They come to life again on the white painted wall of the bunker.

Video projections show images of synagogues.

The magnificent, colorful church in Cologne's Glockengasse, which was built according to plans by the cathedral builder Ernst Friedrich Zwirner, is below it, the Frankfurt main synagogue in Börnegasse, a center of liberal Judaism, and the modern church in Plauen, opened in 1930, a building in the New Objectivity Style.

Alexander Juergs

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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There is one thing that all these buildings have in common, the appearance of which is often very different: They were destroyed.

More than 10,400 Jewish places of worship were destroyed throughout the country during the November pogroms in 1938.

25 of them can now be rediscovered - as virtual reconstructions that were created on the computer.

They will be shown in an exhibition that will be permanently on view from Sunday in the bunker in the Friedberger Anlage.

What was left was demolished by the Nazis

The November 9th initiative takes care of the memorial site, which also housed a synagogue until 1938.

The neo-orthodox Israelite Religious Society had it built, and in 1907 the sacred building, which offered space for 1000 men and 600 women, was opened.

It burned on the night of November 9th to 10th, 1938.

What was left of it was demolished by the National Socialist rulers, and the tormented community had to pay for the demolition costs.

In 1942 the air raid shelter was built, in which the reconstructions of the synagogues can now be seen.

The exhibition was developed by Marc Grellert, architect and lecturer at the Technical University in Darmstadt.

Since the mid-1990s he has been working on using 3D computer programs to create reconstructions of destroyed synagogues.

The impetus for this was an attack hostile to Jews: four neo-Nazis had thrown incendiary devices at the Lübeck synagogue in March 1994.

Grellert, who was still studying at the time, wanted to take a stand against it.

He sees his virtual replicas of destroyed synagogues as digital memorials against the rise of the right-wing extremist scene.

In 1996 he showed his first reconstructions of three destroyed synagogues in Frankfurt in an exhibition in the Museum Judengasse.

Visited Israel, Canada and the USA

The Jewish community supported him in his research with plans from the archives.

Four years later, Grellert, who had meanwhile become a lecturer at his university, was able to realize an even more extensive synagogue project: 15 destroyed synagogues from different corners of Germany were recreated.

The project was presented in an exhibition in the Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn, and later toured in Israel, Canada and the United States.

The show in the bunker in Ostend is now based on this traveling exhibition.

At large tables you can immerse yourself in the details of the reconstructions and the history of the buildings.

There are also films.

One shows Jewish places of worship that have been newly built in recent years, while another shows young Jews what a visit to the synagogue means to them personally.

You can also see two interviews that Grellert conducted with contemporary witnesses.

During his research into the destroyed sacred buildings, he spoke to survivors of the Shoah several times and asked them about the places where they prayed.

The most impressive exhibit is the most inconspicuous at first glance: virtual reality glasses.

Whoever puts it on moves through the synagogue, which was destroyed on the Friedberger Anlage.

Using VR technology, the house of worship that the Nazis destroyed suddenly appears to exist again, you can see the Torah shrine, the Bima, the decorated glass windows, the benches.

The exhibition opened on Sunday, November 7th.

You can also visit it on Tuesday, November 9th, from 5pm to 7pm.

After that, the show can be seen on Sundays from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. until the winter break at the end of November.