Jewish cemetery (Bad Kissingen)

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View of the cemetery
Oldest part of the cemetery
View of the cemetery
Grave of the soldier Jacob Michaelis
The Tahara House in Bad Kissingen
Architect's drawing for the construction of the Tahara House (1891)
Grave of the prayer leader Josef Weissler

The Jewish cemetery in Bad Kissingen , a town in the Bavarian administrative district of Lower Franconia , has existed since 1817 and is located on today's Bergmannstrasse not far from the Ostring .

history

Before the emancipation of the Jews (see: Bavarian Jewish edict of 1813 ), Jewish residents of the spa town were buried in the Jewish cemetery in Pfaffenhausen ( Pfaffenhausen is now a district of Hammelburg ). It was not until 1817 that the Bad Kissingen Jewish community acquired a site on what was then Zückberg to set up a cemetery. In 1821 the government of the Lower Main District ordered the payment of an annual property tax of 45 kreuzers . Since the expansion in 1932, the cemetery, which is laid out on a slight slope in a west-east direction and accessible via a continuous stone staircase, has an area of ​​38.92 acres .

Tahara house

Due to the growing number of Jewish community members - between 1824 and 1925 the community grew from 163 to 504 people - it became necessary to build a morgue. This Tahara house for the ritual washing of corpses was built in 1891 by master builder Gillich in the neo-Romanesque style as part of a cemetery expansion and still exists today with its three large stone arches in the entrance area. A guard room, bed room, wash room, corpse room, utensil room and section room were housed in it. The house was built of red brick with dividing elements of yellow sandstone . Its central projection is oriented towards the burial ground. A flight of stairs leads to its triple arcade, the profiled arches of which rest on Doric-Tuscan columns. A rusticated base moves the building.

Desecrations of the cemetery

In 1925 and 1936, the cemetery was the target of desecration, with tombstones being knocked over and window panes thrown on the Tahara house. In both cases, the search for the perpetrators was just as unsuccessful, although in the case of 1936 the Kissing district office was instructed by the Bavarian riot police to search for the perpetrators at high pressure and to prevent future incidents of this kind.

In the course of the events of the pogrom night of November 9, 1938, on the afternoon of November 10, 1938, some Jews imprisoned in the Bad Kissingen district court prison were chained to one another through the city to the cemetery and forced to dig at a "designated point" there, as one had been there since " some time different, incriminating material ”suspected. Instead, some Jewish rituals were found there and taken to the air raid shelter of the district building for inspection .

In 1941 the last funeral took place during the Nazi era . After the deportation of the last Jews from the spa town on April 24, 1942, the cemetery was closed. Instead, 20 Soviet prisoners of war were housed in the Tahara House, who had to load and unload the trains in the nearby train station. The cemetery survived the Second World War and the Third Reich largely unscathed. Soon after the war, another Jew was buried here in 1946. The last funeral for the time being took place on November 29, 1989. Today there are still 488 gravestones ( Mazewot ), including war graves of Prussian and Bavarian soldiers of Jewish faith from the Battle of Kissingen on July 10, 1866. There is a single urn grave behind the Tahara House . Since traditional Judaism is generally against cremation , the urn had to be buried away from the other graves.

At the beginning of May 1994, the cemetery was desecrated by two 14 and 16 year old students who smeared individual gravestones with paint and sprayed them with Nazi symbols. The perpetrators could be identified and were sentenced not only to pay for the damage done in the amount of 3500 DM , but also to perform 20 or 60 hours of work.

Current condition

Since there is no longer a Jewish community in Bad Kissingen, no funerals are held and the cemetery is only looked after on a voluntary basis, its condition is poor. Some of the inscriptions on the gravestones are no longer legible due to weathering.

architecture

The gravestones, most of which were created by sculptor Valentin Weidner at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries , are mostly based on the style of Christian graves.

Personalities buried in the cemetery

literature

  • Gerhard Wulz: The cemeteries in Bad Kissingen , in: Thomas Ahnert, Peter Weidisch (eds.): 1200 years Bad Kissingen, 801–2001, facets of a city's history. Festschrift for the anniversary year and accompanying volume for the exhibition of the same name. Special publication of the Bad Kissingen city archive. Verlag TA Schachenmayer, Bad Kissingen 2001. ISBN 3-929278-16-2
  • Bergmannstrasse, Jewish cemetery, funeral hall, late classicistic, 1891. , in: Denis A. Chevalley, Stefan Gerlach: Monuments in Bavaria - City of Bad Kissingen . ISBN 3-87490-577-2
  • Hans-Jürgen Beck, Rudolf Walter: The Jewish cemetery , in: Jewish life in Bad Kissingen . Published by the city of Bad Kissingen, Bad Kissingen 1st edition: 1990, p. 26
  • Hans-Jürgen Beck, Rudolf Walter: desecration of the Jewish cemetery , in: Jüdisches Leben in Bad Kissingen . Published by the city of Bad Kissingen, Bad Kissingen 1st edition: 1990, p. 118
  • Lothar Mayer: Jewish cemeteries in Lower Franconia . Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2010, pp. 116–119, ISBN 978-3-86568-071-6 (with many photos)
  • WG Sebald : The emigrants . Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 2001, p. 332ff. ISBN 3-8218-4714-X (with many photos)

Web links

Commons : Jüdischer Friedhof Bad Kissingen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ It is wrong to say that the cemetery was laid out as early as 1801; B. here ( Memento of the original from November 18, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / ikg-bayern.de
  2. ↑ Ulrich Knufinke: Buildings of Jewish Cemeteries in Germany , Research Center for Jewish Architecture in Europe, Verlag M. Imhof, 2007, ISBN 3865682065 or ISBN 9783865682062 , page 213 ( excerpt )
  3. ^ Hans-Jürgen Beck, Rudolf Walter: Jewish life in Bad Kissingen . Published by the city of Bad Kissingen, Bad Kissingen 1st edition: 1990, p. 128
  4. ^ Werner Eberth : Valentin Weidner , In: "Kissinger Hefte", Volume 1, Theresienbrunnen-Verlag, Bad Kissingen 1992, pp. 34-36

Coordinates: 50 ° 11 ′ 35.2 "  N , 10 ° 4 ′ 56.5"  E