Jewish cemetery (Muiderberg)
The Jewish cemetery Muiderberg ( Dutch Joodse begraafplaats Muiderberg ) is a Jewish cemetery in the North Dutch village of Muiderberg in the municipality of Gooise Meren . Around 45,000 Ashkenazi Jews , mainly from Amsterdam to the north-west , are buried here. The largest Jewish burial place in the Netherlands is also one of the oldest in the country.
location
The main entrance of the approximately 15 hectare burial ground is on Googweg (house number 6) in Muiderberg. The cemetery grounds are west of the village center. The relatively large distance between Amsterdam and Muiderberg meant that in 1714 the community laid out the nearby Zeeburg Jewish cemetery , where mainly children, the poor and those who died shortly before public holidays were buried. This was supplemented in 1914 by the Diemen Jewish Cemetery .
history
prehistory
In the 17th century the Thirty Years' War and epidemics like the plague resulted in anti-Semitic attacks in Eastern Europe . Many Jewish families then fled to Western European countries such as the Netherlands. Last names like Polak , Moszkowicz or van Praag still bear witness to this wave of immigration. In contrast to the Portuguese Jews who had previously lived in the Netherlands, there were hardly any wealthy merchants among the Ashkenazi immigrants from Germany and Eastern Europe . Most of them work as day laborers, servants, peat cutters or market traders. This explains common surnames such as de Hond (the dog), de Haan (the rooster) or Citroen (lemon). The Ashkenazi celebrated their services in Amsterdam in house synagogues and until the construction of the Great Synagogue (1671) in the Portuguese synagogue . The dead were initially buried in the Sephardic Beth Haim cemetery in Ouderkerk aan de Amstel , which was laid out in 1614 .
Creation of the cemetery
After the Portuguese-Jewish community had banned the Ashkenazi burials on their burial ground in 1642, the German-Jewish community, founded in 1639, acquired a plot of land in Muiderberg. The sandy bottom and the nearby Naardertrekvaart canal were probably the main reasons for the purchase. In Holland, it was customary to transport the dead to the cemetery in tow boats . The connecting canal to Naardertrekvaart was popularly called Lijkvaart (funeral ride ) or Jodenvaart (Jewish ride). The purchase contract came into effect on August 1, 1642. The then Landdrost von Muiden and Vogt des Gooilandes Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft approved the construction of a divine sack a day later. From 1660, Polish Jews buried their dead there in a specially purchased part. In 1673 the German and Polish communities and the properties were united. The debts taken on to purchase the land were not fully paid off until 1676. In 1670 the Jewish community leased a path south of the cemetery, which was only bought in 1844. The growth of the Jewish community in Amsterdam required further land purchases in 1738, 1780, 1856 and 1924 in order to add more grave fields to the burial site.
The cemetery was damaged during the Dutch War (1672 to 1679). French soldiers used tombstones to build a rampart to attack the castle in Muiden. Gravestones were also looted and used as building material to expand the fortress town of Naarden . The grave fields in question were later provided with stones, indicating that the dead are also buried there.
Second World War
During the Second World War , the German occupation of the Netherlands followed (1940 to 1945) and more than 100,000 Dutch Jews fell victim to the Holocaust . Although funerals were forbidden in the Muiderberg Jewish cemetery from 1942, there were still a few burials in the period that followed. Except for a few looting of metal objects, the burial place was spared willful damage by the National Socialists .
The Muiderberg Jewish Cemetery today
As a result of the Holocaust, many graves were no longer maintained after the war, as the families of numerous deceased were murdered in the extermination camps . The oldest part of the Gottesackers is then partially neglected and overgrown with trees. The Muiderberg Jewish Cemetery is one of the most famous Jewish cemeteries in the Netherlands and is still in use today.
construction
building
Between 1851 and 1854 a mortuary and a reception house, designed by the architect WJJ Offenberg, were built in the cemetery . These were demolished in 1933 and replaced by two modern buildings, which were inaugurated on November 5th of the same year. The architect Harry Elte designed them in the style of the Amsterdam School . Some of the Art Deco style stained glass are noteworthy .
