User:Photojack50/Synagogue (Venlo)

The synagogue of Venlo was situated from 1865 until the World War II at the Maasschriksel. Until then the services were held at a location at the Keulsepoort.

Jewish history of Venlo
Early on after being decreed a town in the second half of the 14th. century, the first Jews came to Venlo. Most of the Jews in Venlo earned their living hood as moneylenders. After the situation deteriorated in the city mid 15th. century, the Jews left.

At the beginning of the 19th. century again Jews became citizens of Venlo and until 1828 the Jewish congregation of Venlo was part of that of Sittard.

The old Jewish cemetery at the Kerkhofweg was in use from 1827 until 1887 after which the new cemetery was in use at the Ganzenstreet.

After the rise of the Nazis in Germany after 1933 the congregation of Jews of Venlo became much bigger.

The synagogue
Until 1865 services were held at a location at the Keulsepoort, after which the new Synagogue was initiated at the Maasschriksel. The Dutch King, William I, the city of Venlo and province of Limburg donated to the building of the Synagogue.

In 1944, during World War II, the Synagogue was much damaged during a heavy bombardment of the Allied Forces and was not restored after the war due to missing funds.

The Jewish congregation was formally dissolved in 1975. February 1999 a memorial was erected at the Princessensingel for the citizens of Venlo killed in the war.

Alleged mikveh
In 2004, excavation work for Venlo's new Maasboulevard uncovered a mid-13th-century structure. Involved archaeologists believed it was a mikveh (Jewish ritual bath). The stone construction was salvaged and placed in a specially built room in the Limburgs Museum in Venlo in 2012. Scientific doubts about the find led to an investigation into the proceedings by the Municipal Audit Office in 2013. At a subsequent symposium held in 2014, the claim that a mikveh had been excavated, proved untenable. A Leiden professor hypothesized that it would rather have been the basement of a medieval toll house that once stood on the Meuse River.