Desecration of Jewish cemeteries

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Desecration at the Jewish cemetery in Chișinău (Moldova), June 2014
Desecration of the Jewish cemetery in Freudental (Ludwigsburg district), October 1, 2007
Anti-Semitic graffito at the Jewish cemetery in Katowice (Poland), 2015

The desecration of Jewish cemeteries refers to the willful destruction or damage of graves , cemetery walls and mourning halls . This includes knocking over gravestones , smearing them with graffiti and slogans such as “Jews out”, “ Judensau ”, “ Heil Hitler ”, “We fill the 7 million” or with SS runes and swastikas . Desecrations of Jewish cemeteries take place worldwide. With the desecration of the cemetery, the perpetrators want to destroy the religiously justified durability of the graves and the memory of Jewish life, erase its symbolic presence and injure the dignity of both the deceased and the relatives. In Germany alone, Jewish cemeteries have been desecrated over 2000 times since the end of the war. "The destruction of Jewish cemeteries is not an expression of anti-Semitism , it is itself," commented Theodor W. Adorno on the increasing desecration of Jewish cemeteries back in the 1950s.

Religious background

A grave in a Jewish cemetery ( Hebrew בית קברות Bet ḳvarot , German for 'burial house' or Hebrew בית-עלמין Bet-ʿalmin , German for 'house of eternity' ) is intended for eternity, which corresponds to one of the most fundamental principles of the Jewish halacha . The burial is mandatory and permanent dead peace shall prevail. Unlike in Christianity , a grave site must not be re-occupied. An exhumation or relocation of a grave is not permitted, except in very special circumstances. A disturbance of the peace of the dead causes a deep emotional dismay in the Jewish community and in some cases intensifies a persistent disorder of grief in relatives . A tombstone ( Hebrew מצבה Mazewa ) symbolizes the obligation not to forget the deceased.

Desecrations

The legal term for the desecration of cemeteries is disturbance of the peace of the dead . According to Martin Krauss in 2010 in the weekly newspaper Jüdische Allgemeine, these are overturned gravestones, graffiti and roaring. The number of unreported cases is very high, however, as not every graffito is reported and rubbish thrown over the cemetery wall is rarely reported and the local police are not prepared to recognize an anti-Semitic crime in every binge that takes place between Jewish gravestones. In addition, desecrations of Jewish cemeteries that have been reported are not necessarily recorded in the police statistics as disturbing the peace of the dead , but in some cases as arson , trespassing or property damage . If a desecration takes place in a “natural unit of action with a more severely punished offense such as robbery”, it does not appear separately in the statistics either. The historian Julius H. Schoeps points out that disturbances of the peace of the dead in Christian cemeteries in Germany are usually far less serious than attacks against Jewish resting places: “In Christian graves, the attacks are mostly limited to the theft of grave lights and the destruction of flowers - and plant discounts. It is different with the Jewish cemeteries, where the desecrations involve the smashing and smashing of gravestones and slabs, the tearing out of grave borders, the overturning of gravestones, the entering of cemetery fences and gates. ”Desecrations as an expression of enmity and For a long time, violence against members of minorities in the Federal Republic of Germany was almost exclusively directed against Jewish cemeteries. The overwhelming majority of these crimes are classified as right-wing extremist motivated: 591 out of 614 in the years 2001 to 2014. Only a few were assigned to the categories of foreigners (4), other (11) and unknown (8).

Middle Ages and early modern times

Kalisch Statute, illustration by Arthur Szyk (1894–1951), cover page with Casimir the Great, 1927
Marc Chagall's painting of the entrance to the Jewish cemetery in Vitebsk , his hometown, from 1917, before the destruction by the Nazis and later by the Russians

There are only a few traces of the Jewish cemeteries of the early Middle Ages, as they were probably shared with Christian burial grounds and were abandoned together with them. After the tendency to carry out Christian burials at and in churches around the year 1000 - a change that the Jews could not and would not follow - the separation of the Jewish cemeteries from the churchyards began. For this reason, preserved Jewish gravestones or entire cemeteries are increasingly found from the 11th century onwards. For this reason, Jewish cemeteries were already devastated during pogroms in the Middle Ages because they were easily recognizable as such. Most medieval cemeteries, like the Jews themselves, were victims of persecution.

With the statute of Kalisch ( Polish status kaliski ), that of Duke Bolesław VI. the pious of Wielkopolska ( Polish: Bolesław Pobożny , 1224 / 27–1279) was issued on September 8, 1264 in the Polish city of Kalisz , penalties for desecrating Jewish cemeteries and synagogues were threatened among other things because of the accumulation of anti-Semitic attacks . The grandson of Bolesław the Pious, Casimir III the Great (Kazimierz III Wielki, 1310-1370) confirmed on the occasion of his accession to the throne on October 9, 1334 in Krakow the statute with the statute of Wiślica , which defined the position of the Jews in Poland and the basis for their relatively autonomous existence, which worked until 1795. During the expulsion of the Jews from a city, the cemeteries in other countries were destroyed in accordance with the legal principle Sepulcra hostium religiosa nobis non sunt , `` The graves of our enemies deserve no reverence on our part '' and Jewish gravestones were used for building purposes, around 1298 in Rothenburg ob der Tauber , 1349 in Speyer , 1439 in Augsburg . Gravestones that were used for the construction of churches, city walls and the like were found again in the 19th century, for example in Breslau at the town hall and cathedral, in Erfurt 80 pieces, in Mainz 124, in Ulm 24, in Cologne 36, in Speyer 38 and in Rothenburg 33.

