Jewish cemetery (Bamberg)

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Jewish cemetery in Bamberg, 2011
Jewish cemetery in Bamberg, 2011

The Jewish cemetery in the Upper Franconian city ​​of Bamberg has been the burial place of the members of the Bamberg Jewish Community since it opened in 1851 .

location

The 7,640 m² cemetery, on which there are around 1,100 gravestones , is located at Siechenstraße 102 next to the municipal main cemetery on Hallstadter Straße. Visitors can inquire about the opening times from the local cemetery administration.

history

Medieval cemetery

Jews were mentioned in Bamberg as early as 1007, the year the prince-bishopric there was founded . The first reports of a Jewish community date from the second half of the 12th century. The medieval Jewish cemetery in Bamberg was reported to the Rabbi Adolf Eckstein (1857-1935) "behind the house of Häfner Johann Köth" in the Lower Sand Road 29 ( coordinates of the location ). The burial site, which has been lost and has not been archaeologically proven, was probably created in the 14th century. A document dated December 20, 1407 between the “Community of Jews in Bamberg” and the citizen of Hermann Riemer confirmed the expansion of the cemetery by a “patch of garden as wide as the Jews understood the churchyard”. In addition, a legal dispute about an eaves in the year 1469, mentioned in the copial book of Langheim Abbey , is one of the few testimonies about this cemetery.

In 1478 all Jews had to leave Bamberg. Their cemetery was completely cleared in the following period. The private man Jakob Kerpf took possession of the church in order to protect it from desecration , but by 1490 at the latest the property at the foot of the Michaelsberg belonged to the diocese. According to various sources, during renovation work in the house at Untere Sandstrasse 29 in the 1960s, gravestones from the medieval cemetery were discovered. The stones used as floor slabs are said to have been set up in today's Jewish cemetery on Siechenstrasse. But they cannot be detected there.

Burials outside Bamberg

Jews have been able to settle in Bamberg again since 1556. However, for almost three centuries the Jewish community was not allowed to build its own burial ground in the city. The deceased were first buried in the Jewish cemetery in Zeckendorf and from the middle of the 17th century on the Jewish cemetery in Walsdorf . The transport to the places more than 10 kilometers away was extremely difficult at the time, even with horse-drawn carts and in good weather. Contrary to Jewish tradition, the funeral procession could often only partially accompany the deceased on their last journey.

Plant of today's cemetery

Tahara house of the Jewish cemetery in Bamberg, 2011

In particular due to the consequences of the Bavarian Jewish edict of 1813 and its repeal, as well as the full legal equality of Jews in Bavaria with the adoption of Bismarck's imperial constitution , numerous "rural Jews" moved to the cities in the course of the 19th century. In 1814 there were 69 Jewish families in Bamberg. By the end of the 19th century there were already more than 1,100 residents of the Jewish faith. The chairman of the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Bamberg, D. Jakob Dessauer, who has been in office since 1841, was instrumental in the establishment of a Jewish cemetery within the city. This was finally built right next to the municipal cemetery in Hallstadter Strasse, which was expanded into the main cemetery from 1817 to 1822.

The inauguration of the Jewish cemetery took place on October 19, 1851 with the first burial (Is. Kolb). The consecration speech was given by the then Rabbi Samson Wolf Rosenfeld. The Tahara House , built from 1885 as a modern mourning hall in the post-classical style, was completed in 1890. A plaque with a Hebrew text from the eighteen prayers was placed at the main entrance of the building . The inscription on a second tablet, which is said to have also existed there, has not survived. After the First World War , a war memorial was erected in the mourning hall to commemorate the 39 fallen members of the Bamberg Israelite community. The pulpit from the fourth Bamberg synagogue, which existed until 1910, was placed in front of the plaque with the names of the fallen . The memorial testifies to the patriotic attitude of the parishioners before 1933, as do a number of soldiers' graves in the cemetery. Seven soldiers of Jewish faith from Bamberg were awarded the Iron Cross 1st Class, two others were awarded the Military Medical Order .

  • 19th century tombstone

  • Gravestone from the early 20th century

  • Memorial to the Jews from Bamberg who fell in World War I in the Tahara House

  • Soldier grave from the time of the First World War

time of the nationalsocialism

The Bamberg synagogue , built between 1908 and 1910, was destroyed during the November pogroms in 1938 . From November 1941, the Jews living in Bamberg began to be deported . The Jewish cemetery was expropriated and the Tahara house rented to the Bosch company, which used it as a warehouse. This saved the building from demolition and the cemetery from desecration. Until May 1945 only 15 Jews who lived in so-called " mixed marriages " remained in the city. At least 630 Jews who were born in Bamberg or who had lived there for a long time fell victim to the Holocaust . Many fates have not yet been clarified.

