Jewish cemetery (Steinheim)

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Jewish Cemetery
Mazewot in the Jewish cemetery

Mazewot in the Jewish cemetery

Data
place Detmolder Strasse
Steinheim
Construction year 1606
Floor space 2550 m²
Coordinates 51 ° 51 '43.5 "  N , 9 ° 5' 17.1"  E Coordinates: 51 ° 51 '43.5 "  N , 9 ° 5' 17.1"  E

The Jewish cemetery is located on Detmolder Strasse in the municipality of Steinheim (Westphalia) in the Höxter district in North Rhine-Westphalia . The area at the end of the village was also known as the "Judenberg". The cemetery covers an area of ​​2550 m². On March 30, 1989 he was entered in the list of monuments of the Steinheim community.

history

There was Jewish life in Steinheim as early as 1600. In 1855, the Steinheim synagogue community also included the villages of Ottenhausen, Vinsebeck, Bergheim, Sandebeck and Sommersell, and later the Jews from the Lippe villages of Wöbbel and Belle. The cemetery was first mentioned in a document in 1606, and the last burial took place on August 3, 1979 for the Holocaust survivor Sophie Weil. This makes it the oldest continuously documented Jewish cemetery in Westphalia. The oldest surviving tombstone dates from 1846 and was erected for Alexander Emmerich.

In Judaism, the graves are not leveled after a certain time, which often leads to a lack of space. In order to counter the problem, the right side of the cemetery in Steinheim was lowered at some point and the left side was covered with the excavation in order to create space for another row of graves above the existing graves.

During the Nazi era , the cemetery was devastated in 1940 and used as a storage area. 169 tombstones are still preserved today.

literature

  • Elfi Pracht : Jewish cultural heritage in North Rhine-Westphalia. Part III: Detmold administrative district (=  contributions to the architectural and art monuments of Westphalia . Volume 1.1 ). JP Bachem Verlag, Cologne 1998, ISBN 3-7616-1397-0 , p. 215 .

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Elfi splendor: Jewish cultural heritage in North Rhine-Westphalia. Part III: Detmold administrative district . S. 211-212 .