Between December 5 and 7, 1349, 562 Jews were slain and burned on today's main market in Nuremberg . Their synagogue and cemetery were destroyed, and the tombs in various buildings were walled up. Four sandstone tombstones were cut into a trapezoid shape to serve as steps in the south tower of the St. Lawrence Church . In 1489 there were again persecutions of Jews and desecrations of the cemetery in Nuremberg. During renovation work in September 2019, a 700-year-old Jewish gravestone was uncovered in a wall about three meters high in the entrance area of ​​the Sebalder Pfarrhof in Nuremberg.

In the case of the cemetery of the Jewish community in Speyer , the area became the property of the city in 1435 after the expulsion of the Jews and was leased to Christians. In the 18th century, the Elendsherbergsacker was created on the site. After the cemetery was closed, the tombstones were used as building material.

Numerous cemeteries were irretrievably destroyed, such as the medieval cemetery in Augsburg, which was near the apex of today's street "An der Blauenkap" and no longer exists. It had its catchment area as far as Aichach, Lauingen and Donauwörth. In 1438/39 it was confiscated and cleared away. The tombstones were used to build the town hall.

After the expulsion of the Jewish community from the imperial city of Regensburg (1519), citizens tore down the cemetery wall and stole the tombstones of the Jewish cemetery in Regensburg . It is estimated that over 4,000 burials have taken place in the cemetery over the 300 years of its existence. Some homeowners put a tombstone inscribed in Hebrew on their building as a spoiler like an anti-Jewish trophy . Some bodies were also excavated and desecrated. In 1520 a church was built in Regensburg in place of the destroyed synagogue with tombstones from the Jewish cemetery.

In the following centuries, the smearing of excrement on the graves, corpse crime and the use of the cemetery as pasture or area for bleaching laundry were common acts of desecration. Schoeps points out that desecration of the cemetery was also threatened with high penalties, and cites as an example the Jewish cemetery of Breslau, which was laid out under Friedrich II of Prussia (the "Alte Fritz", 1712–1789), at the entrance of which a sign warned that that violating this resting place will be punished with cutting off hands.

Early 20th century

Desecration of the old Jewish cemetery in Eberswalde in 1897

In Germany there are indications in criminal police files for the period after the First World War . For example, for the years 1923 to 1928, 58 cemetery desecrations were documented, of which 14 cases were cleared up: half of the perpetrators came from the ethnic or nationalist spectrum, in the remaining cases they were young people, one perpetrator is called a communist . The increasing number of attacks towards the end of the decade prompted the Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith to publish a brochure on cemetery desecrations in 1932, in which these are characterized as "documents of the political and cultural wilderness of our time". But the wave of desecration of the cemetery could not be stopped, especially as the risk of arrest for the perpetrators was low.

National Socialism

Destroyed tombstones in the Old Jewish Cemetery in the Kazimierz district (Krakow, Poland) that were used by the National Socialists to build roads and that can no longer be assigned and that are kept in a “Western Wall”.

Raphael Lemkin coined the term cultural genocide , cultural genocide ' , in direct response to the crimes of the Nazi party and their henchmen during the Holocaust includes, among many other things, the Jewish desecration cemeteries. According to Wolfgang Benz, as of 2010, no studies have been carried out to date on the extent of desecration of cemeteries during National Socialism . Although the regional literature indicates abuses by the majority population, detailed documentation is not available. The elimination (leveling, misappropriation) of all Jewish cemeteries on the soil of the German Reich would have been desired by the National Socialist ideology, but both practical and formal legal problems stood in the way. In contrast, according to the historian Julius H. Schoeps, 80 to 90 percent of the 1700 Jewish resting places in the German Reich were desecrated during the Nazi era .

Jewish tombstone that has been converted into a millstone ( World War Museum Gdansk )

The case of the Jewish cemetery in Ottensen is well documented , where the Altona building authorities tried in various ways to close the cemetery, but initially failed. However, a special right was created for the destruction of Jewish cemeteries in Berlin and Hamburg, which in this case meant that it was de-dedicated and built over with a bunker in 1941/42 . In Leipzig and Frankfurt am Main, a rubble dump was set up on the site of the Jewish cemetery. Jewish cemeteries were desecrated in various ways, first through direct damage, which had occurred more frequently since 1938, and then from 1942 through actions as part of the “Reichsmetallspende”, which offered an excuse to remove bars and other metal objects from Jewish cemeteries. SA men and Hitler Youth took the opportunity to smash stone tombs. The “ Reich Institute for the History of the New Germany ” had the deceased exhumed in order to carry out “skull and other bone measurements”.

In the Reichsgau Wartheland , the German funeral law was not applied: streets were paved with tombstones from Jewish graves, also in Krakow in the camp street of the Plaszow concentration camp . Mass shootings by the National Socialists took place in Jewish cemeteries in Poland . The victims were buried in mass graves that have only recently been discovered, for example at the Jewish cemetery in Piaski . In 2017, shortly after the archaeological restoration work was completed, the cemetery was desecrated again when a traveling circus erected its tent on the old Jewish cemetery.

As part of a historical project Obecnie Nieobecni 'Currently absent' , a list of 500 areas in Poland that previously served as Jewish cemeteries was drawn up. Many of them are now schoolyards, parks, streets, buildings or parking lots. Even after the war, the Jewish tombstones were used as building material for streets and buildings. "Transparent tombstones" ( Mazewot ) with Hebrew inscriptions, which are deliberately ghostly-looking, made of Plexiglas, are temporarily set up in the places of the former cemeteries, are intended to symbolize the decline of this type of holy place in Poland. They are used for photo documentation. In Łódź and the surrounding area alone , 30 destroyed cemeteries were identified.

