New Jewish cemetery in Heldenbergen

The New Jewish Cemetery Heldenbergen was the cemetery for the inhabitants of the Jewish faith in Heldenbergen , a district of Nidderau in the Main-Kinzig district in Hesse . It was inaugurated in 1884 as the successor to the old Jewish cemetery in Heldenbergen .

View from the southwest 2015

history

When it became clear that the old Jewish cemetery on Kellerberg was fully occupied , the community acquired the site of the new cemetery on the road to Kaichen in 1879 . It was inaugurated in 1882; the first burial was 83-year-old Samuel Mäyer .

The Jewish cemetery was desecrated for the first time in 1891, presumably in connection with events of the anti-Semitic farmers' association under Otto Böckel , which had taken place that year in the neighboring towns of Windecken , Büdesheim and Kaichen. The political community of Heldenbergen had the graves tidied up for 30 marks and an iron gate installed for 15 marks.

In 1905 the Israelite community acquired a neighboring piece of arable land with an area of ​​695 m² to expand the cemetery. But that never happened. According to the community's death register, a total of 120 people had been buried there by 1937. The most recent burial was the 73-year-old Arnold Rothschild .

In November 1938 the cemetery was desecrated, the gravestones overturned and partially destroyed. Those involved remained unknown, it is said to have been Landjahr boys who were housed in the nearby Naumburg Castle and SA from Kaichen and Heldenbergen. The gravestones and the stones of the surrounding wall were then partly used to build bunkers or were left by local stonemasons.

In the post-war period, the demands of survivors of the Jewish community and the Jewish Restitution Successor Organization to restore the cemetery to its original state went almost entirely unheard. The site remained a field of rubble well into the 1950s. When the Heldenbergen community began restoration work in 1952, only 27 tombstones of the formerly over 100 burials were still to be found. Some of them had been stored in a pile outdoors for over 15 years. An occupancy plan could no longer be found. The current arrangement of the stones therefore no longer corresponds to the original grave sites, and the stones are positioned incorrectly to the south-west. Instead of the previously existing quarry stone wall, a hedge was planted. A memorial planned for the immediate post-war period was also not erected.

investment

The New Jewish Cemetery is on the road to Kaichen (today Friedberger Straße ) on the right-hand side of the road. It covers an area of ​​704 m².

Of the remaining tombstones, the oldest is from 1895. The tombstones were predominantly made of marble and had Hebrew inscriptions in the upper area and shorter German inscriptions in the lower area. Only the youngest stone preserved ( Julchen Scheuer 1935) does not have a Hebrew inscription, probably due to the political situation at that time.

literature

• Paul Arnsberg : The Jewish communities in Hesse. Beginning - fall - new beginning. Volume I. Published by the regional association of Jewish communities in Hesse, Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt 1972, ISBN 3-7973-0213-4 , pp. 343-345.
• Monica Kingreen: Jewish country life in Windecken, Ostheim and Heldenbergen. CoCon, Hanau 1994, ISBN 3-928100-23-8 , pp. 327-339.

Web links

• The Jewish cemeteries in Heldenbergen near Alemannia Judaica

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Kingreen 1994, p. 332.
2. ↑ Kingreen 1994, p. 335.
3. ↑ ^{a b} Kingreen 1994, pp. 335-339.
4. ↑ Arnsberg 1972, p. 345.
5. ↑ Arnsberg 1972, p. 345.
6. ↑ Kingreen 1994, p. 332.

Coordinates: 50 ° 14 ′ 30.3 "  N , 8 ° 51 ′ 36.2"  E