How the Collection Box was Found
by Mag. Magdalena Müllner
Many years have passed since I first entered the synagogue of Laa in 1992. Before I went into the synagogue of Laa for the very first time I went to the couple who owned it back then, even though it never was locked at this time. The synagogue was in a very bad condition then. It was mor a ruin than anything else. Cracks in the wall were going across the walls. The owners told us that we could keep anything we found relating to a synagogue.
My sister, Elisabeth, joined me when I went to the synagogue on an autumn afternoon. As always the door was not locked and so we walked up on the second floor where the synagogue had been. The only sign hat showed us that this had not been a normal flat was the paint still visible through the grime on the neglected walls. The walls were reddish and about a meter from the floor there was a decoratively patterned band painted in black. On the wall there were also rests of blue paint.
Then we went on the attic. It appeared completely empty, but my sister found the collection box under the roof. A wall of bricks had been put between the attic and the roof to keep out snow and rain and the collection box had been placed there as if it too were a brick. It was extremely dirty. It had surely been there for a very long time.
We took the box home and cleaned it. Removing the dirt revealed an ocher and rust color and the hebrew writing "Matan Beseter", which menas "a gift [given] in silence". It reminds at the duty to support people in need. The people who had put it under the roof, degrading it to a brick, also must have broken the lock and taken the money.
The collecting-box is the most precious thing in my room and it will remain there until there is a memorial-room for the Jewish community of Laa an der Thaya, which the box could be a part of. It is the only remaining artifact from the synagogue of Laa an der Thaya.
