Segeroth old cemetery

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Granite memorial stone of the city of Essen

The old Segeroth cemetery (today Segerothpark ) is a disused communal cemetery in what is now Essen 's Nordviertel district , which also covers the former working-class district of Segeroth . In the northeast of the cemetery is the largest Jewish cemetery in Essen.

history

In 1863 the Segeroth cemetery was opened as the Altenessener Südfriedhof. Two north-eastern extensions were added in 1883 and 1892, respectively. In 1983 it was disengaged.

Grave memorial for those who died in the war of 1870/71

In the southwest of the old Segeroth cemetery there is a grave memorial for the victims of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71 .

54 Essen soldiers were killed in fighting at the front. Of these, 17 warriors who died as a result of their injuries in Essen hospitals were buried here in a common crypt based on the decision of the churchyard commission on September 6, 1870. The grave monument was given a list of names and places of origin as well as the major battles on the pages of the monument. With a parade from the town hall , the participants, accompanied by a music corps, moved to the tomb. The memorial was unveiled on September 2, 1874, Sedan Day , after a song by a choir and the speech by First Alderman Karl König under cannon fire and music . After another song and a silent prayer, they marched back into town.

The grave monument was once framed by high iron bars and surrounded by corner columns and high ornamental architecture. There was also a tabernacle-like central structure with a slender tip, which was also surrounded by four corner pillars. All of this was destroyed in World War II.

A memorial for all 54 Essen war victims, initially planned by the city, was later erected on Kopstadtplatz in 1891 . In 1958 this monumental memorial by the sculptor Ernst Seger was moved to the Eltingviertel in the Nordviertel district.

Graves for those who died in mining accidents

Nine miners are lying in the Segeroth cemetery who died in a firedamp explosion triggered by a miner's lamp on October 20, 1921 in Flöz Gustav at the Victoria Mathias colliery . The explosion resulted in nine to ten fatalities and four to five injured. The funeral took place on October 21, 1921. The tomb has been a listed building since September 24, 2019. It is a cut artificial stone that measures 240 × 78 × 135 cm. The fencing and planting are no longer there.

Furthermore, 23 miners who were killed in a coal dust explosion due to forbidden dynamite blasting on May 31, 1922 at the Amalie colliery have their final resting place here. 23 to 24 miners died and 29 were injured. The tomb has been a listed building since September 24, 2019. It is a cut artificial stone that forms a 370 cm high stele with a square base area of ​​108 cm edge length. The engraved inscription reads: resting place of the 23 miners who died on May 31, 1922 at the Amalie mine. The fencing and planting are no longer there.

Buried personalities

One person who was buried in the Segeroth cemetery in 1883 is Clara Kopp . She was the founder of the religious order of the Sisters of Mercy of St. Elisabeth , who opened the first Essen hospital, the Elisabeth Hospital, in 1844 .

In 1898 the building contractor and city councilor Hermann Elting was buried here.

Georg Nauheim , a member of the Reichstag and Essen city councilor , was also buried here.

Karl Gottlieb Wächtler (born April 13, 1814 in Mückenberg (Saxony), † July 10, 1894 in Essen) was pastor of the Protestant community of Essen-Altstadt from 1844 to 1890. In addition to his job as a district school inspector, he was heavily involved in the Essen poor sector. At the end of the 1880s, houses for low-income citizens were built from donations from the poor administration, which gave rise to the naming of Wächtlerstrasse in the south-east quarter . Wächtler was buried here in the Segeroth cemetery.

Jewish Cemetery

Part of the Jewish cemetery

In the northeastern part, on today's Assmannweg (formerly Reckhammerweg), the Jewish cemetery of the city of Essen was opened in 1885 . At that time still located on the northern outskirts of the city, it was created as the successor to the cemetery on Lazarettstrasse . With the increasing influx of workers for the coal and steel industries from Eastern Europe, the Jewish community also grew. The Segeroth Jewish cemetery thus developed into the largest in Essen to this day. The head of the Jewish community in Essen, Isaac Hirschland , acquired the land from the city of Essen in 1885.

Simon Hirschland (1807–1885), who founded the Hirschland private bank in Essen in 1841, was the first to be buried here in the autumn of that year . His son Isaac Hirschland followed him in 1912. The family crypt still exists today. The writer Anna Heinemann and her husband, Counselor Salomon Heinemann , are buried here, as is the teacher and preacher Moses Blumenfeld . On January 29, 1903, a new mourning hall was inaugurated right next to the entrance to the cemetery, because the first at another location had to be demolished due to mountain damage.

The mourning hall was destroyed in the Second World War . From 1943 onwards, under pressure from the Gestapo , several gravestones had to be sold to stonemasons for further processing. For the purpose of donating metal from the German people , many metal letters, bars and chains were removed. Despite these influences and subsequent desecrations through smearings with Nazi insignia (1959) and overturning gravestones (1966, 1968), 707 gravestones have survived. The Jewish cemetery has been a listed building since 1985. The last burial took place in 1991.

The Segeroth Jewish cemetery is now owned by the State Association of the Jewish Communities of North Rhine in Düsseldorf . It is not open to the public.

Redesign to a park

In the 1990s, the site began to be transformed into Segerothpark. Some old tombs have been preserved to this day. The area, which is now intersected by Bottroper Straße in a north-south direction, was cleared between 2005 and 2007 and supplemented by recreation areas and other paths. In addition, the approximately 3000 square meter pond in the eastern part of the cemetery was renovated and enlarged as part of the urban project Essen.New way to the water . It is now fed with rainwater from the neighboring houses. In the southwest area of ​​the park there is a children's playground on a former cemetery site.

See also

literature

  • Michael Brocke: Jewish cemeteries in Essen ; In: Jüdisches Leben in Essen 1800–1933, Ed .: Alten Synagoge (study series of the Old Synagogue, Vol. 1), Essen 1993, pp. 110–121.
  • But my time to pick flowers is over . The Jewish cemetery in Essen's Segeroth quarter; Klartext-Verlag , Essen, 2016 (brochure)

Web links

Commons : Alter Friedhof Segeroth  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Memorial plaque on the grave monument in the old Segeroth cemetery, erected by the district council for the city district I.
  2. ↑ a b Excerpt from the list of monuments of the city of Essen - Tomb of the victims of the accident at the Victoria Mathias colliery ; accessed on December 19, 2019
  3. ↑ Excerpt from the list of monuments of the city of Essen - Tomb of the victims of the accident at the Amalie mine ; accessed on December 19, 2019
  4. ↑ Historical Archive Essen: Biography of Clara Kopp ; accessed on July 14, 2017
  5. ^ University of Heidelberg: Jewish cemeteries in North Rhine-Westphalia: Segeroth ; accessed on June 17, 2020
  6. ↑ Jewish grave field in the list of monuments of the city of Essen (PDF; 422 kB); accessed on June 17, 2020
  7. ↑ Memorial plaque on site

Coordinates: 51 ° 28 ′ 1 ″  N , 6 ° 59 ′ 53 ″  E