Franz Irblich (born 27 November 1905 in Krnov t that time: Jägerndorf, Austria-Hungary">Austria-Hungary.html" ;"title="t that time: Jägerndorf, Austria-Hungary">t that time: Jägerndorf, Austria-Hungary– 19 April 1960 Schweinfurt) was a Sudeten German architect, construction entrepreneur and member of the city council of Krnov. He is credited by German and Jewish sources to be the key person of the exemption of the Krnov Synagogue from destruction in the November 1938 pogrom.

Irblich and the Krnov Synagogue

The Krnov Synagogue stopped to be used for religious services in October 1938, when the

Sudetenland The Sudetenland ( , ; Czech and sk, Sudety) is the historical German name for the northern, southern, and western areas of former Czechoslovakia which were inhabited primarily by Sudeten Germans. These German speakers had predominated in the ...

was incorporated into Nazi Germany. Not long afterwards, on 9 November 1938, almost all synagogues in the surrounding towns – as anywhere in Nazi Germany – were destroyed during the

Reichskristallnacht () or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (german: Novemberpogrome, ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's (SA) paramilitary and (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation from ...

prosecution. However, the Krnov synagogue was saved. End of October 1938, the mayor of Jägerndorf, Oskar König (in office from 1938 to 1940), had received a secret order from Berlin by phone to destroy and burn down the synagogue of his town on 9 November. Unwilling to comply, he summoned a meeting of the councillors and informed them about the order he had received. The Sudeten councillors then unanimously accepted the proposal of the builder Franz Irblich to deceive the Nazis: They decided to remove all symbols of the Jewish religion from the building and change it into a town market hall, reporting to Berlin that there was no synagogue in Jägerndorf which could be destroyed. As such the building was used until the end of World War II in 1945. To deceive the responsibles in Berlin even more, on 9 November the local officials set on fire two barrels of gasoline in front of the city's Jewish cemetery which produced big clouds of dark smoke. Pictures of this event were taken and published in the local newspaper insinuating that the

Jewish funeral Bereavement in Judaism () is a combination of ''minhag'' and ''mitzvah'' derived from the Torah and Judaism's classical rabbinic texts. The details of observance and practice vary according to each Jewish community. Mourners In Judaism, the p ...

hall had been burning. In fact the building hasn't been damaged and survived the war just like the synagogue.

Post-war development

After the world war II, the synagogue was used by the

Czechoslovak state , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

first as a warehouse, then as a local archive building. In 1994 only, Czech Republic announced to

return Return may refer to: In business, economics, and finance * Return on investment (ROI), the financial gain after an expense. * Rate of return, the financial term for the profit or loss derived from an investment * Tax return, a blank document or t ...

the building to the Jewish community, which actually happened in 1999. Today the building is administrated by the Jewish community in Olomouc (German: Olmütz) and used for exhibitions and other cultural purposes with no Jewish community in Krnov existing anymore. The merits of Franz Irblich as saviour of the synagogue are acknowledged by the Jewish community. In the lobby of the synagogue a portrait of him is displayed with the inscription in Czech and German ''"Franz Irblich, Saviour of the Synagogue"''.Badenheuer/Heller (2019), p. 164

Literature

* Badenheuer, Konrad / Heller, Wilfried: ''Notiz zur Rettung der Synagoge von Jägerndorf (Krnov).'' '' otice on how the Jägerndorf (Krnov) Synagogue was Saved' in: Heller, Wilfried (Editor): ''Jüdische Spuren im ehemaligen Sudetenland.'' ''[Jewish Relicts in the former

]'' Verlag Inspiration Un Limited, London/Berlin 2019, , p. 157–164 [In German]. * Helmut Irblich, Irblich, Helmut: Die Synagoge von Jägerndorf [The Krnov Synagogue; in German], Schweinfurt 2001 (2nd edition 2018), p. 8-13

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Irblich, Franz 1905 births People from Krnov People from Schweinfurt 20th-century German architects 1960 deaths Sudeten German people