slaughterhouses in Wrocław at the beginning of the 14th century.

The position of Jews worsened considerably in the 14th century. In 1349 and 1360 there were pogroms in the city, and the Jews were driven out of Wrocław. There had been 70 Jewish families living in the city before the pogrom in 1349, whereas afterwards only five or six remained. However, Jews settled again in Wrocław soon thereafter.

Jan Kapistrano, a Franciscan and an inquisitor, came to the city in 1453. During his sermons he accused Jews of various sacrileges (desecrating the Host or kidnapping and killing Christian children). The outcome of these sermons was a trial with terrible consequences – 41 Jews were burnt to death at what is now Solny Square. The remaining Jewish properties were confiscated and Jews were driven out of the town. Children under the age of seven were baptized and placed with Christian families where they were to be brought up. These events saw the end of the Jewish Community in Wrocław in the Middle Ages. The official end came when the Czech king Wladyslaw Jagiellon (Władysław Jagiellończyk) on the 30th of January1455 issued a document, ius Iudaeos non tolerandis, which prohibited Jews from taking up permanent residence in the city.

The Jewish district in the Middle Ages enclosed an area between what is now Uniwersytecka Street, św. Barbary Street, Nożownicza Street, Uniwersytecki Square and the north side of Kuźnicza Street and Więzienna Street. Street names showing their original character remained unchanged until the 19th century. They were: Judengasse (Jewish Lane) and Rabbinergässel (Rabbi Lane). There were also several synagogues in the Jewish district despite the regulations introduced by the synod in 1267.

There was no kahal in Wrocław until the 17th century. However, Jews would arrive in the city several times a year during markets, fairs and religious holidays. The first Jew who settled here in 1657, well over 200 years since the last Jews left, was Zachariasz Lazarus from Nachód, a lessee of a mint. He also founded the new kahal and the first synagogue was situated in his house. There was no Jewish cemetery in the 17th century, so they used to bury their dead in Brzeg Dolny, Krotoszyn and even in Biała, Leszno and Głogów.

775 Jews lived in the city in 1722 and they were mainly tradesmen and craftsmen. However, Charles VI, the Holy Roman Emperor, issued an order in 1738 under which all Jews “without privileges” were to leave Wrocław.

Their situation changed once Silesia had come under the rule of Prussia. Frederick II of Prussia issued an edict in 1744 which regulated the Jewish situation. The number of Jews who were allowed to live in the city was restricted but they were allowed to establish a kahal. From the 18th century onwards Jews started to settle in the vicinity of the then Jewish Square (now Bohaterów Getta Square) and Jews also lived in districts of which the following streets formed the boundary: Krupnicza Street, św. Antoniego Street, Ruska Street, św. Mikołaja Street and roads leading off Kazimierza Wielkiego Street. This area formed the Jewish district where the majority of institutions relating to the kahal were located. At the end of the 18th century, there were seven synagogues in this area.

Regulations issued in 1808 gave Jews the rights and obligations of residents of the town and allowed them to buy land in the city. In 1812 an edict was announced under which the Jewish community was given equal social rights with Prussians.

In 1744 Frederick II of Prussia made four inns in the vicinity of Żydowski Square available to Jewish traders. At the end of the 17th century there were seven synagogues in the area of the square.

In the 1830s a conflict arose in the Jewish Community between the conservative and the liberal members, involving Abraham Geiger, who was elected as a second rabbi. Geiger was an advocate of progress and reforms in the Jewish liturgy. In the 1840s this situation led to a split and creation of two religious commissions, liberal and conservative. Both of them had their own collegial organs, whose task was to choose two chief rabbis. One of them was Orthodox (conservative) and the other one was liberal (progressive). The first liberal rabbi was Abraham Geiger – a distinguished Jewish theologian and an advocate of reformed Judaism.

In 1861, the number of Jewish inhabitants in Wrocław (7,5%) was the biggest in the history of the town. However, by 1910 this number decreased to 4%. Unfortunately, they have not always lived together in tolerance and respect. A book by Gustav Freytag Soll und Haben (English title: Debit and Credit) was published in 1855. Wrocław was presented in this book as a place, where Ostjuden (shown as “foreigners” from Poland) settled, spreading in town dishonesty and fraud. The book was published with the circulation of 114 in the years 1855–1922.

