The conversion of the Synagogue of Kuldīga in Soviet times
by Agnese Kusmane



Building of synagogues in the territory of former USSR went on an upsurge in 1905; until 1910 the number of synagogues in this territory increased one and a half times. In the Russian Empire there were 529 officially registered synagogues and 2240 preaching-houses. In Ukraine there were 1298 synagogues and preaching-houses, in Belarus - 746, in Russia - 271, in Lithuania - 271, in Moldova - 87, in Latvia - 73, in Georgia - 17, in Azerbaijan - 13, in Estonia - 3, in Armenia - 1, in Central Asian republics - 24.

In 1918 it was decreed in Russia that state and schools shall be separated from the church. Religious organizations were deprived the status of legal entity, they could no longer own property – buildings, cemeteries. Synagogues were converted into clubs, dining facilities, factories. The Brodsk synagogue in Odessa was turned into a club in 1925, approximately at the same time all six synagogues in Gomel were transformed into a metallurgist club, a shoe factory, a refectory, a dormitory for workers and the disabled. Quite often synagogues were converted into tailor and skin tanner clubs, because there were many Jews among these professions; the clubs were named after Jewish revolutionaries: Rosa Luxemburg, Moisey Volodarsky, Moisey Uritsky. Later synagogues were adapted for other purposes and memories of them faded. In the horal synagogues of Baku, Kyiv, Kishinev, Ufa etc theatres and philharmonic halls were established. The synagogues of Mogilev and Harkov were fixed up as sports clubs and the synagogue of Tver – as militia station. In the 1920ies the Soviet authorities received numerous complaints from religious people about the fact that they were denied visits to synagogues. The writers of complaints were arrested and imprisoned. A similar process affected also the cult buildings of other religions. For example in the 1920ies to 1930ies in Moscow district 150 Orthodox churches were destroyed and 300 turned into factories, clubs and prisons.

Synagogues after World War II In 1947 in the territory of the USSR there were only 162 synagogues and preaching-houses functioning (compared to 529 synagogues and 2240 preaching-houses in 1910). Almost all of the synagogues in the newly acquired territories were liquidated and utilitarian establishments were established in their place. But quite often synagogues retained the function assigned to them by the Nazi. In Poland the great synagogue of Poznan functioned as a swimming-pool, which was fixed up there by the German army. Also the Jewish preaching-house in Kuldīga is still serving as a garage since the Nazi used it as one.
The synagogue of Kuldīga (6, 1905.gada Street) was built in 1875, during the reign of tsar Alexander II. Next to it there is the preaching-house.
According to eye-witnesses, also the ritual bathhouse was situated nearby. The Jewish sepulchre can still be seen there. The historical plans of the synagogue and the preaching-house cannot be found; only a few photographs of the exterior of the synagogue with also a glimpse of the preaching-house and one photograph of the interior are available. In 1905 there were 73 synagogues, the majority of which were located in Kurzeme.
The synagogue of Kuldīga became a trap for Jews in the summer of 1941, when all the Jews living in town were imprisoned in the building and held for several days before being divided into smaller groups and shot in the nearby woods. Shortly after the extermination of Jews the German forces set up food storage in the synagogue. On May 9, 1945, upon receiving news of German surrender, the local people broke into the synagogue to lay their hands on the foodstuffs kept in the building. Eye-witnesses recall that there were blood stains on the walls of the building; however there is no evidence of people being shot inside the synagogue, which happened, for example, in the nearby Aizpute.
The interior of the synagogue of Kuldīga was almost undamaged in 1945. During the first years of Soviet rule a grain storehouse was set up in the synagogue. Possibly it was then that many interior details went missing. In the so called yid church grain was simply poured on the floor, and everything else that was there, could only be a hindrance to moving the grain around, which was necessary to ensure that the crop would not decay. A storehouse for grain and chemicals was set up also in the so called German church or the Kuldīga St. Catherine church (built from thirteenth to nineteenth century), however the interior of this building has not been altered so greatly, and in 1964 the local history museum and a concert hall were established there.
In the 1950ies Soviet collective farms developed, grain storage spaces of appropriate size and volume were built in the countryside, and the building of the synagogue of Kuldīga was abandoned. But soon the building was put to new use. In the years of Soviet rule cinema as a means of propaganda developed relatively quickly. All over the Soviet country innumerable cinemas were opened, a travelling cinema network was established, each year several hundred people were schooled for projectionist's profession. Cinema Komjaunietis (Comsomol) was located in confined premises in the present-day sports school building. Despite the fact that the small number of viewers constantly troubled the manager of the cinema – to reach the income, scheduled in the plan, illegal dance parties were organized after film screenings and brought in a significant amount of money – the town government decided to close down the old cinema and open a new one. The synagogue building of Kuldīga was deemed suitable for this purpose.