One of the few surviving, but badly damaged, tombstones in the cemetery in Babyn Yar near Kiev

In numerous cities under the occupation of National Socialist Germany, Jewish cemeteries were desecrated, for example in Babyn Yar . During the German occupation of Kiev (Ukraine) occurred in the immediate area to mass killings, especially of the Jewish population under the responsibility of the army of the Wehrmacht . On September 29 and 30, 1941, more than 33,000 Jews fell victim to the Einsatzgruppen of the Security Police and the SD . According to witnesses, tombstones and metal fences from the Jewish cemetery near Kiev were used in 1943 as building material for the pyres that were used to burn the people killed in Babyn Yar . Accordingly, the condition of the cemetery was poor after the Second World War . The Kiev city council continued the destructive work after the war. On June 26, 1962, he decided to remove the necropolis . The sacred buildings were demolished and most of the graves and tombstones destroyed or looted. Today, a large part of the cemetery is built over by a television station, only fragments of the cemetery itself have survived.

Numerous cemeteries in Austria were also destroyed by the Nazis. In Vienna, for example, the Jewish cemetery in Währing was partially destroyed during construction work on an air raid shelter , while the Natural History Museum Vienna had exhumations carried out on another part for the purpose of “ racial science ” and desecrated around 200 graves. The Jewish cemetery in Mattersberg was completely destroyed, the old gravestones cleared away in order to use them to build anti- tank barriers against the advancing Red Army , as were the gravestones of the Jewish cemetery in Deutschkreutz .

Germany after World War II

Even after the end of the Second World War , the approximately 2200 Jewish cemeteries still in existence in Germany (1900 in the three western occupation zones , approx. 300 in the area of ​​the Soviet occupation zone ) were not spared from desecration. The fact that these crimes increased at the end of the 1940s was noticed abroad and counteracted the efforts of German politicians to gain international recognition. The Jewish cemeteries were closely monitored by the police, but it soon became clear that special guards were necessary to ensure the protection of the cemeteries. After 1945 a fierce, long-term dispute broke out over who was financially responsible for the reconstruction and maintenance of the Jewish cemeteries. From 1945 to 1989 there were at least 1,394 attacks on Jewish cemeteries in the Federal Republic of Germany. After the reunification of the two German states, 615 desecrations of Jewish cemeteries in the Federal Republic of Germany were documented between 1990 and 2002, a total of more than 2000.

Concentration camps also represent cemeteries in which memorial stones are used to commemorate those murdered there. These memorial stones are also desecrated, for example in the memorial of the Buchenwald concentration camp , where they were smeared with swastikas at the beginning of September 2019. In the absence of a specific grave site, the police investigated “only” because of the use of symbols of anti-constitutional organizations according to § 86a StGB .

Federal Republic

The desecration of Jewish cemeteries has been part of the history of the Federal Republic of Germany since its inception. You are almost always motivated by right-wing extremists. Various Jewish cemeteries have been desecrated several times over the years. A few examples of desecrations of the cemetery are given below.

On December 24, 1959, two members of the German Reich Party , Arnold Strunk and Franz Josef Schönen, desecrated the Cologne synagogue . They were convicted of “damage to property” ( Section 304 StGB) - to ten and 14 months in prison, respectively. In the following eight weeks, 618 anti-Semitic crimes were recorded nationwide, including numerous desecrations of cemeteries. “In the smearings at the Cologne synagogue and the subsequent anti-Semitic crimes, the surviving anti-Judaism that was kept under the covers in the post-war period is breaking out ,” said the historian Karl-Joseph Hummel , commenting on the crimes. This synagogue desecration found numerous imitators who acted independently of one another.

In 1965, the gravestones in the Jewish cemetery in Bamberg were smeared with slogans such as “Jews go to hell”, “Long live the Führer”, “Long live the SS - 6,000,000 are too few”. Imitation acts followed in Neuss, Koblenz, Königswinter, Hanover and Höchstadt / Aisch.

In 1990, 177 of just over 200 gravestones were found in the Jewish cemetery in Ihringen . On the cemetery wall were the inscriptions “Come on Jude, we're going to Dachau”, “Judenschweine vereket” (sic!).

When the Jewish cemeteries were restored after 1945, the damage was regularly downplayed. However, open spaces from cleared tombstones, broken tombstones, smashed inscription panels clearly bear witness to this desecration up to our time. The trend has been increasing since the 1990s: over 40 cemeteries were added each year.

The Jewish cemetery in Oldenburg should be mentioned in particular for multiple desecrations since 2010, although these date back to 1866: The cemetery was desecrated on June 15, 2000, September 26, 2003 and March 11, 2004. It was politically motivated crime from the right spectrum ('PMK-right'). Gravestones were damaged during the desecration on March 11, 2004. On May 29, 2010 the cemetery wall was smeared with graffiti. The Jewish cemetery was desecrated again on November 19, 2011: 6 gravestones were thrown over the cemetery wall with white paint. A police officer who happened to pass by followed the perpetrators and was injured with pepper spray. In November 2012, a 21-year-old was convicted by the youth lay judge at the Oldenburg District Court for dangerous bodily harm in two cases, joint insult and joint disturbance of the peace of the dead in one offense with joint damage to property. The decision to impose a two-year youth sentence has been suspended. The cemetery was desecrated again on the night of November 23rd to 24th, 2013. This time 8 graves were smeared with swastikas. The mourning hall was also smeared with 3 swastikas and the words "Jew". The perpetrators were sentenced in April 2016 to six and five months' imprisonment and another perpetrator to a fine of € 3,000 . In summer 2014 the cemetery wall was smeared again. This time the digits “88” were sprayed on; an abbreviation for "Heil Hitler" that is common in right-wing extremist circles. The perpetrators could not be identified here. In February 2015 the outer wall was again smeared with paint. This time it was swastikas that were sprayed there.

