When Rachel Salamander passed the Jewish house of worship on Reichenbachstrasse ten years ago, her heart “really stopped.” The building was left to decay. Now the synagogue is awakening to new life – not for the first time.
The masonry of the walls is still unplastered, scaffolding has been erected under the glass roof and in the niche for the Torah ark, black fabric strips makeshift cover the side window openings. But there is “finally light at the end of the tunnel,” as Rachel Salamander said at the topping-out ceremony for the reconstruction of the former main synagogue on Reichenbachstrasse. More than 90 years after its construction, the only surviving building from the Jewish pre-war history of Munich is gradually coming to life again.