As I recently wrote, I will soon be visiting an area of Germany once known as Hesse-Darmstadt where my ancestors on my father's side came from.

By sheer co-incidence, while doing web searches about other subjects, I came across a website from the Technical University of Darmstadt with virtual reconstructions of Jewish synagogues that had been destroyed by the Nazis in 1938. This is particularly appropriate since today is Yom Ha Shoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day). From their website:

Since 1995 synagogues that were destroyed by the Nazis in 1938 have been reconstructed on the computer in the Department CAD in Architecture at the Technical University of Darmstadt. The project stems from a student initiative in 1994, a year in which hostility towards foreigners and anti-Semitic commentaries noticeably increased. It was also the year of the arson attack on the synagogue in Lübeck.

The reconstructions, which followed under the direction of Prof. Manfred Koob and Dipl. Ing. Marc Grellert, record the cultural lost and, at the same time, call to mind the historical importance of the buildings, which were once a part of the German cityscapes and German culture. The project investigates how new forms of cultural remembrance can be developed with the help of information and communication technology.

Up until now, over 60 students at the Technical University in Darmstadt have worked on the reconstructions and through their commitment have made the project a success. The results were seen in exhibits in the Jewish Museum in Frankfurt and the Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle in Bonn and are also presented to the public in a permanent exhibit in the Jewish Museum in Berlin. As of 2004, the exhibit shown in the Kunsthalle in Bonn will travel to foreign cities, including Tel Aviv and New York.

The project has been expanded to include an interactive Internet archive, open to the public, that is managed within the framework of a research project. The archive includes basic information about 2200 German and Austrian synagogues. Worldwide users of the Internet can individually add comments, images, links and eyewitness reports.

So for the first time since 1938, these synagogues can be seen...at least virtually.

Some examples:

The interior of the synagogue of Leipzig:

Exterior of the synagogue of Nuremberg:

Exterior of the synagogue of Munich:

I love stuff like this and wish there was more of it. And I appreciate the effort the Technical University of Darmstadt has gone through to do this project. It is both historically important and a mitzvah.