Medieval Jewish cemetery (Erfurt)
The medieval Jewish cemetery was a cemetery of the Jewish community in today's Thuringian state capital Erfurt .
location
The cemetery of the Jewish community in Erfurt was located between today's Andreasstrasse and Moritzstrasse, outside the city wall. Belief stipulated that it had to be outside of the city area inhabited by Jews and that is why its location between the Andreastor and the Moritztor is attested: on today's Große Ackerhofsgasse. The area was later built over by the Großer Ackerhof, a granary that still exists today.
history
An exact dating of the founding of the Jewish cemetery has not yet been found. It is believed that it has been used since the church was founded and that burials were performed here. Gravestone finds from the 13th century (1244) suggest that the cemetery was founded in the High Middle Ages . Only a few tombstones have been preserved for this period, so that the finds from 1244 and 1245 can be described as very rare. Not only Jews from Erfurt, but also Jews from small settlements in the area were buried here. Often the surviving grave inscriptions do not allow any conclusions to be drawn about the social or spatial origin of the buried. The cemetery was first destroyed in 1349. In 1453, the Erfurt council forced the Jewish community to emigrate and expel from the city. In the medieval cemetery - which has been leveled in the meantime - a municipal barn and later a granary was built. Gravestones from the Jewish cemetery were also used as building material and the construction violated the perpetual idle time of the buried.
Preserved tombstones
Around 110 tombstones in this cemetery have survived to this day, and there are photographs, copies or descriptions of 92 tombstones. The tombstones are shown in three exhibition locations in Erfurt: In the old synagogue (in the courtyard), in the city museum and in the cellar of the stone house on Benediktsplatz (next to the tourist information). The display depot there can be visited as part of guided tours. All known stones and their inscriptions have been published in a catalog.
literature
- Frank Bussert (Ed.): The gravestones from the medieval Jewish cemetery in Erfurt (= Erfurt writings on Jewish history, vol. 2), Jena 2013, 200 pages.
- Maria Stürzbecher (2019): The gravestones from the medieval Jewish cemetery . In: City and History. Journal for Erfurt, special issue Jewish Life in the Middle Ages , No. 19 / October 2019, pp. 18–19.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Alemannia Judaica : The Jewish cemeteries of the state capital of Thuringia , 2013.
- ↑ Stadtwiki Erfurt-web.de: New development of the Ackerhof , 2017.