At the turn of 20th century, the Jewish community was the most thriving in all areas of the town life. The Jews were members of organizations like: the Silesian Society for Native Culture, the Masonic lodge Kosmos, the Wrocław Poetry School, and Humboldt's Society for People's Education. There were also strictly Jewish societies and organizations, like: the Society of Friends (which gathered supporters of Haskalah movement, including Thomas Mann, who was not a Jew) and the Lessing Masonic Lodge (which took care of the culture life in town). In the 20th century, new organizations which had similar political objectives to the ones in the Central Europe showed up in the town. There were to be find: the Wrocław Zionist Union, the conservative Agudat, the sports club Bar Kochba (linked to Maccabi movement). The Jonas Fränckl Foundations, which, among other things, ran a well-known hospital, engaged in charity. There was also the Jewish Theological Seminary at the Włodkowica Street, the building of which was demolished in the 1970s.

There were many distinguished and nowadays important people among the German Jews in Wrocław, like: a brilliant physicist Max Born (1882–1970); an intellectualist Edith Stein (1891–1942) – converted to the Roman Catholic Church; a socialist Ferdinand Lasalle (1825–1864); a biologist and a doctor Leopold Auerbach (1828–1897) – credited with the discovery of a fragment of the nervous system called Auerbach's plexus; Leo Graetz (1856–1941) – a physicist, who developed a diode bridge, often referred as Graetz circuit or Graetz bridge; a chemist Fritz Haber (1868–1934) – an inventor of ammonia synthesis, who received the Nobel Prize in 1918; a great dermatologist Albert Neisser (1855–1916); the Ehrlich Family (however without a Nobel prize winner Paul Ehrlich, who lived near Strzelin); the ancestors of Thomas Mann’s wife Katia, Jeffrey Sachs, Olivia Newton-John, and even Monika Levinsky (Lewinski Family). Last but not least, Gottfried Galle (1812–1910), who discovered the planet Neptune, is buried in the German cemetery in Wrocław.

By the beginning of the interwar period, the Jewish community in Wrocław was highly assimilated and well educated. However, some economic issues arouse later on; therefore, it was essential to support the poor – by the end of 1920s, 30% of the Jewish hospital patients needed social assistant. The Jews in Wrocław lost their political importance due to equal rights, introduced to the elections. The number of Jewish members in the town council decreased from 30% to 5%. But the most dangerous change that occurred was an increasing anti-Semitism. The Jews were excluded from the tourist Alpine Club (“mountains should be free from Jews”), as well as there were attempts of boycott of the doctors and students. However, in spite of this deteriorating situation, something significant happened – a pioneering Jewish Museum in Wrocław was finally opened in 1929.

The situation of Jews in Wrocław again started to gradually deteriorate after Hitler came to power. In 1933 restrictions were placed on the public rights of the Jewish community. The Nuremberg Laws came into force two years later, sanctioning the inequality in the law on the basis of “blood and race”. Jews were also removed from businesses under ministerial regulations, which the town authorities executed. Some Jews emigrated to Germany because of the growing anti-Semitism. The culmination of acts of anti-Semitism were the events of so-called Kristallnacht, the brutal force of which was felt in Wrocław. The new synagogue was set on fire and then blown up. The remaining synagogues were devastated and although some of the fittings inside were set on fire, the buildings themselves survived. Approximately 500 Jewish shops, 10 inns and 35 businesses were vandalized. 2200 Jews from Wrocław were sent to the concentration camp in Buchenwald.

The early 1940s marked the beginning of deportations of Jews from Lower Silesia. There were 11 deportations between the end of 1941 and the middle of 1944. Jews were taken to Kowno, Izbica, Theresienstadt, Auschwitz and to concentration camps in Sobibór and Bełżec.

