When seeing this low-rise building, nothing would let you anticipate that here once – and for centuries – stood the town's typical big patrician mansion with an imposing tower and an elegant private chapel. Here in the "Wollerhaus" three generations of Regensburg Jews convened in their synagogue - after they had left the older synagogue – Hinter der Grieb 5- and had inaugurated this new one in 1841. The main prayer hall offering fifty seats for men, plus a separate balcony for the women, was located in the tower; in the adjoining house on Untere Bachgasse 3, in the so-called "Steyrerhaus". You would have found schoolrooms for pupils, an apartment for their teacher, the mikveh and other rooms. Since the Jewish community grew rather rapidly, soon the number of seats both for men and women did not suffice any longer. In 1867 both the synagogue and the balcony for women were expanded.
The main problem, however, was the brook, the Vitusbach, still running through the alley. The damp had invaded the walls of the building. Troubles began in 1888: a candleholder fell off the wall, the rabbi lamented about the wet walls, and was afraid that the house would succumb to the marsh. A large section of the external plaster came off the facade and injured a passer-by, during the service in 1907 parts of the plastering fell off the women's balcony and right into the rows of the prayer room below. Whereupon, in the same year the whole building was officially declared "dilapidated" by the building authorities.
The Jewish community first rented rooms, and later built a new synagogue, but the building kept on deteriorating - until only massive wooden beams, which were spanned across the alley, prevented its collapse. In the autumn of 1938, the new owner started demolishing the whole complex. The only thing remaining was the Romanesque apse of an earlier chapel in the backyard. In 1946, this commonplace low-rise building was erected that we can see here today.
