<LUXEMBOURG
(Luxemburg), grand duchy, formerly a county, bordered by
France, Germany, and Belgium.
[Settlement - prosecutions
because of Black Death - expulsion of 1391 and pogrom of
1478]
Jews were first noted in the city of Luxembourg, capital of
the country, in 1276. In the early 14th century immigrants
from the neighboring region of Trier formed several small
Jewish settlements. During the *Black Death (1349) many of
the Jews were massacred and the remainder expelled from the
cities of Luxembourg and Echternach, notwithstanding the
protection of Count Charles IV. They must have returned soon
after, for in 1367 the existence of a Porte des Juifs ("Jews'
Gate") is mentioned in the capital.
The total expulsion of the Jews was decreed in 1391, but as
early as 1405 some few individuals were once more living
there. The homes of the Jews were destroyed and their
possessions looted following an uprising in 1478. After that
only two Jewish families remained, but by 1515 the number of
families had grown to 15, residing in Luxembourg,
Echternach, and Arlon, which was then still part of the
county.
The expulsion decreed in 1530 was fully implemented with the
exception of some Marranos and a few traders at the fairs.
Jews disappeared from Luxembourg until the Napoleonic
period, when about 15 families from *Lorraine settled there.
In 1808 the number of Jews was 75. (col. 590)
[19th century and Jewish
refugees since 1933]
Under Napoleonic legislation they were subject to the Trier
consistory until the establishment of Luxembourg's own
consistory in 1838. The first synagogue was built in 1823
and the first chief rabbi, Samuel *Hirsch, was appointed in
1843, serving untie 1866. There were 87 Jewish families (369
persons) in the city of Luxembourg in 1880 and 63 families
in the rest of the duchy. The growth of this population
necessitated the construction of a new synagogue in
Luxembourg in 1894, and another in Esch-sur-Alzette in 1899.
The Jewish population, numbering 1,171 persons in 1927,
increased considerably with the arrival of refugees from
Germany: in 1935, 3,144 Jews were resident in the duchy
[[and the Jews in an illegal status are not mentioned]].
[S.Sch.]
Holocaust Period.
[4,000 Jews in 1940 -
flight to France in 1940 - aryanization]
At the time of the invasion of Luxembourg on May 10, 1940,
over 1,000 of the 4,000 Jews in the grand duchy (among them
about 1,000 refugees) managed to flee to France. A new
consistory was formed on the initiative of Rabbi Serebrenik,
and in August 1940 the Nazis set up a civil administration
under Gauleiter ("district head") Gustav Simon.
After the German annexation, discriminatory racial laws
operating throughout the Reich were extended to the grand
duchy (Sept. 5, 1940), and 355 commercial enterprises were
handed over to "Aryans" [[aryanization]].
[Threat with deportation on
13 September 1940 - 700 emigrating overseas - 1,000
secretly evacuated to France]
On Sept. 13, 1940 the *Gestapo announced that all the Jews
would be deported on the following Day of Atonement if the
consistory did not succeed in arranging their emigration
prior to that date. Due to the consistory's efforts
particularly through a petition sent to *Himmler, this
measure was postponed, but emigration remained the sole road
to survival.
Between Aug. 8, 1940 and May 26, 1941, when Rabbi Serebrenik
was forced to leave in peril of his life, 700 Jews
possessing more or less authentic visas fled overseas. In
another operation, about 1,000 people were secretly
evacuated to France in small groups.
[[In South of France stayed many Jewish refugees waiting for
their visas - some got and could emigrate to overseas,
others not]].
After these rescue operations the consistory became the
Aeltestenrat der Juden and administered the remaining 850
Jews. Of these, 127 emigrated in January 1942 and the rest
[[723 Jews]] were deported; only 35 of the latter survived.
[[left dead 688, or changed names or changed religion or
emigrated directly to Palestine or "USA" and never appeared
any more in Luxembourg]].
Contemporary Period.
[Appr. 1,500 Jews coming
back after World War II.]
After World War II approximately 1,500 Jews returned to
Luxembourg. Mostly merchants, they succeeded in renewing
their business activities and, with financial assistance
from the state, devoted themselves to reconstructing their
community. The community's institutions were revived and a
new synagogue built, the old one having been destroyed in
1943. Instrumental in these achievements was the consistory
presided over by Edmond Marx, in cooperation with Rabbi
Kratzenstein, who served the community from 1946 to 1948,
and Rabbi Lehrmann (1949-1959). In Esch-sur-Alzette a
community of 40 families established itself with a new
synagogue as its center. Maurice Levy was president of the
consistory from 1961 to 1968 and was succeeded by Edmond
Israël. From 1959 the chief rabbi was Emmanuel Bulz. In
1970, there were 1,200 Jews in Luxembourg.
[West Germany signing
reparation agreement with racist Zionist Israeli foreign
minister in 1952 in Luxembourg]
It was in the city of Luxembourg that the chancellor of the
German Federal Republic, Konrad Adenauer, and Israel's
[[racist Zionist]] foreign minister, Moshe *Sharett, signed
on Sept. 10, 1952, the agreement on German reparations to
[[racist Zionist governed]] Israel
[[without considering the contribution of Stalin to the
Holocaust in Gulag and in Red Army and without considering
the emigration movements 1933-1945 - among others to
Palestine]].
[[The world wide Jewish population did not see much of that
German money, but racist Zionist Jewish government in
Jerusalem purchased new weapons for new wars, e.g. for Moshe
Dayan's Zionist wars]].
[E.BU.]
Relations with Israel.
Luxembourg's relations with Israel have always been cordial.
Luxembourg voted in the UN in Nov. 1947 in favor of the
partition of Palestine and has maintained full diplomatic
relations with Israel. Israel is represented in Luxembourg
by her ambassador in Brussels, while Luxembourg's interests
in Israel (as in most other countries) are represented
politically by the Dutch embassy and economically by the
Belgian embassy. Official visits of the foreign ministers of
both countries were exchanged in (col. 591)
1969. Luxembourg, which plays a central role in the European
Economic Community, always wholeheartedly supported Israel's
application for association with the Common Market. [ED.]
[[But racist Zionist government in Jerusalem blocks itself
with strange ideas of a Jewish Reich from Nile to Euphrates,
and by this racism nothing is coming forward]].
Bibliography:
-- J. Stengers: Les Juifs dans les Pays-Bas au moyen-âge
(1950)
-- C. Lehrmann: La communauté juive du Luxembourg dans le
passé et dans le présent (1953)
-- H. Monneray: La persécution des Juifs en France et dans
les autres pays de l'Ouest (1947), index
-- Algemeyne Entsiklopedye, 7 (1966), 217-20.> (col. 592)