Jawne

Name

The school took its name from the town Yavne near Tel Aviv, where the Jewish Supreme Court, the Sanhedrin, after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, tried to maintain the Jewish traditions with a school of Jewish law.

History

The Jawne in Cologne was the first and only continuative Jewish school in Rhineland. It was founded by Rabbi Emanuel Carlebach (1874–1927), brother of rabbi Ephraim Carlebach, of the congregation Adass Jeshurum around Easter 1919, was built in 1921 and was recognized by the state in 1925 as a Real-Progymnasium and Lizeum, with the rights of a semi-public institution. Rabbi Carlebach had founded in 1907 a private elementary school by the name of Moriah.

On September 28, 1929, the its official name was changed to Privats Jüdisches Reform-Realgymnasium mit Realschule für Knaben und Mädchen. The Javne school position was strengthened when, on April 27, 1928, it entered into an agreement with the executive board of the Cologne community whereby, for a period of five years, this school would receive an annual stipend. In return the school was to be administered by a board of governors the majority of whom was appointed by the executive board of the Jewish community. Its teachers and directors had to be of conservative religious views. Since April 9, 1929, its director was Dr. Erich Klibansky.

During the school year 1930–31 the pupils numbered 103 boys and 75 girls, during 1936–1937 the total number of students, boys and girls, was 410.

Klibanksy recognized early the Nazi danger. He reacted reinforcing the lessons in English and Modern Israeli Hebrew to prepare his students to a life out of Germany. Already in 1933 he said without illusion: "To which School can I send my child? This question is today peremptory. One cannot answer that we should not go back by ourselves into a ghetto, because the breakup process of the German people towards us Jews is in full movement."

Erich Klibansky and his teachers planned after 1938 to evacuate the whole school to Great Britain, and organized to this end the Kindertransport. The outward voyage by train and ship could be done only without the company of their parents. He thus succeeded to let a part of his students leave for England. At least 130 Jewish children from Cologne were able to survive.

After the breakout of the Second World War this was no longer possible. Klibansky, his family and the remaining students were deported in 1942 with more than 1,000 other Jewish from Cologne near Minsk and killed there without exception.

Remembrance

In the Cologne Lern- und Gedenkort Jawne, that is located in the area of the destroyed gymnasium, the history of the school is remembered with exhibitions. At moment there is the exhibition "The children of the next door schoolyard" conceived by the historian Cordula Lissner. The area, thanks to the insistent efforts of citizens of Cologne, was named in 1990 Erich Klibansky Platz. In the small square a survived student has created a memorial with the Löwenbrunnen (designed by the sculptor and survivor of the school Hermann Gurfinkel) and the names of the killed children. In November 2008 the initiative was honored by the prize "Aktiv für Demokratie und Toleranz", in December 2009 by the Cologne Bilz-Prize of the Bilz-Foundation.

The preservation of the memorial place is from 2009 endangered, because the necessary space is not as previously rented for free from the owner, but the association has to pay a market rent.