At the beginning of the 80s I followed my husband from the USA to his German home near Hamelin. Like any good Jewish young woman, one of the first things I did was to look for a synagogue here. At that time there was no synagogue in Hamelin, so I went to Hannover. In front of the synagogue door in the Haeckelstraße stood an elderly gentleman. As I approached, I thought it was nice to be greeted by a congregation member. He just looked at me silently and pointed with his thumb in the air. I suspected that this is a greeting from Lower Saxony, and I did that too. Without speaking to me, he now pointed more energetically at a staircase that led upstairs. Only then did I understand that I was not going to be allowed directly into the synagogue, but had to go to a women's gallery.

In my synagogue in Pennsylvania, as well as in other synagogues in the US, I had never sat in a women's gallery. With each step up, I became angrier and angrier and when I got to the top, I saw a lot of young women there, as frustrated as I was. They all seemed unhappy because they had to sit apart and not be allowed to participate in the service. The women sitting next to me were to be the same ones I would later befriend and join to found a first Reform congregation in Hannover.

I was born in Butler, Pennsylvania. We belonged to a Conservative synagogue. In total there were about 100 Jewish families in our city, and there still are. I am one of four children. My parents both worked, my three siblings and I were involved in community life. My brothers celebrated Bar Mitzvah, but in the 60's the Conservative branch did not offer Bat Mitzvah for girls. It was however common in the U.S. at that time that boys and girls celebrated confirmation in the tenth grade. The ceremony at Shavuoth was the formal end of Jewish instruction. Before that, we went to the Jewish Sunday School every Sunday. We were also members of the B'nai B'rith Youth Organization, whose local president I once was in Butler. Being Jewish has always meant a lot to me, because that's my identity.

Being Jewish has always meant a lot to me, because it is my identity.

PARENTS. After high school, I studied special education at university. I taught successively in three different states. In Pennsylvania I met my future German husband. He had come to the United States after completing his doctorate as a biologist as a postdoctoral researcher. He worked for a time on a scientific research project at State College, Pennsylvania.

My father refused all his life to set foot on German soil.

My father was not happy that I wanted to marry a gentile German. You have to know that my sister married a Japanese man the year before. My father complained, "What is this? The Second World War all over again?”

My parents had been born in the U.S,, but their parents came from Vilna, Lithuania. My father's family lost a large part of his cousin's family in Bergen-Belsen. That's why my father refused to set foot on German soil, even though I lived here and he got along well with his son-in-law. Incidentally, such behavior was not atypical of American Jews of his generation, although my mother, my siblings and other relatives came to visit us regularly. For our wedding in the U.S. only my husband's mother came; his father stayed at home.

My in-laws owned a big mushroom business and after my husband left science, he took over the business and company. One year later, in 1982, I came to Germany. To me as an American, Germany seemed a little fairy-tale-like, but as a Jew I had an uncomfortable feeling of being in the land of the Shoah. At that time the generation of Nazi Germany was still very present. When I met older German men, I wondered whether that person had been an active Nazi.

Interestingly enough, my father-in-law never tried to absolve the Germans of their guilt. On the contrary! Although he did not really dwell with the past, he advised me not to believe anyone who wanted to cleanse himself. He said, “We were all there, we were all Nazis!.” From that generation he was the only honest person I ever met.

IMMIGRANTS. Two of the women I met in Haeckelstraße in the Orthodox Women's Balcony that day were Katharina Seidler and Ingrid Wettberg. They soon set about founding a Reform Congregation in Hannover. As much as I could, I helped with it. We rented different rooms. There was no cantor and no rabbi; we had to lead the service ourselves.

Gradually, more and more FSU Jews people came to our area. A few years later I learned that many FSU Jews had been lodged in Hasperde Castle near Hamelin. The place is not far away from my home. So I put my three small children in the car and we went there. One motive for me was that I wanted my children to grow up with other Jewish children. For a year or so I looked after the Jewish immigrants in this temporary home. They only knew from their Soviet passport that they were Jewish. Most of them had absolutely no idea about Judaism. I asked them, “Do you want to learn about the religion of your ancestors? Do you want to become a Jewish community?” They said yes.

I also asked if they wanted a Russian-Jewish community, and I would keep more in the background. They rejected that idea because they wanted to learn German and integrate. As they began settling in Hamelin, we decided to meet in the apartment of Polina and Josif Pelts. I began by teaching them the Shema. The apartment soon became too small and we were offered space in the social hall of the Catholic Church in Hamelin. Thanks to Hans-Georg Spangenberger, the church's deacon, we stayed there for a year. After that we moved from one rented space to another.

My husband said he would buy the synagogue property for us.

CONSTRUCTIION COSTS. Finally, it was possible to buy the land on which the synagogue had stood until its destruction by the Nazis on November 9, 1938. In the conversation with the mayor, a symbolic purchase price of one Deutsch Mark was mentioned, but when we sat at the negotiating table, the city treasurer said the asking price was 20,000 Deutsch Mark. I did not know what to do and I discussed it with my husband. He said he would buy the property for us. We now had the land but a synagogue building remained a dream for many years.

In 2010, the state offered a project and a grant. If we were able to raise a third of the construction costs, the city and county municipality and the state of Lower Saxony would also each contribute a third. An architect created the plan for a small house of prayer. The construc­tion cost was 1.1 million Euros. For our third we took out a loan from the local bank, which we have in the last eight years paid off, thanks to fundraising in the U.S,, in Israel, Germany and in the community. For this we created a foundation that includes many Chris­tians and whose chairperson I am. We now have a synagogue in Hamelin again—on exactly the soil where until 1938 the original House of God stood.

RABBI. With Rabbi Dr. Ulrike Offenberg we have also found a rabbi who is a gem. We are very happy that we have her in Hameln every 14 days. I work hard to raise the money so we can keep her employed. My vision for the future is that the next generation will step up and continue the congregational work so that I can retire, and that they continue to create and sustain Jewish life in Hameln. My immediate concern is that the foundation, friends and supporters of the Hamelin synagogue will be able to raise enough money to pay her for weekly visits.