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BERLIN - Werner Bab remembers going with his father to Berlin's Rykestrasse Synagogue in the 1930s, soon after the Nazis came to power — a time, he says, when all the talk among the Jews at Sabbath services centered on politics and how to get out of Germany.
"But what most impressed me as a little boy was the sheer size of the building," says Bab, an 82-year-old survivor of the Auschwitz death camp.
The synagogue, Germany's biggest Jewish temple and architectural landmark, reopens Friday after more than a year of work to restore its prewar splendor.
Its interior, which seats up to 1,074 people, was allowed to deteriorate for decades because it sat in communist-run East Berlin, where concern and maintenance funds for houses of worship were in short supply from an atheistic government.
"But what most impressed me as a little boy was the sheer size of the building," says Bab, an 82-year-old survivor of the Auschwitz death camp.
The synagogue, Germany's biggest Jewish temple and architectural landmark, reopens Friday after more than a year of work to restore its prewar splendor.
Its interior, which seats up to 1,074 people, was allowed to deteriorate for decades because it sat in communist-run East Berlin, where concern and maintenance funds for houses of worship were in short supply from an atheistic government.
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