Old Jewish cemetery Heldenbergen

The old Jewish cemetery Heldenbergen was the cemetery for the inhabitants of the Jewish faith in Heldenbergen , town of Nidderau in the Main-Kinzig district in Hesse . It existed since 1818 and was used until 1884, after which the New Jewish Cemetery in Heldenbergen took over its function.

View from the north 2015

Geographical location

The Jewish cemetery is located between Büdinger Straße , Raiffeisenstraße and Am Kellerberg a little off the street. A narrow footpath branches off the main street between the houses at Büdinger Strasse 7 and 9. The complex was and is mainly surrounded by pieces of fruit trees.

history

A Jewish community existed in Heldenbergen since around 1500. Since it did not have its own cemetery in the first centuries of its existence, its relatives were buried in the Jewish cemetery in Windecken . At that time, however, Windecken belonged to the County of Hanau-Münzenberg and Heldenbergen to the Freigericht Kaichen and the Burgraviate Friedberg , which is why Count Philipp the Younger demanded a fee from the Heldenbergen Jews.

Only in 1818 was it possible to set up its own cemetery in Heldenbergen by purchasing a piece of land on the Kellerberg that had previously belonged to Nassburg . According to the death register, Aron Kaichen , who died on September 2, 1818 at the age of 70, was the first to be buried in the cemetery.

The community grew rapidly in the further course of the 19th century. In the period of use between 1818 and 1882 alone, 243 names are known from the death register. When it became clear that the area was fully occupied, the community acquired a plot of land on the road to Kaichen in 1879 , where the New Jewish Cemetery was built. During the National Socialist period, the cemetery was spared from destruction.

investment

The Old Jewish Cemetery has an area of ​​808 m². Old pictures show that it was once surrounded by a wooden fence, today there is a chain link fence. A key is available from the cemetery administration.

The oldest gravestones in the cemetery are in the rear area and most of them have sunk. It is possible that the area was leveled at a later time to make mowing easier. The older stones are mainly sandstones with Hebrew inscriptions. In the front area, about twenty stones have survived, which have both Hebrew and German inscriptions.

literature

• Paul Arnsberg : The Jewish communities in Hesse. Beginning - fall - new beginning. Volume I. Published by the regional association of Jewish communities in Hesse, Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt 1972, ISBN 3-7973-0213-4 , pp. 343-345.
• Monica Kingreen: Jewish country life in Windecken, Ostheim and Heldenbergen. CoCon, Hanau 1994, ISBN 3-928100-23-8 , pp. 327-339.

Web links

Commons : Jüdischer Friedhof (Heldenbergen)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• The Jewish cemeteries in Heldenbergen near Alemannia Judaica

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Kingreen 1994, pp. 327-331; HStA Marburg 86 Hanauer supplements No. 28021.
2. ↑ Kingreen 1994, p. 331.

Coordinates: 50 ° 14 '20.8 "  N , 8 ° 52' 3.4"  E