Weißensee Cemetery

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entrance building

The Berlin Jüdischer Friedhof Weißensee is a Jewish cemetery located in the East Berlin neighbourhood of Weißensee in Germany. It is the largest Jewish cemetery in Europe (The cemetery covers approximately 42 hectares and contains approximately 115,000 graves)^[1]. It was dedicated in 1880.

1 The entrance
2 Construction of the Cemetery
3 Post-WWII
4 Famous people in the cemetery
5 Reaching the cemetery
6 Notes

[edit] The entrance

The main entrance is at the end of the Herbert-Baum-Straße, it is permanently locked. In 1924, a second entrance was constructed off Indira-Gandhi-Straße.

Directly in front of the entrance is a Holocaust memorial, a commemorative stone, surrounded by further stones, each with the names of concentration camps. Next to this, there is a memorial to Jews who lost their lives during World War I (which was dedicated in 1927) and also a commemorative plaque to those who fought national socialism.

[edit] Construction of the Cemetery

example of the art nouveau mausolea which run round the edge of the cemetery

The plot of land was bought by the Reform Jewish community in the 1880s as other Berlin Jewish cemeteries reached full capacity. The cemetery was designed by renowned German architect, Hugo Licht in the Italian Neorenaissance style. The surrounding walls and main building (where the archives are kept and the cemetery administered) are built using a distinctive yellow brick. A second building (built in 1910) was destroyed during World War II.

The grave plots are arranged into 120 different sections, each with their own geometric shape and the lavish way in which the more wealthy figures in it chose to fashion their mausolea using the latest art nouveau designs is immediately noticeable.

The outskirts of the plot is predominantly reserved for the upper and middle classes while the centre is reserved for the less well off, in areas which are harder to reach, often covered in foliage.

With the rise of Nazism the existence of the cemetery was put into doubt (most Jewish cemeteries in Europe were destroyed) but miraculously, the site survived relatively unscathed (400 graves are estimated to have been destroyed by allied bombing).

[edit] Post-WWII

After World War II, Jews from all parts of Berlin continued to use the cemetery until 1955; from 1955 until reunification only the small Jewish community in East Berlin used it.

During the DDR, the cemetery was neglected and many of the graves were left unattended (because most of the community were murdered during, or had fled from, the Holocaust) and became overgrown with weeds.

In the 1970s, plans to build an expressway over part of the cemetery were considered, linking Michelangelostraße to the newly constructed Hansastraße, although they weren't followed up due to strong objections from the remaining Jewish community.

It has been estimated ^[2]by the cemetery officials that the cost to fully repair the damage caused by years of neglect is 40 million Euros. In the year of its 125th opening anniversary, appeals to local government were made to increase funding, so that a bid can be made to reach the UNESCO world heritage list. The bid is supported by Berlin's mayor Klaus Wowereit.^[3] It is possible to visit and the index of graves is mainly intact.