A desecration of the Jewish cemetery in Berlin-Weißensee on October 3, 1999 - during the official celebrations for the 10th anniversary of reunification - should be mentioned, during which over a hundred tombstones were destroyed. The perpetrators could not be identified. Some stonemasons agreed to repair the stones free of charge. One of the stonemasons then received death threats over the phone, and finally strangers destroyed his workshop. A donation campaign by the Amadeu Antonio Foundation compensated the stonemason for part of the damage.

At the Jewish cemetery in Heerstrasse in Berlin, the gravestone of Heinz Galinski , President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany , was desecrated by an explosive attack in September 1998 and a piece of the stone was blown out. On December 19, 1998, another bomb attack was carried out on the grave, in which the grave slab was completely destroyed. Galinski's successor in office Ignatz Bubis , who died in 1999, was not buried in Germany but in Israel.

In January 2012, tombstones were overturned and defaced with swastikas in the Jewish cemetery on Geiersberg in Roth . In 2013 the Kripo also investigated in Bad Berleburg and Siegen because of graffiti and desecration at Jewish memorials. The tracks led into the hinterland ( Marburg-Biedenkopf district ).

The numbers of desecrations and vandalism have been falling again since 2000. In 2002 the police detected 60 anti-Semitic attacks, in 2006 there were 39. From 2014 to the end of the first half of 2017, according to information from the Tagesspiegel , the police detected 76 anti-Semitic attacks on Jewish cemeteries nationwide. The perpetrators were only identified in four cases. This emerges from a response from the Federal Ministry of the Interior to a written request from Bundestag Vice President Petra Pau ( Die Linke ) in November 2017. The meager clearing-up rate "speaks for a lack of sensitivity and focus on the police and public prosecutor's office," said Pau.

In 2018, the police recorded 27 anti-Semitically motivated attacks in this area nationwide. Most of the desecrations of Jewish cemeteries, a total of five, were reported by Baden-Württemberg. This is followed by Bavaria (four), Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt and Lower Saxony (three each), Berlin, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and North Rhine-Westphalia (two each) as well as Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland and Thuringia, each with one attack.

Even a conversion to Christianity does not always protect the memory of the deceased of Jewish origin from being attacked. Unknown damaged on 23./24. November 2019 the chapel of the Dreifaltigkeitsfriedhofs I am Mehringdamm in Berlin. A permanent exhibition there reminds of the Mendelssohn family, based on the Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn (1729–1786), over seven generations, including the composer Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809–1847) and his sister Fanny Hensel (1805–1847). They are all buried not far from the chapel. In addition to swastikas, symbols from the left-wing extremist scene and various Roman numerals were also left behind. The descendants of Moses Mendelssohn had converted to Protestantism in order to protect themselves against the anti-Semitic prejudices prevailing in the early 19th century .

On December 30, 2019, perpetrators knocked over more than 40 gravestones in the Jewish cemetery in Geilenkirchen and sprayed some with paint. Two suspects aged 21 and 33 are known to be right-wing extremists and were provisionally arrested. The cemetery was desecrated three times in the 1960s. In the same year the Jewish cemetery in neighboring Gangelt was desecrated.

At the beginning of July 2020, a number of historical gravestones were smeared with paint in the medieval Jewish cemetery Heiliger Sand in Worms for reasons unknown. Since the Second World War grave stones were repeated in the cemetery damaged in most cases anti-Semitic attacks, so in 1952, 1980, 1993 The cemetery is the oldest in situ surviving Jewish cemetery in Europe. The oldest of the approximately 2500 tombstones date from the 11th century. Together with other sites of Ashkenazi Jewry from the two cities of Speyer and Mainz , it is part of an application by the ShUM cities (Speyer, Worms and Mainz) for a place in the UNESCO World Heritage . The application was submitted to UNESCO in January 2020.

GDR

In the GDR gravestones or entire cemeteries were desecrated, such as in June 1954 in Eberswalde (complete), in April 1955 in Bernburg (82 gravestones), in October 1956 in Schleusingen (20 gravestones), in April 1961 in Sonderhausen (17 gravestones), in December 1964 in Karl-Marx-Stadt (9 gravestones), in April 1969 in East Berlin (42 gravestones), 1972 in Dresden, 1975 in Potsdam, 1977 again in Dresden, in May 1982 again in Karl-Marx-Stadt (50 Gravestones), in autumn 1983 in Eisleben (23 gravestones), in February and March 1988 in East Berlin (98 gravestones) or in May of the same year in Mühlhausen (35 gravestones). Desecrations of Jewish cemeteries in the area of ​​the former GDR were only dealt with after German reunification . Documentation published by the Center for Research on Antisemitism in 2007 showed for the first time that desecrations across eastern Germany - in smaller places such as Salzwedel , Perleberg , Aschenhausen and in all major cities - were numerous and were covered up by the police and the Ministry for State Security (Stasi). Craftsmen involved in the restoration of desecrated graves were sworn to secrecy. In a case from 1988, in which 6 young people, 5 of whom were members of the FDJ , reported publicly about a cemetery desecration in East Berlin , the responsibility was shifted to the influence of the West. In his study on anti-Semitism and neo-Nazism in the GDR , published in 2017, the historian Harry Waibel reports that of 900 anti-Semitically motivated crimes, around 145 concerned the desecration of Jewish cemeteries and graves.