The reception building is located directly on a slope . The front of the house has two floors and faces the higher cemetery area not far from the main entrance. At the rear, the building has another, lower floor. Inside the building there are three reception rooms and an apartment for the cemetery attendant. On the lowest floor there are storage rooms and the entrance for the Kohanim .
The Tahara House , also called the assembly hall , was also built from brick . As in the cemetery itself, there is a separate area for the Kohanim . The following inscription in Hebrew is written above the entrance to the auditorium :
"We know that your right is just."
The following Bible quote is written on the outside of the building in Hebrew and Dutch:
“Ga henen dead het some; want gij zult rusten en opstaan tot uw lot, in 't one of the days. "
“But you are now coming to an end! You will rest and at the end of the days you will rise to receive your inheritance. "
Graves
The oldest part (field A) is located almost exactly in the middle of the cemetery. It was buried here from 1642 to around 1820. The oldest grave that still exists today dates from 1665. Although this partly hilly section was neglected after the war and overgrown with trees, the most interesting graves of the Gottesackers can be found there. In addition to the grave monuments, richly decorated with symbols, there are also three lying stones of Sephardic Jews who drowned in what was then the Zuiderzee and washed ashore near Muiderberg. They were buried here with the permission of the Portuguese-Jewish community.
To the northwest of this area is Field B, which was created between 1820 and about 1895. A section borders the grave fields A and B in the northeast, in which burials took place from the second half of the 19th century to around 1940. The newest tombstones are in the fields to the left of the main entrance, to the west and southwest of fields A and B. Since the 19th century, it was customary to add Dutch texts and dates to the tombstones in addition to Hebrew. Since the 1980s, Hebrew funerary inscriptions have become increasingly rare.
memorial
Next to the morgue is a memorial erected in 1948 to commemorate the Holocaust. It is also the resting place of 28 Jewish boys who were arrested by the German regulatory police during the war and perished in concentration camps. The authorities sent the urns of the victims to the respective community. Although according to Jewish belief the dead may not be cremated, the dead were allowed a final resting place here. The following inscription in Dutch and Hebrew is on two stone slabs:
AWAY NAAR DE MOORDKAMPEN IN DE JAREN 5701–5705 [1941 to 1945]
HUN ZETEL ZIJ ONDER DE VLEUGELEN VAN GODS MAJESTEIT
Deported to the extermination camps from 1941 to 1945,
May their place be under the wings of God's Majesty
Another memorial commemorates the murdered rabbis of Amsterdam.
Graves of important personalities
- Hermann Bier , Deputy District President of Cologne, owner of Haus Bier in Cologne (field U, row 2, grave number 14)
- Ben Bril , Dutch boxer
- Philip and Sara Elisabeth Elte, parents of the architect Harry Elte
- Jacob Meijer de Haan , Dutch painter
- Jaap van Meekren, Dutch journalist and television presenter
- Hanny Michaelis, Dutch poet
- Benjamin Prins, Dutch painter
See also
literature
- Jits van Straten: De begraafboeken van Muiderberg 1669-1811. Indexes van Personen beschaven op de joodse begraafplaats Muiderberg vanaf 12 januari 1669 to 21 July 1811. = The burial books of Muiderberg 1669–1811. Indexes of persons buried at the Jewish cemetery Muiderberg from 12 January 1669 until 21 July 1811 . Stichting Bevordering Onderzoek Joodse Historische Bronnen, Amsterdam 2000, ISBN 90-803244-4-2 .
Web links
- Joodse begraafplaats Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed (Dutch)
- Info page for the Gooi en Vechtstreek region (Dutch)
Individual evidence
- ^ Das Haus Bier in Hülchrather Straße 6. City of Cologne, NS Documentation Center, September 24, 2012, accessed on August 12, 2017 .
Coordinates: 52 ° 19 ′ 34 ″ N , 5 ° 6 ′ 26 ″ E