In June, construction workers making improvements to a dam in the Isar River—which flows through the city of Munich in southeastern Germany—discovered remains of the city’s synagogue, which was destroyed by the Nazis. Paul Kirby writes:
They uncovered columns from the synagogue and a stone tablet showing some of the Ten Commandments. . . . There had been no sign of the building since it was torn down in June 1938, after Hitler demanded its removal as an “eyesore.” Five months later, Jews, synagogues and Jewish-run businesses were attacked across Nazi Germany in the deadly November pogrom widely known as Kristallnacht.
Rubble from the historic building is thought to have been submerged in the Isar River since it was used to rebuild a weir eleven years after World War II. The stone tablet originally came from above the ark (containing the Torah) on the eastern wall of the synagogue, which was one of Munich’s most famous pre-war landmarks. The old site is now covered by a Karstadt department store.
The Leonhard Moll building company that destroyed the synagogue had apparently stored the rubble on its site west of Munich until 1956. Some 150 tons were then dumped in the river to renovate the big Grosshesseloher weir, mainly from the synagogue but also from buildings bombed during the war.
Read more on BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66107481