Post-war until today

Memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, 2011
Memorial plaques for the victims of the Holocaust in the Tahara House, 2011

After 1945 the city of Bamberg gave the cemetery back to the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde. This initially consisted of numerous " displaced persons " who were housed in the entire city area in the first post-war years . Only a small number of Jewish people stayed in Bamberg permanently.

In 1965, tombstones were desecrated with slogans such as "Jews go to hell", "Long live the Führer", "Long live the SS - 6,000,000 are too few". A photograph of Adolf Hitler was stuck on another stele with the inscription “The Führer says, here lies a Saujud”.

After 1990, the number of Jews living in Bamberg rose again due to the influx of so-called quota refugees from the successor states of the Soviet Union . The Jewish cemetery is still used by the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Bamberg and, like the Tahara House, which was renovated from 1993 to 1997, is a listed building. A memorial in the entrance area of ​​the cemetery commemorates the victims of the Holocaust. Above the relief of a tree of life there is an inscription in capital letters and without punctuation according to Ps 9,6-7  EU :

"THE SWORDS OF THE ENEMY
HAVE AN END THE CITIES
YOU HAVE REVERSED THE
LORD BUT
THE ISRAELITE CULTURAL COMMUNITY BAMBERG REMAINS FOREVER TO THE VICTIMS OF THE YEARS
1933-1945
"

After lengthy research into the fate of the murdered Jews from Bamberg, six memorial plaques with the names of the victims were inaugurated on November 10, 1995 in the mourning hall. The tablets were made on the initiative of Herbert Loebl from Newcastle upon Tyne , one of the last descendants of Bamberg Jews before the war. They were placed opposite the memorial for those who fell in World War I. In the building, a permanent exhibition from the Bamberg City Archives shows various aspects of Jewish life in Bamberg before 1938.

Cemetery complex and graves

Cemetery division

The entrance and the Tahara house of the cemetery are on Siechenstrasse. To the right of the entrance is the memorial for the victims of the Holocaust. The tombs from the 19th and 20th centuries stretch across the central and largest part of the area behind. The older graves are to the south. In the northern part, which is also used for current burials, are the newer burial sites. In a section along the eastern wall that separates the Jewish cemetery from the main city cemetery, there are children's graves to the south and graves from the Nazi era and from the immediate post-war years to the north.

Design of the tombs

Grave inscription from the 19th century
Leaning grave column from the 19th century for a deceased child

The gravestones in the Jewish cemetery in Bamberg impressively represent the history of Jews in Germany since the middle of the 19th century. The sometimes very artistically designed and monumental tombs from the 19th and early 20th centuries bear witness to the influence of the Haskala , the progressive Jewish emancipation and assimilation , on the Jewish citizens of Bamberg. The tombstones mainly show reliefs and ornaments that can also be found in Christian funerary art, including flowers, wreaths and palm fronds . Clearly Jewish symbols such as blessing Kohani hands or Levite jugs can only be found sporadically. Some of the grave inscriptions, which are largely in German, contain obituaries and blessings with information about the lives of those buried there. The graves from the 1930s and the post-war period are very simply designed in accordance with the circumstances in which they were built.

  • Ornaments on a 19th century tombstone

  • Lying tombstone from the early 20th century

  • Gravestone from the 1930s with memorial inscriptions for two victims of the Holocaust

  • Children's grave from the late 1940s

State of preservation

Almost all of the relatives of the buried were either killed in the Holocaust or had to emigrate abroad, which is why most of the graves were not maintained for a long time. Many graves, including many made of soft sandstone , have been attacked by weathering over the years or have sunk or become brittle due to the lowering of the water level. Thanks to renovation work since the 1980s and maintenance by the cemetery administrators, most of the historic gravestones have been secured. Overall, the system is in a comparatively good condition.

Graves of important personalities

In addition to many locally important personalities, several nationally important personalities have found their final resting place in the Jewish cemetery in Bamberg.