West Bank

After the beginning of the first Arab-Israeli War (1947–1949), Jordan for the first time in many centuries denied Jews access to the Old City of Jerusalem, including the Western Wall, and the Jewish cemetery on the western flank of the Mount of Olives. 38,000 of the total of 50,000 tombstones on the Mount of Olives were destroyed between 1948 and 1967 - until the Israeli conquest of East Jerusalem in the Six Day War - and many of them were used to build the road that leads to the summit. Menashe Har-El speaks of 50,000 desecrated graves out of 70,000 graves. After the Israeli military gained control of the site, details of the desecration of the cemetery were recorded. For example, a group of military chaplains and members of the Jerusalem Chewra Kadischa visited a camp of the Arab Legion near Jericho in 1967 : it was mostly built with Jewish gravestones (some of the inscriptions were still legible) from the Mount of Olives - both the parade area and the streets, buildings and even toilets: gravestones were - verifiably - used to build latrines. Christian graves were spared. Four streets were paved through the cemeteries, and the graves of famous people were also destroyed. Skeletons were scattered. Dozens of cases of vandalism have also been reported since the Six Day War. Since October 2015, however, no tombstones have been desecrated (as of the end of 2019) after heightened security measures were taken in the cemetery, such as the establishment of a police station on site, a fence and the installation of 173 surveillance cameras.

The Jewish cemetery in Hebron , which was built in 1290 and where numerous famous rabbis are buried, was also destroyed between 1948 and 1967. When entering the city in 1967, the Israel Defense Forces found the following condition, which they documented: The entrance to the patriarchal graves was mined . The tombstones had been completely removed from the Jewish cemetery. A resident had converted the area into a vegetable patch. A wall was found in the city made of the material used for Jewish tombstones. According to the report, it became apparent that pieces of human bone had also been mixed in with the cement. Around 4,000 tombstones had been removed and used for building purposes. The cemetery was destroyed on the orders of the Jordanian government.

Worldwide in the recent past

Desecrations of Jewish cemeteries take place worldwide. Because of the high number, only examples can be given here, primarily from the period since the 2010s.

Algeria

The Jewish cemetery in the coastal town of Azeffoun no longer exists. It was completely looted and destroyed on November 1st, 2015. Over 300 graves were desecrated and destroyed.

Argentina

At least a dozen tombstones in the Santiago del Estero cemetery were damaged, knocked over and destroyed on December 10, 2014.

Bulgaria

On the night of April 20, 2019 (Hitler's birthday), swastikas were sprayed on all gravestones in the old Jewish cemetery in Stara Sagora .

Denmark

In Østre Kirkegård cemetery in Randers , 84 gravestones were defaced with green paint on November 9, 2019 (the anniversary of the beginning of the November pogroms in 1938 ). At the same time, anti-Semitic vandalism was also reported in Copenhagen , Aarhus , Silkeborg and Aalborg .

Eritrea

In January 2018 the Jewish cemetery in Asmara was devastated. Dozens of graves were defaced.

Estonia

At the Jewish cemetery Rahumäe in the Estonian capital Tallinn , several tombstones were knocked over on the night of June 23, 2019 and others were smeared with swastikas.

France

In France, on the night of May 9, 1990, the desecration of the Jewish cemetery in the small town of Carpentras in Provence aroused particular outrage. Not only had thirty graves been devastated there, but the perpetrators had also exhumed the body of a recently deceased and deposited it in another grave in a particularly degrading manner. As a reaction to the act, a protest march with 200,000 participants took place in Paris on May 14, 1990, on which, among other things, a doll with the features of the right-wing extremist politician Jean-Marie Le Pen and the inscription Carpentras, c'est moi 'Carpentras am me 'was burned. President François Mitterrand also took part in the demonstration - the first French head of state to attend such an event . A handful of neo-Nazi skinheads were identified as the perpetrators six years after the crime. Since 2015, and especially in 2019, a series of attacks on Jewish cemeteries in the Bas-Rhin department in Alsace made headlines. After the desecration of the cemetery in Herrlisheim in 2015, 96 graves were defaced in the night of February 18 to 19, 2019 in the Jewish cemetery in Quatzenheim , including swastikas and a lettering with the name of the right-wing extremist active in the 1970s, separatist Alsatian underground organization Black Wolves . On the night of December 3, 2019, anti-Semitic inscriptions, including references to the right-wing extremist belief system of the Fourteen Words , were placed on 107 graves in the Jewish cemetery in Westhofen , around 25 kilometers from Strasbourg . In the cemetery, the history of which goes back to the 14th century, the family grave of the former French Prime Minister Michel Debré was defaced. Also in the Bas-Rhin department, anti-Semitic graffiti were discovered shortly afterwards in the Jewish cemetery of the community of Schaffhouse-sur-Zorn .

Greece

In Greece there was an increasing number of desecrations of Jewish cemeteries and memorials. These acts were committed by right-wing extremists. However, it has also been shown that public opinion is strongly influenced by the pro-Palestinian reporting in the Greek press, which often makes use of anti-Semitic stereotypes. In May 2014, twelve Jewish graves were desecrated by strangers in the cemetery of Thessaloniki , the second largest Greek city with the largest Jewish community in the region. According to police sources, the cemetery entrance and grave monuments were damaged. The German occupiers, the Wehrmacht and the SS, destroyed the historic cemetery with its around 500,000 graves in 1942.

Italy

On July 18, 2002, the day of mourning Tischa beAv in the Jewish calendar, over 40 Jewish graves were desecrated in Campo Verano , the largest cemetery in Rome.

Lebanon

In December 2019, the Jewish cemetery in Sidon was destroyed - presumably by Hezbollah . The cemetery was destroyed in 1992 and was restored in 2005. The UNESCO was invited to work for the preservation of the cemetery.