The synagogue of Kuldīga 1956 – 1958

The first news of the new cinema to be opened in Kuldīga can be found in the tweleth of February, 1956 issue of the newspaper Padomju Kuldīga (Soviet Kuldīga) – the only publication in Kuldīga district. On the first page of the issue, in the section In the first year of quinquennium there is a news heading There will be a new cinema in Kuldīga. The article says: „Already during the first quarter of the year it is planned to commence construction work of a cinema in 6 Ventspils street. The building plan of the cinema has already been drawn up. The main entrance is planned to be from Ventspils street. ... The cinema will hold 422 seats (actually the number is 450 – A.K.), which is 152 seats more than in the current cinema Komjaunietis. Next to the cinema hall there is going to be a reading-room.” The word synagogue is not mentioned here, and it does not appear in any other publications either. However there are many articles about religion in the newspaper, to be more exact – against religion. Each month Padomju Kuldīga features publications about the harmfulness of religion and the positive aspects of atheism. For example in an issue of Padomju Kuldīga in 1956 there is an article titled Holidays of religion are a remnant of the past. It says: „The dominant ideology of our country is the new socialist one, and all occurrences in nature and society are explained from the scientific, materialistic point of view. However our life is still troubled by the negative inheritance of the past. [..] Celebrating religious holidays is one of those. [..] Jewish cattle breeders used to celebrate a holiday called “peisah” in the spring, in honour of the increase in their herds. On this holiday the ancient cattle-breeders made sacrifices to the “protectors” of their cattle – gods and spirits, they slaughtered lambs, sprinkled their settlements with their blood and ate the meat of sacrificed beasts mixed with their blood. When Jews started practicing agriculture, the cattle-breeding holiday of “peisah” was replaced by a harvesting celebration. In Palestine April was the time of harvest. Jewish farmers then sacrificed the first sheaves of the harvest to gods and spirits and baked matzoth – unsalted scones from the flour of the new harvest. Much later, as religious legends tell, this festival was associated with the exodus of Jews from Egypt to Palestine.”
Further the article relates how this holiday of spring was adopted by Christianity. In the end there is a conclusion: „On religious holidays people always drink and quarrel. These holidays hinder work at industrial enterprises and collective farms as well. The ones in favour of retaining religious holidays are those who want to hold people in the captivity of religious superstitions and not allow them to conceive the world as it actually is.”
This and similar articles not only described religion as an indication of lack of education, thus assisting the justification of the fact that cult buildings (or the material resource base of religion) are not necessary and therefore should be transformed into utilitarian buildings, but also in its simplified level of expression served as an information source primitivizing Jewish culture.
On the tenth of October, 1956 the newspaper Padomju Kuldīga features an appeal article Lets take part in construction works. It says: „There is a new cinema being built in Kuldīga. It is going to be comfortable and pleasant for its visitors. [..] Currently we have all necessary construction supplies on site, all resources for good work are available, we are only short of manpower. Is it really so that in Kuldīga there is such lack of good workers, craftsmen, builders? It seems that there are so many professionals not pursuing their trade. Construction workers, don't you also want to be patriots of our town, to build new buildings quicker, will you not lend your hands to a sooner opening of the new cinema so as you can say: “I have taken part in the building of this splendid hall.” All of you, who have knowledge of working in construction, consider this, come and help reshaping your town. We have dormitories for single men.”
The poetess Alise Lauriņa, who worked as a projectionist in Komjaunietis cinema since 1951, recalls that also cinema staff was ordered to go help in the construction works of the new cinema. She went to lend a hand in the reconstruction of the small preaching-house. The work she had to do was to carry old planks with nails in them. The poetess pricked her foot on one of those and thought it was punishment for partaking in the demolishing of a Jewish church. Later A. Laurina avoided taking part in similar work.
I have not been able to locate other participants of the reconstruction. In 1957 an article on the progress of reconstruction was published, it mentioned comrades Brālītis, Bergmanis, Goldmanis and others. The article tells about the friendly builders' collective, the progress of building works, yet no facts that would be helpful in the reconstruction of the synagogue are mentioned in it.
While the synagogue is being converted into the new cinema, the January 1st, 1957 issue of Padomju Kuldīga features an article The number of cinemagoers has increased. It says: „In our country cinema has become one of the most beloved art fields of the nation. Considering the demand of the population – to offer worthy, interesting films that would depict the current issues of our life as well as get acquainted with the best production of foreign cinema studios – a lot of attention is devoted to the expansion of Soviet film production and the import of films from other countries. Thus the films screened in 1956 are already more varied in content, better in quality and artistic rating than the films issued in previous years. These circumstances have positively influenced cinemagoing ... In year 1956 1233 screenings have taken place in the cinema of Kuldīga, and they have been attended by 148 850 viewers...”
The numbers, stated in hundreds of thousands, complemented with the pathos devoted to the development of cinema in the Soviet land makes one believe the fascinating marketing that has been exercised in order to justify the construction of a cinema in Kuldīga. In the post-war situation, when the most urgent issue is the increase and improvement of housing fund, such waste of expenses for building a cinema might seem absurd. However, when taking a detailed look at the numbers, we see that every day an average of 3.5 screenings has taken place, and each of those has been attended by an average of 118 people. Considering the fact that the new cinema will accommodate 450 seats, it is clear that from the economical point of view the conversion of the synagogue into a cinema has been pointless.
On October 10th, 1958 in the newspaper Padomju dzimtene the long-awaited news appears: the new cinema Kurzeme has been opened. It contains seats for 450 spectators. There is also a reading-room in the cinema.
The premises of the synagogue have been altered completely, but still the columns that once supported the upstairs gallery can be found here, also the dimensions of the altar can be surmised. The synagogue of Kuldīga has been turned into a three-storey building as a result of the rebuilding. The ground floor included the waiting spaces, cloakrooms, the manager's office, the design artist's workshop. The first floor accommodated the screening hall as well as the reading-room, which we lack more detailed information about. On the second floor projection rooms were situated. The entrance was located in the former place of the altar. When chiselling the wall, a document describing the origin of the synagogue in Hebrew was found in it.
In the Jewish preaching-house of Kuldīga, just the same as in war time, there still is a garage. Pictures found in the archive indicate that the roof of the building has been replaced. Also here another ceiling has been constructed and dormitories for the cinema staff fitted into the attic. Later the attic was used to accommodate classrooms for the Kuldīga music school, and they are still there also nowadays. On the walls of the preaching-house fragments of paintings can bee seen and it is possible to restore them. By the end of 1958 the reconstruction of the synagogue and the preaching-house is almost finished. In the news article, published in October 1958, a picture shows that there have been windows in the main facade also on ground floor level. At the moment the windows are bricked up, but it is unknown when and why.
Also in the nearby synagogue of Kandava a cinema was established in the 1950ies.
In the 1950ies the Year 1905 park was in creation in Kuldīga, across the street from the synagogue. In the territory of the park there have previously been buildings; before the war many Jewish families lived there. As a result of the nineth of May, 1945 Soviet air raid the buildings were destroyed. Possibly the aim of the bombing was the synagogue where the German army storage was located at the time. The par acquired its current layout in 1956 when the sculpture in dedication to the heroes of 1905 revolution by Līvija Rezevska was erected there. The central axis of the park, which also the sculpture is situated on, continues the trajectory of Smilšu street. The layout of the park has a quite poor spatial connection with the synagogue building.