Tomb of Willy Aron

Wilhelm "Willy" Aron (1907–1933) studied law in Erlangen , Munich and Würzburg . In Bamberg he was the leader of Jewish youth groups, a member of the Socialist Workers' Youth and in the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold alliance . As a trainee lawyer at the Higher Regional Court in Bamberg , he defended Social Democrats against National Socialists . After the seizure of power , he was arrested on March 10, 1933 as an opponent of the regime and deported to the Dachau concentration camp on May 13 of the same year . There he was murdered on May 17, 1933. A street in Bamberg was named after Willy Aron, who is considered to be the first Bamberg victim of the National Socialist terror. In 2003 the "Willy Aron Society Bamberg eV" was founded, which researches the life and work of Aron and other resistance fighters . In addition, a memorial plaque in the Higher Regional Court and a stumbling stone in front of his former home at Luitpoldstrasse 32 remind of him in Bamberg . His simply designed single grave is in the section in front of the eastern cemetery wall.

Tomb of Willy and Paula Lessing

Tomb of Willy and Paula Lessing

Willy Lessing (1881–1939) was a councilor , entrepreneur and from 1938 until his death chairman of the Jewish community in Bamberg. Among other things, he was the owner of several hop dealers, the Lessing brickworks, co-owner of Hofbräu Bamberg , board member of Bavarian and German industry and trade associations and a member of the supervisory board of numerous companies. During the November pogrom in 1938, he was severely mistreated near the burning synagogue in Bamberg. He died on January 17, 1939 as a result of the injuries. He had been married to Paula Lessing (1888–1944), née Ehrlich, since 1909. Together with her son Friedrich, born in 1915, later Fred, she had managed to escape to Newcastle upon Tyne before November 1938. She died there during the Second World War. It was in 1945 at her husband's side at the Jewish cemetery in Bamberg reburied . Fred Lessing had emigrated to the United States in 1942 .

The Sophienstrasse, where the Lessing family lived, has been called Willy-Lessing-Strasse since 1948. The community hall of today's Bamberg Synagogue was also named after him in 2008.

Tomb of Markus and Julie Tietz

Markus Tietz (1849–1901), a brother of Hermann Tietz , moved in 1886 with his wife Julie Tietz (1853–1930), née Baumann, from Prenzlau to Bamberg. There he relocated the headquarters of the H. & C. Tietz department store, one of four related Tietz companies at the time . After the death of her husband in 1901, Julie Tietz took over the management of the Bamberg branch. In 1919 she handed over management of the company to her second son-in-law Gustav Gerst and moved to Frankfurt am Main . Gustav Gerst and his wife Ella, née Tietz, were able to flee to the USA via Sweden in 1937 . In the course of the " Aryanization " of all of the Tietz family's department stores, the Bamberg branch, which was a thorn in the side of many retailers, was completely liquidated in 1939 . After a reimbursement procedure, the Hertie department store in Bamberg was reopened in 1951.

Tombs of the Wassermann family

Emil Wassermann's individual grave

The family grave of the Wassermann banking family is one of the most striking graves in the entire cemetery due to its size and exposed location in the entrance area. In addition to Angelo von Wassermann (1835–1914), who founded the AE Wassermann bank with his brother Emil Wassermann and was raised to hereditary nobility in 1910 , there are several family members buried there who gained importance both in their own company and in the national and international money market . These include Angelo von Wassermann's sons Eugen (1870–1925) and Max von Wassermann (1863–1934) as well as Emil Wassermann's son Julius (1873–1939).

The names of Julius Wassermann's wife Elsa, née Neuburger (* 1882), and their daughters Alice Emma (* 1906) and Edith Wassermann (* 1910) are also noted on the tombstone. The widow and her daughters were deported from Bamberg on November 27, 1941. Her last known place of residence was the Jungfernhof camp from December 3, 1941 . Nothing is known about her further fate or the circumstances of her murder. Ilse Wassermann, née Frenkel, last mentioned on the tomb was the wife of the Berlin chemist Ernst Wassermann (1880–1925), a brother of Julius Wassermann. She was deported from Berlin to the Sobibor extermination camp on June 13, 1942 and murdered. The year of death of the four women is indicated on the gravestone as "1941/2".

Emil Wassermann (1842–1911), the second co-founder of the banking house AE Wassermann, found his final resting place in a solitary grave in the Jewish cemetery in Bamberg. There is an acrostic in Hebrew on the tombstone . Other graves of the family, including those of Oscar Wassermann (1869–1934) and August von Wassermann (1866–1925), are located in Berlin as well as abroad due to the flight and expulsion of those who died later.

