The Prussian Emancipation Edict of 1812, which gave Jews equal rights, did not prevent selective acts of anti-Semitism, but it definitely strengthened the Jewish community. Jews began to use the possibility to fully participate in social life, and in the following decades, they more and more often departed from traditional life, perceiving themselves as modern European citizens. Assimilation and acculturation also contributed to the fact that they more and more often referred to themselves as Germans of Jewish origin, which further bonded them with the local community.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, Jews from Wroclaw settled around Jewish Square, which is now known as the Ghetto Heroes Square. The Forum Judaeorum was the center of the Jewish district, including the current streets of Szajnochy, Kazimierza Wielkiego, Ruska, Krupnicza, Włodkowica and Św. Antoniego. There were, among others, buildings belonging to the Jewish community, houses of worship, school, hospital, canteen, numerous trade centres and inns. The Jewish community was the organizer of religious life; it financed and managed social care, acted as an advisory and representative body, provided help and support not only in religious matters. The brothers Richard and Paul Ehrlich designed buildings at today’s Włodkowica Street, where the offices were located. The bustling district grew rapidly along with the dynamic increase in the number of Jews arriving in Wroclaw. However, it was an integral part of the city, which did not stand out in terms of architecture compared to other housing estates. At the end of the 19th century, richer members of the community moved to the south of the city, where a network of Jewish institutions expanded and a new villa estate was built.
Jews contributed to the bourgeois city of Wroclaw, although their group was not uniform – they differed in origin, education, possessed property and the resulting status, degree of religiousness and commitment to tradition. Those who managed to get rich quickly through trade or industry regularly supported the poor, the sick and the lonely. The development of the community continued almost uninterrupted (with the exception of World War I) until the Nazis took power. There have been changes in almost all areas of everyday life: from religious practice, through education, to professional activity.
The roots of the liberal approach to religion and tradition can be found in the Haskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment. In the 18th century, there was a significant turn in European centres of Jewish thought – it was postulated to reform education and to strengthen the development of secular science so that the Jewish culture would keep pace with the development of European countries. Secular Jewish culture developed rapidly owing to the Haskalah, Jews became partners of the non-Jewish inhabitants of Germany, and their assimilation accelerated. In the spirit of numerous European social and political changes, German Jews were aware that they also had to adapt the liturgy to the requirements of modern times. It was the rabbi of Wroclaw, Abraham Geiger, who was the founder of the Reform movement in Judaism, which has many followers to this day.
Hanukkah in Wroclaw, 1938 (Yad Vashem, Photo Archive, Jerusalem)
Due to the formation of a strong liberal community, which naturally stood in opposition to the conservative current of Judaism, in the mid-nineteenth century, the community was divided into two separate fractions. Each of them had its own rabbi and later also its own synagogue. It is worth noting, however, that the initial tensions and conflicts accompanying the formation of a cohesive Jewish life strengthened the members of the community and were the catalyst for many changes. The Wroclaw community, which had to combine both the liberal and the conservative currents, was later set up as an example to follow for other Jewish communities.
Jews were also allowed to function fully in the university world. The effects came very quickly – in the middle of the 19th century they achieved success, became respected researchers, influential voices of modern science and the elite of professors of the University of Wroclaw. Two of the German Nobel Prize winners of Jewish origin were born in Wroclaw – Fritz Haber, who received an award in 1918 in chemistry, and Max Born, 1954 laureate in physics, who opposed the use of atomic physics for war purposes. Fritz Haber, on the other hand, was a controversial figure because he was working on chemical weapons used during World War I, and was also one of the inventors of Zyklon B, which was later used to exterminate Jews. Other scientists associated with Wroclaw who were awarded the Nobel Prize were: Paul Ehrlich, an outstanding chemist with great merits for medicine, and Otto Stern, physicist and assistant to Albert Einstein. The group of important personages of Wroclaw science also includes, among others, William Stern, Ferdinand Cohn, Jacob Caro, Gustav Born and Oskar Berger. All these outstanding figures constituted the elite not only of the Jewish community but of the entire city of Wroclaw.
The Jewish Museum exhibition catalogue printed in 1929 (Silesian Digital Library)