Deutz Synagogue

After the expulsion of the Jews from Cologne in 1424, the then independent Deutz became a Jewish centre, as its residents stood under the protection of the Archbishop of Cologne in return for a fee. A synagogue in the "Freiheit" of Deutz was first documented in 1426, at today's Deutzer Freiheit (formerly Freiheitstraße 4). At times the place was the seat of the main Jewish community of the Archbishopric of Cologne. Around 1665 about 65 Jews lived in Deutz, and by the end of the 18th century the community had grown to 163 people. From about 1802 to 1816 the family of the composer Jacques Offenbach also belonged to the Deutz community; his father Isaac served for a time as cantor of the synagogue.

The building documented in 1426, near the Rhine, was destroyed in February 1784 by a severe flood carrying drifting ice. In 1786 the community built a new synagogue on the same site, whose river-facing front shaped the Deutz Rhine panorama for many years. In 1914 this synagogue had to give way to the construction of the Deutz suspension bridge.

During the night of 9–10 November 1938 the synagogue was set on fire and vandalised by SA men; the outer walls and parts of the inner structure remained standing. The rabbi Julius Simons, his wife Veronika, and their son Hermann were deported in 1943 and murdered in the Holocaust. Another son, Kurt, died in Cologne in August 1945; the son Ernst Simons returned to Cologne from imprisonment in 1952. In May 1941 the Nazi authorities ordered the remaining Jews of Deutz to move into ghetto houses in Cologne on the left bank of the Rhine, ending the existence of the Deutz Jewish community. The deportations of Cologne's Jews took place in 15 transports from Deutz station.