New Zealand

On February 17, 2015, a swastika was painted on a gravestone in an anti-Semitic attack in the Jewish section of the South Cemetery in Dunedin (New Zealand's South Island). Two other tombstones were knocked over and broken.

Netherlands

In July 2018 , swastikas were sprayed on the wall of the Jewish cemetery in Zeeburg , a district of Amsterdam. The police arrested a suspect. In November 2015, nine graves were destroyed in the Jewish cemetery in Oud-Beijerland . Five tombstones were smashed and four more were knocked over.

Poland

About 20 graves were desecrated by vandals on November 20, 2012 in a Jewish cemetery in Łódź . Most of the shattered headstones had recently been restored by relatives living abroad. Also in Poland, in July 2018 in Zduńska Wola, a fence was broken, a fire set and gravestones smashed. In Tarnów , on July 20, 2019, the recently restored cemetery wall of the Jewish cemetery was sprayed with a five-meter anti-Semitic inscription: Żydzi jedzą dzieci. Jadowniki jedzą Żydów 'Jews eat children, Jadowniki eat Jews' . Jadowniki is a village in Powiat Brzeski (Brzesko) . Swastikas and the like were sprayed before. A large group of residents spontaneously whitewashed the graffiti. In Częstochowa , anti-Semitic graffiti was sprayed on the gate of the Jewish cemetery in December 2018. At the end of March, an anonymous perpetrator smashed the grave of Rabbi Pinchas Menahem Justman.

Romania

In October 2008, 131 tombstones were damaged or destroyed in the Giurgiului Jewish cemetery (Bucharest).

In early April 2019, 73 tombstones were destroyed in the Jewish cemetery in the city of Huși . Also in Romania, the side entrance of the Jewish cemetery in Reghin was destroyed and ten tombstones devastated in August 2018 .

Switzerland

At the beginning of May 2005 the Jewish cemetery of Vevey - Montreux was desecrated, which was condemned by the Federal Commission against Racism (FCR).

Slovakia

On December 17, 2019, 79 tombstones were overturned in the Jewish cemetery in Bratislava . Another 59 tombstones were vandalized at the same time in the Jewish cemetery in Námestovo . The cemetery survived the Second World War and was extensively restored in the following decades.

South Africa

The Wellington Jewish Community announced on December 14, 2018 that all 39 Jewish graves in the small cemetery, which had 50 graves in total, had been desecrated by unknown persons and that the tombstones had been damaged. The remaining, non-Jewish graves were not desecrated. Jewish graves in George had previously been desecrated in 2017 .

Czech Republic

In 1987, tombstones from the Jewish cemetery in Prague were sawn into paving stones. A project called “In search of the lost face of Jewish cemeteries” has been running since 2019 to identify the tombstone fragments and bring them back to the old Jewish cemetery. Numerous Jewish tombstones sawed into cobblestones were discovered in 2020 during renovation work on Prague's Wenceslas Square .

Tunisia

On February 4, 2013, tombstones in El Kef were overturned or destroyed after 69 graves had been desecrated in Sousse on January 23 of the same year . At the beginning of 2020, another desecration of the cemetery was found, in which several gravestones were smashed.

Ukraine

In mid-April 2014, the grave of the so-called "righteous" ( tzaddiks ) and pupils of Rabbi Nachman , located in the old Jewish cemetery, was desecrated in Kremenchuk . Vandals broke the outer wall of the monument and stole a plaque. The grave has been the target of attacks several times, previously in April 2013 when vandals destroyed the tombstone. The grave site was only reconstructed in 2010

Hungary

Unknown people desecrated 57 graves in the Jewish cemetery in Kaposvár , about 200 kilometers southwest of the capital Budapest . In May 2017, 15 tombstones in the Jewish part of the Farkasréti temető cemetery in Budapest were desecrated.

United Kingdom

England

In Rochester, Kent , England , assassins smashed headstones with sledgehammers in the 300-year-old Jewish cemetery at Chatham Memorial Synagogue. The damage was discovered hours before Yom Kippur began on October 8, 2019, with the vandalism believed to have occurred on September 30, 2019, the night of Rosh Hashanah , Jewish New Year's Day.

Northern Ireland
Fragments of destroyed tombstones in the Jewish cemetery of Dobrodzien (Poland)

13 headstones were damaged in the Jewish section of Belfast Cemetery in August 2016.

United States

Vandalism took place in one of the oldest Jewish cemeteries in St. Louis, Missouri, on June 18th and 19th. February 2017 marks the first in a series of recent attacks on Jewish cemeteries. More than 170 tombstones were destroyed by vandals in the Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery. In Philadelphia , about 100 tombstones were desecrated at the Mt. Carmel Cemetery. In early March, 16 graves in the Waad Hakolel Cemetery in Rochester , New York State, were the target of assassins. The vandalism continued unabated over the summer. In July alone, vandals overturned six headstones at the Dutch Cemetery Association's cemetery grounds in Melrose , one of the oldest Jewish cemeteries in Massachusetts, and overturned 60 headstones in Ateres Knesseth Israel Cemetery in Hartford , Connecticut. On 16./17. March 2019, 25 graves were again desecrated in the historic Jewish cemetery in Fall River , Massachusetts. So grave stones were overturned, others were reading "Heil Hitler", "Hitler was right" Hitler was right " and " Expel the Jew " , Expel the Jews' smeared. For the capture of the perpetrators, 14,000 US dollars were offered. In early November 2019, 75 tombstones were demolished in the Temple Israel Cemetery in Omaha , Nebraska.