A large group of Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust settled in Wrocław after 1945. From the very beginning the city became a major center for Jewish settlers. The Jewish pioneers in Wrocław and in Lower Silesia were former prisoners of the Gross-Rosen camp and many of its annexes. Jewish emigrants from areas occupied by the Soviet Union started to come to Wrocław from September 1945 onwards. In 1946 the number of Jews in the city reached approximately 15,000. The Jewish Religious Congregation in Wrocław (Żydowska Kongregacja Wyznaniowa) began its activity in May 1945. The Congregation managed the White Stork Synagogue and three prayer houses. Wrocław became the headquarters of the Provincial Jewish Committee (Wojewódzki Komitet Żydowski). Moreover, many Jewish organizations, schools and public institutions were established at that time.

The communist authorities organized in Wrocław an assembly point for the Jews, who wanted to go to the USA or to Palestine. As a result, approx. 100,000 Jews were in the city in February 1946. There were four synagogues: two at Włodkowica 9 St. and the other ones at Żeromskiego 24 St. and Oleśnicka 11 St. There were also o be found: a kosher canteen and Jewish shops, mikvah, a religious school Talmud Tora, “Niderszlezje” publishing house and two Jewish cemeteries (at Ślężna Street and in Kozanów District).

However, the Jewish community in Wrocław suddenly diminished, as a result of significant emigrations – approx. 3,800 Jews lived there by the year 1955. There were also a Sholem Aleichem primary school and the cooperating VII High School. Wrocław was at that time also a countrywide matzah producer. From 1962 on, matzah has been produced on a production line.

In 1968 it came to another wave of emigrations, which left in the city only 500 Jews. In the late Polish People's Republic (PRL), the Jewish activity started disappearing, Jews were inter-marrying, more and more Jewish institutions were closed. However, the Jewish Social and Cultural Association and Jewish Congregation in Wrocław were still active. In 1974 the authorities took over the White Stork Synagogue.

The revival of the kahal in Wrocław came after 1986, when Jerzy Kichler, who came from Krakow, took care of that. Since the beginning of the 1990s, charity organizations resumed their operations and the wave of emigration of the young people was stopped. The Jews regained the White Stork Synagogue in 1994. Lauder Etz-Chaim School was established, as well as a kindergarten and the synagogue choir – the only one in Poland. Scientific conferences, exhibitions and cultural events started to be organized in Wrocław. Scientists were engaged in scientific research concerning fascism and the Holocaust in Silesia, as well as Jewish history in Lower Silesia after World War II. The Polish Jews’ Culture and Languages Research Center (Centrum Badania Kultury i Języków Żydów Polskich) was established at the University of Wrocław in 1993 and ten years later renamed the Jewish Culture and Languages College (Studium Kultury i Języków Żydowskich).

An independent Jewish Community existed in Wrocław until 2006. Then, it became part of the Union of Jewish Communities in Poland (Związek Gmin Wyznaniowych Żydowskich w RP, ZGWŻ) and transformed into a branch of the Union of Jewish Communities in Wrocław. The branch has its own rabbi. The Jewish Social and Cultural Association is still active in Wrocław, just as several other organizations which are involved with culture and Jewish education. These include the Bente Kahan Foundation (Fundacja Bente Kahan) and Jewish Culture and Education Foundation GESHER (Fundacja Kultury i Edukacji Żydowskiej GESHER).

Bibliography:

• Cohn W. I., Żadnego prawa – nigdzie: dziennik z Breslau 1933–1941, Wrocław 2010. 

• Łagiewski M., Wrocławscy Żydzi 1850–1944: zapomniany rozdział historii, Wrocław 2010.

• Rahden T. van, Jews and other Germans: civil society, religious diversity, and urban politics in Breslau, 1860–1925, Madison, Wis. 2008.

• Rahden T. van, Juden und andere Breslauer: die Beziehungen zwischen Juden, Protestanten und Katholiken in einer deutschen Grossstadt von 1860 bis 1925, Göttingen 2000.

• Stolarska-Fronia M., Udział środowisk Żydów wrocławskich w artystycznym i kulturalnym życiu miasta od emancypacji do 1933, Warszawa 2008.

• Wrocław, [in:] Śladami Żydów. Dolny Śląsk, Opolszczyzna, Ziemia Lubuska, Warszawa 2008, p. 54–59.

• Ziątkowski L., Dzieje Żydów we Wrocławiu, Wrocław 2000.