Cäcilie Bleeker Park

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Information sign at the entrance to the park
Partial view of the park
one of the main paths through the park with historical tombstones (before they were destroyed by employees of the Uetersen building yard)
Current condition after the removal of the historical tombstones

The Cäcilie Bleeker Park is a park in Uetersen .

This park emerged from the former Old Cemetery and was named after the Uetersen benefactress and first honorary citizen in Schleswig-Holstein, Cäcilie Bleeker (1798–1888). She was also the founder of numerous social institutions, such as a girls' school and the Uetersen city hospital.

history

Planning for the construction of a new cemetery began around 1833 because the monastery cemetery had become too small. It was opened in 1835. Since the cemetery was by the former monastery mill and there was also another water mill nearby, no trees were allowed to be planted in this place. There was a fear that the big trees would take the wind away from the mills. Therefore there are comparatively few large trees in this place. After this cemetery had also become too small, it was no longer occupied with new graves from 1965.

In the period up to 1990 only grave maintenance was carried out there. In 1992 the cemetery was sold to the city for 100,000 D-Marks , with the condition that it be converted into a walk-in park for the citizens. After the maintenance and redesign measures, it was named Cäcilie-Bleeker-Park in 1999 and later came under criticism from the citizens. He rather shows the visitors “a picture of neglect”. Thereupon the Schleswig-Holsteinische Heimatbund and the sponsoring association of the city and local history museum decided to help design the park. The park was then also recognized at the state level. The park is open daily until dark. There are old graves of important Uetersen people like Cäcilie Bleeker and Ludwig Meyn .

The park is recognized as a cultural monument and is therefore a listed building

Cultural destruction

In June 2015, employees of the municipal building yard , on instructions, removed around 100 historical, some more than 600 years old, gravestones from the park and irretrievably destroyed them by a stonemason . Among them were those of the actress and theater pedagogue Margarete Pix and the theologian, provost and member of the Holstein Estates Assembly, Johann Bröker .

The removal of the gravestones triggered a wave of indignation and national media coverage. This case once again showed how carelessly our cultural assets are handled , for example in a television report by NDR .

The Kiel State Office for the Preservation of Monuments commented that this incident unfortunately shows very well that such cultural sites have to be looked after and preserved, precisely in order to make the public aware of them much more .

Due to the destruction of historical gravestones in Cäcilie Bleeker Park, the city is currently threatened with a fine . However, it is not the Pinneberg district that decides on the value of the stones and thus the amount of a fine, but the responsible State Office for Monument Preservation in Kiel, where the case is now being examined . It will also depend on whether the removal is an administrative offense . Regardless of the legal classification, the gravestones were definitely worth a monument , according to the district spokesman Oliver Carstens.

It has not yet been decided whether the park will retain its status as a cultural monument.

Graves

Only a few graves are completely preserved in the park, including some memorials to the fallen. Most of the grave sites were dismantled during renovation work, and a few of these tombstones have survived in the park.

Web links

Commons : Cäcilie-Bleeker-Park  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

swell

Individual evidence

  1. Was it just stone slabs? In: Uetersener Nachrichten . June 12, 2015. Accessed June 16, 2015.
  2. Bleeker Park: Breached the contract. In: Uetersener Nachrichten . June 15, 2015. Accessed June 16, 2015.
  3. TV report by Norddeutscher Rundfunk from June 12, 2015 (no longer available)
  4. City buries memorial tombstones. In: Hamburger Abendblatt . June 16, 2015. Accessed June 16, 2015.

Coordinates: 53 ° 41 ′ 10.5 "  N , 9 ° 39 ′ 26.4"  E