Motifs

As early as 1984, the political scientist Schoeps tried to describe the motives for the desecration of Jewish cemeteries:

“[They] had to do with acts of affect and intoxication from subliminal anti-Semitic, Nazi and anti-democratic motives. Gravestones and tombstones from Jewish cemeteries seem to have a magical attraction, a kind of fetish character, for perpetrators, especially those from the radical right-wing scene. Since there are hardly any Jews left in the Federal Republic of whom one could be violent, people let off steam on the stones - quasi as a 'substitute for Jews', the cemetery as an outlet through which the perpetrator can vent his disappointment, frustration, and hatred. […] For example, overturned tombstones during the Passion and Easter periods suggest the classic anti-Jewish prejudice that the idea that Jews were murderers of God crucified Christ. "

Traditional anti-Semitic attitudes are often disguised as anti-Zionist positions that do not distinguish between the Jewish state and the Jewish communities in the diaspora . Anti-Semitic crimes are generally considered extremist. Both are summarized under the term " hate crime ", which indicates that "the background to the crime is less about personal, situation-related motives, but rather about the overarching goal of humiliating an entire community as a result of aversion, prejudice or hatred." They are also purposeful acts with the intention of provocation that works outward. They should also be understood as a protest to erase or at least influence the memory of the crimes of the National Socialists from one's own memory as well as from the memory of society. The chairman of the regional association of Jewish communities in Lower Saxony , Michael Fürst , attributed the desecration of graves in March 2016 mainly to the heated political discussion about flight and asylum. In the past, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in particular would have aroused anti-Semitic reflexes. It had become quieter at this point. But you are now dealing with right-wing populists . In violent Islamism , the focus is on spreading fear and terror to the public, which, however, cannot be achieved by desecrating cemeteries. The short-term increase in desecrations in some years can often be explained by the corresponding publications in the press, radio and television, such as the broadcast of the film series Holocaust - The History of the Weiss Family . Vandalism is also concentrated on special days, such as January 27, the day of remembrance of the victims of National Socialism and the day of remembrance of the liberation of Auschwitz , the anniversary of the Reichspogromnacht on 9/10. November, Hitler's birthday (April 20) or solstice celebrations (December 21/22 and June 20-22) and other historical events. "The destruction of Jewish cemeteries is not an expression of anti-Semitism, it is itself," commented Theodor W. Adorno on the increasing desecration of Jewish cemeteries in the 1950s.

Belittling

Since 1945, the city administration of Düsseldorf has denied an anti-Semitic or political motivation in almost all cases of desecration of the cemetery, referring only to “pranks on stupid boys”, “the carelessness of some young people” or the “wilderness of morals”. Only a few asked about the indoctrination of children and adolescents. The politically responsible pursued the strategy of minimizing the damage that Germany's reputation abroad had suffered by trivializing the acts of violence. Julius H. Schoeps, Professor of Modern History at the University of Potsdam , criticized the unchanged trivialization of the desecrations in an interview from 1999:

“Statements by the state security officers speak of a naivete that can hardly be surpassed. In our research we have repeatedly found formulations such as 'apolitical act' or 'juvenile intoxication' in the files of the interior ministries and police authorities. [...] That is simply ignorance. Any desecration of a cemetery is a political act, even if the young perpetrators often cannot give a clear answer about the motivation for their actions. The deed practically reflects what is said or discussed in family and friends - and it reflects the general climate. […] However, it is extremely unbelievable that children and young people overturn gravestones weighing hundreds of euros in the middle of the night or early in the morning - these are the main times of the offense. One gets the impression that the naming of the group of perpetrators 'children and adolescents' only serves to distract attention from unpleasant facts. "

Criminal liability

Desecration of Jewish cemeteries is not an independent offense within the meaning of the Criminal Code and thus police statistics: Depending on the specific acts in the context of a desecration, these different criminal offenses such as arson , trespassing ( § 123 StGB), property damage or disturbance of the peace of the dead are assigned. In Germany, according to § 168 StGB, desecration of the grave is a criminal offense as a disturbance of the peace of the dead , which is sanctioned with imprisonment for up to three years or with a fine. "Anyone who illegally damages or destroys [...] tombs [...] will be punished with imprisonment of up to three years or a fine in accordance with Section 304 (1) StGB". On October 15, 2019, the Free State of Bavaria introduced a bill to tighten the penalties for anti-Semitic crimes. The draft provides for the provision on the determination of sentences in Section 46 (2) sentence 2 of the Criminal Code to be expressly supplemented by anti-Semitic motives and goals as a further example of inhumane motivation to commit acts. So far, the text of the law includes "racist, xenophobic or other inhumane motives". The application was submitted to the Bundestag on January 8, 2020 after acceptance by the Bundesrat on November 29, 2019. The federal government supports the concerns of the bill.

In Austria, disturbing the peace of the dead is a criminal offense. There it says in § 190 STGB: "Who [...] dishonors a burial, laying out or memorial for the dead is to be punished with imprisonment of up to six months or with a fine of up to 360 daily rates".

In Switzerland, disturbing the peace of the dead is punished according to Art. 262: "Anyone who grossly dishonors the resting place of a dead person [...] is punished with imprisonment of up to three years or a fine".

Prevention

Preventive measures against cemetery desecration are hardly feasible. Walls and fences are easy to overcome. The costs of setting up surveillance cameras, guard posts or even a constant police presence, such as on the Mount of Olives, are not affordable. Resources in this regard must primarily be used to protect living people - and they are already lacking here, as recent attacks on synagogues have shown. Perpetrators desecrate cemeteries under cover of darkness, have no resistance to reckon with and the clearing-up rate for vandalism is extremely low. The desecration of Jewish cemeteries does not therefore require a lot of courage, but a criminal energy fueled by anti-Semitism.

