Jewish cemetery (Schwanenberg)

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The place with the memorial stone

The Schwanenberg Jewish cemetery is located on the outskirts of Lentholt, a hamlet that belongs to Schwanenberg , a district of Erkelenz in the Heinsberg district ( North Rhine-Westphalia ).

The first written message from the Jewish cemetery in Lentholt is available with the original cadastre from 1819, in which a field corridor is called “Am Juden Kirchhof”. According to Jewish laws, the place was outside the settlement in the surrounding country and came from the property of the French domain administration, which had administered the expropriated property of the nobility during the French occupation of the Rhineland (1797–1814). Thus, the previous owners were presumably the Lords von Wickrath , to whom Schwanenberg and Lentholt had belonged and who also had to permit Jews to stay in their rule.

The parcel was overgrown with oak trees and when the dispute over the ownership situation arose in 1818, three elderly citizens who had been heard as witnesses remembered that this place had no vegetation more than 50 years ago (i.e. the middle of the 18th century) and that the community had been used to turf , Bleaching and driving cattle had been used, with the Jews always burying their dead at the southern end, as is still done today.

The dispute was decided in 1820 in favor of the civil parish, which cleared the parcel that was now called "Judenacker". In 1868 it was divided and the northern part, which was now overgrown again, was cleared to the field, while the southern part, the actual cemetery, had already been acquired by the Jewish community in 1865.

During the pogroms against Jewish citizens and institutions organized by the National Socialists in November 1938, the interior of the second synagogue in Schwanenberg , inaugurated in 1868, was viciously destroyed, especially by the Hitler Youth Schwanenberg, and used by the population as firewood. The dilapidated synagogue was demolished in 1949. In connection with the pogroms , the Jewish cemetery in Lentholt was desecrated, all gravestones ( Mazewot ) destroyed and removed for alleged use in road construction, but also used by farmers to fortify their driveways. The area was leveled and from then on served as a vegetable garden and cattle pasture.

How big the Jewish community in Schwanenberg was at that time cannot be determined. 23 people are known by name who fell victim to the subsequent Holocaust without all of the victims being recorded.

After the Second World War , in October 1958 , the district president in Aachen asked the Schwanenberg community to fence in the cemetery and put a worthy memorial plaque on it, indicating the importance of the site. The municipal council then dealt with this in April 1959 and had the area sown with grass, surrounded by a beech hedge and provided with a notice that there was an old Jewish cemetery there. Six linden trees and a plane tree grow on it. Today the cemetery belongs to the " State Association of Jewish Communities of North Rhine ". It is maintained by the city of Erkelenz.

Initiatives of the Protestant pastor Dr. Paul Gerhard Aring (1926–2003) during his term of office 1970–1979 on dealing with his own past and with the Christian-Jewish dialogue in general were noted by the population with great reservations and many accusations. It was only after Aring's successor Erich Walter Fuchs (1932–2007) carefully and pastoral-oriented theological foundation of questions about Judaism and injustice laid the basis for more intensive work within the Protestant parish since the 1990s. The district committee and presbytery agreed in mid-2005 that in connection with the next building area to be developed in the Schwanenberg area, a street would be named after the Jewish Leyens family.

The burial site is the fourth station on the "Route against Oblivion", which in Erkelenz refers to the National Socialist tyranny . An information board reads:

“ Schwanenberg - the first Jewish community
There was already a Jewish community in Schwanenberg around 1600 - it was the first in the Erkelenz district . The second Schwanenberg synagogue - built in 1868 - was destroyed after the Reichspogromnacht at noon on November 10, 1938. The Jewish cemetery on “In Lentholt” street was also completely devastated; the tombstones were probably used in road construction and the area was used for agriculture. In 1959 a memorial was set up. "

- Notice board at the Jewish cemetery in Schwanenberg

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hubert Rütten, traces of life - search for traces, Jewish life in the former district of Erkelenz , writings of the Heimatverein der Erkelenzer Lande Volume 22, Erkelenz 2008, p. 44 ff. With further references
  2. ↑ a b c Hubert Rütten, traces of life - search for traces, Jewish life in the former district of Erkelenz , writings of the Heimatverein der Erkelenzer Lande Volume 22, Erkelenz 2008, p. 46 f. mwN
  3. ^ Hubert Rütten, traces of life - search for traces, Jewish life in the former district of Erkelenz , writings of the Heimatverein der Erkelenzer Lande Volume 22, Erkelenz 2008, p. 36 with further references, 46 with further references
  4. ↑ Hubert Rütten, traces of life - search for traces, Jewish life in the former district of Erkelenz , writings of the Heimatverein der Erkelenzer Lande Volume 22, Erkelenz 2008, p. 115 f.
  5. ↑ See in detail Reiner Andreas Neuschäfer: Art. Paul Gerhard Aring, in: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon vol. XXXVI (2015) and Reiner Andreas Neuschäfer: “Reorientation” - Paul Gerhard Aring (1926-2003) and his struggle for a Christian-Jewish Dialog. Approaches to a mission against mission to the Jews and their biographical premises , in: Yearbook for Evangelical Church History of the Rhineland 65 (2016), pp. 202–222.
  6. ↑ Klaus Eberl: Jewish life in Schwanenberg (unpublished lecture), p. 1.

Web links

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

Coordinates: 51 ° 5 ′ 44.9 ″  N , 6 ° 16 ′ 7.7 ″  E