The synagogue of Kuldīga 1958 – 2003

So, since 1958 to 2003 in the Kuldīga synagogue there was the Kurzeme cinema. The importance of this cinema is indicated by the fact that the opening of Kurzeme was honoured by a guest – a functionary from the Cinematographers' Union of the USSR in Moscow. Kurzeme was equipped with technologies of very high quality in the time. Projectionist A. Laurina does not recall that this cinema would have organized dance parties to supply income as it was done in the old cinema Komjaunietis. The only social arrangements were the ones for the cinema staff – New Year's balls with the participation of Santa Claus, the International Women's Day celebrations where traditionally large quantities of alcohol were consumed, Cinematographers' Day when the best projectionists received premium wages and diplomas from the Ministry of Culture for accomplishing the intended work plan.
The last screening in the cinema took place in 2003. After the reinstatement of independence in Latvia in 1991 there has been also a cafe and a night club in the synagogue building, which was closed down thanks to the protests of Latvian Jew council. Currently the synagogue as well as the preaching-house is the property of Kuldīga town council.
Returning cult buildings of the USSR to their previous owners started already in Mikhail Gorbachev's time under the slogan of Glastnost. The first synagogues to be returned to the Jewish community in 1989 were those in Lviv. A few years earlier – in 1987 – the return of Orthodox churches to congregations was started.