Other personalities

  • Carl Emanuel Dessauer (1844–1908), hop trader and builder of the Villa Dessauer
  • Carl Isidor Dessauer (1850–1913), founder of the Dessauer Malzfabrik (today Bamberger Mälzerei GmbH)
  • Chriss Fiebig (1942–2004), recipient of the Bamberg City Medal, engaged in Jewish-Christian dialogue
  • Simon Lessing (1843–1903), hop wholesaler and founder of the export brewery Frankenbräu, father of Willy Lessing

literature

  • Karl-Heinz Mistele: The end of a community . Jews in Bamberg 1930 - 1942. Self-published by the city of Bamberg, 1988, ISBN 3-929341-27-1 .
  • Israel Schwierz: Stone evidence of Jewish life in Bavaria . A documentation. Ed .: Bavarian State Center for Political Education . Bayerische Verlagsanstalt, 1988, ISBN 3-87052-393-X .
  • Norbert Haas: Died in Bamberg - buried in Walsdorf . A contribution to the history of the Jewish community Bamberg 1809 - 1851. In: Amounts for Franconian family research . No. 10 , 1994.
  • Herbert Loebl : Jews in Bamberg . The decades before the Holocaust. 2nd Edition. Verlag Fränkischer Tag, Bamberg 2000, ISBN 3-928648-48-9 .

Web links

Commons : Jewish Cemetery  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Bamberg: Contact person ( Memento of the original from July 1, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (see under house and cemetery management ). As of November 29, 2011.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ikg-bamberg.de
  2. ↑ a b c www.juden-in-bamberg.de : A short historical outline of the history of Jewish life in the prince-bishopric of Bamberg . As of November 29, 2011.
  3. ^ Adolf Eckstein : History of the Jews in the former prince-bishopric of Bamberg . Edited on the basis of archive material. 3. Reprint, Unchanged reprint of the first edition. Ed .: House of Bavarian History . C. Fiebig, Bamberg 2005, ISBN 3-933623-08-1 .
  4. ↑ www.juden-in-bamberg.de : The first cemetery - outside of the sand gate on the left . As of November 29, 2011.
  5. ↑ a b c Alemannia Judaica : Bamberg - The Jewish cemeteries . As of May 10, 2011.
  6. ↑ Christoph Daxelmüller: The good place . Jewish cemeteries in Bavaria. Ed .: House of Bavarian History (=  booklets on Bavarian history and culture . Volume 39 ). 2009, ISBN 978-3-937974-22-4 , pp. 46 .
  7. ^ Jüdisch Historischer Verein Augsburg : The Jewish cemetery in Bamberg . As of November 29, 2011.
  8. ↑ www.juden-in-bamberg.de : Zeckendorf - the first exile . As of November 29, 2011.
  9. ↑ www.juden-in-bamberg.de : Walsdorf - the last resting place for 200 years . As of November 29, 2011.
  10. ^ A b Alemannia Judaica : Bamberg - Jewish history / synagogue . As of November 24, 2011.
  11. ↑ a b c Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Bamberg: History of the Israelitischen Friedhofes Bamberg ( Memento of the original from August 14, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . As of November 29, 2011.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ikg-bamberg.de
  12. ↑ a b House of Bavarian History : Jewish cemeteries in Bavaria - Bamberg . As of November 29, 2011.
  13. ^ Commemorative Book - Victims of Persecution of the Jews under the National Socialist Tyranny 1933–1945 . As of May 19, 2011.
  14. ↑ Brigitte Mihok: Concepts, theories, ideologies . Walter de Gruyter, 23 December 2010, ISBN 978-3-11-023379-7 , p. 92.
  15. ↑ a b c d Memorial book of the Jewish citizens of Bamberg (PDF; 3.7 MB). As of November 29, 2011.
  16. ↑ www.juden-in-bamberg.de : Museums and other meeting places . As of November 29, 2011.
  17. ↑ Luplow, Andrea: On the history of the H&C Tietz department store in Bamberg, unpublished approval work, Bamberg 2001
  18. ↑ Jürgen Nitsche: The history of the Jewish department stores in Germany. (PDF) Retrieved December 1, 2011 .
  19. ↑ www.juden-in-bamberg.de : Wholesale and retail - the Hertie and Honer department stores . As of December 1, 2011.
  20. ↑ www.juden-in-bamberg.de : Banks of Jewish origin . As of December 1, 2011.

Coordinates: 49 ° 54 ′ 16 ″  N , 10 ° 53 ′ 14 ″  E