Jewish cemetery (Altenkirchen, Westerwald)
The Jewish cemetery in Altenkirchen (Westerwald) ( Altenkirchen district , Rhineland-Palatinate ) is a protected cultural monument .
history
The Jewish community of Altenkirchen (Westerwald) initially had a smaller cemetery; There is evidence of a Jewish cemetery in the city for the year 1742, “ next to the city on the left in front of the manorial hop garden ”. As long as the Jewish fellow citizens did not have a cemetery, they were only allowed to bury the dead on Quengelsberg near the city wall not far from the first Jewish school (prayer house).
Around 1780 the cemetery was expanded; the oldest documented grave is from someone who died in 1783. The community at that time consisted not only of Altenkircheners, but also of families from the surrounding villages. The selected location of the Gut Ort cemetery is, according to tradition, on a watercourse, here the Quengelsbach on the current site on Kumpstrasse. The cemetery list, begun in 1817, mentions the size of the complex: On the first old part, 24 graves could be found, beginning around 1780. On a second part, beginning in 1862, 69 graves were planned, and on a newer part, beginning in 1899, another 54; a fourth field was reserved for children's graves.
An inventory before the renovation that took place in the mid-1980s revealed 37 grave sites (not stones) with a size of 984 m². At present there are no more grave sites or fields, there are 62 tombstones still in existence today ; 18 of them have no grave slabs or legible inscriptions. Of the inscriptions in the stones, 37 are in Hebrew and 7 only in German (writing); the German language predominates in the younger graves. There are stones that begin and end in German; mostly it concerns the life data of the deceased. The religious and biblical reference or the appreciation of the deceased is then in the middle. The Star of David is depicted on six stones ; a child's grave is still there. After 1933 seven burials took place; the last was Emilie Isaac in 1937. The most common family names are Abraham, Salomon and Davis.
In contrast to the synagogue on Frankfurter Strasse, the cemetery remained essentially undamaged during the National Socialist era . In 1986 the city of Altenkirchen (Westerwald) took over the care of the Jewish cemetery from the Jewish community of Koblenz.
literature
- Heinz Krämer: "Gut Ort" - the Jewish cemetery in Altenkirchen . In: Margret Stolze, Heinz Krämer and Eckhard Hanke: Jews in Altenkirchen - History - Memories - Fates . Altenkirchen (Westerwald) 2000.
- Joachim Jölsch, Uli Jungbluth (ed.): Jews in the Westerwald - life, suffering and remembrance . Montabaur 1998.
- Pedagogical Center: Jews in Altenkirchen Pz-Information 5/88, Mainz 1988.
Web links
- Jewish cemetery Altenkirchen (Westerwald) near Alemannia Judaica (with many photos)
- Jewish cemetery Altenkirchen (Westerwald) at the central archive for research into the history of Jews in Germany
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jungbluth, quoted in according to Krämer, p. 27.
- ^ Information from Theodor K. Tobias (formerly Puderbach , later Cincinnati ), who is in the possession of the cemetery list. See Krämer, p. 28.
Coordinates: 50 ° 41 ′ 26 " N , 7 ° 38 ′ 38.5" E