The President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster , urged the security authorities to be more vigilant in 2019. “I see a need for improvement in the preventive police surveillance of Jewish cemeteries, which are often located outside of built-up areas. Because the low clearance rate is frightening. "

On July 31, 2020, Bavaria's Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann promised the construction of a new fence at an on- site visit at the Jewish cemetery in Erlangen on Rudelsweiherstrasse in order to better protect the Jewish cemetery from desecration and its visitors from attacks.

List of vandalized Jewish cemeteries in Germany (selection)

Picture gallery of some cemetery desecrations

  • Gravestones of Jewish graves in the Old Jewish Cemetery in the Kazimierz district of Kraków (Poland) - desecrated as paving stones, 1941

  • The cemetery in Sarre-Union (France) was desecrated as early as 1988 and 2001 . In February 2015 (shown here) ...

  • ... around 250 graves were devastated.

  • Desecration at the Jewish cemetery in Shumen (Bulgaria), 2010

  • Destroyed grave at the Jewish cemetery in the Bödigheim district of Buchen , 2019

  • Temporary storage of Jewish gravestones that were used by the inhabitants of Brest (Belarus) for paving streets and as foundations for houses

  • President Emmanuel Macron at the desecrated and with references to the Alsatian Black Wolves defaced Jewish cemetery in Quatzenheim (Alsace) with 96 desecrated graves. 19th February 2019

  • During the Third Reich, residents of Westhoff smashed many of the oldest gravestones in the Jewish cemetery there or used them for road construction. On December 3, 2019, the cemetery was desecrated again by neo-Nazis.

  • Remains of the Old Jewish Cemetery in Lviv, destroyed in 1948 under Soviet rule (Lwów, Lemberg, today Ukraine)

  • Gravestone remains of the Jewish cemetery in Kalisz (Poland), which were recovered from the Prosna River , were smashed by the Nazis

See also

literature

  • Monika Schmidt: Attacks on orphaned Jewish graves. Desecrations of cemeteries in the Soviet Zone and the GDR . Published by the Center for Research on Antisemitism at the Technical University of Berlin, Metropol Verlag, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-86331-153-7
  • Marion Neiss: desecrations of the cemetery . In: Wolfgang Benz : Handbook of Antisemitism. Volume 3: Concepts, theories, ideologies ; Walter de Gruyter, December 23, 2010, ISBN 978-3-11-023379-7 , pp. 91-96.
  • Marion Neiss: "... whatever others want but don't dare to do." Desecration of Jewish cemeteries. In: Wolfgang Benz (Ed.) The hatred against the Jews. Dimensions and forms of anti-Semitism , Berlin 2008.
  • Marion Neiss: Desecrations of Jewish cemeteries in Germany . In: Wolfgang Benz, Angelika Königseder (ed.) Anti-Semitism as a paradigm. Studies on Prejudice Research , Berlin 2002.
  • Monika Schmidt: Desecrations of Jewish cemeteries in the GDR. An inventory. Published by the Center for Research on Antisemitism, Metropol-Verlag, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-938690-49-9 .
  • Julius H. Schoeps : Sepulcra hostium religiosa nobis non sunt. Destruction and desecration of Jewish cemeteries in the Federal Republic of Germany since 1945 . In: Alphons Silbermann , Julius H. Schoeps (Ed.): Anti-Semitism after the Holocaust. Inventory and manifestations in German-speaking countries . Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, Cologne 1986, ISBN 978-3-8046-8656-4 , p. 33-39 .
  • Andreas Wirsching : Jewish cemeteries in Germany 1933–1957 . In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 50 (2002), issue 1, pp. 1-40. ( PDF )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Report of the independent expert group on anti-Semitism: Anti-Semitism in Germany - manifestations, conditions, prevention approaches . Notification by the federal government. Printed matter 17/7700. German Bundestag , November 10, 2011, p. 36 ff . ( PDF ).
  2. ↑ a b c desecrations , DGB-Bildungswerk Thuringia. Retrieved December 16, 2019.
  3. ^ A b Hans-Uwe Otto, Roland Merten: Right-wing extremist violence in united Germany: Youth in social upheaval . Springer-Verlag, March 8, 2013, ISBN 978-3-322-97285-9 , p. 82.
  4. ^ A b Hate in Everyday Life , Jüdische Allgemeine, December 21, 2010. Accessed December 30, 2019.
  5. ↑ a b c d e f g h Julius H. Schoeps: A stone on the grave. The destruction and desecration of Jewish cemeteries in Germany . In: The time . No. 46/1984 , November 9, 1984 ( online ).
  6. ↑ Report of the Independent Expert Group on Antisemitism , German Bundestag, printed matter 18/11970, April 7, 2017, p. 44. Accessed December 30, 2019.
  7. ↑ Codex iuris civilis , Dig. 47.12.4, Paulus 27 ad ed. Praet .: Sepulchra hostium religiosa nobis non sunt: ​​ideoque lapides inde sublatos in quemlibet usum convertere possumus: non sepulchri violati actio competit .
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  14. ^ Andreas Wirsching: Jüdische Friedhöfe in Deutschland 1933–1957 , 2002, p. 7 f.
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  34. ↑ Throwing paint bags at the Jewish cemetery in Oldenburg ( Memento of the original from November 22, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Press release of the police station Oldenburg - Stadt / Ammerland from November 20, 2011 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.presseportal.de
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  38. ^ Franz-Josef Höffmann: The main perpetrator has to go to prison for six months , Nordwest-Zeitung , April 13, 2016
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