Choleraepedemie 1892 - Hamburg, Germany
N 53° 37.174 E 010° 02.715
32U E 569137 N 5941703
Gedenkstein für die Opfer der Cholera-Epidemie an der Cordesallee auf dem Ohlsdorfer Friedhof.
Waymark Code: WM10KRV
Location: Hamburg, Germany
Date Posted: 05/24/2019
Views: 6
It was mid-August in the unusually hot summer of 1892, when pathogens of Asian cholera sloshed upstream to Rothenburgsort in order to reach the Hamburg water supply network by means of pumps.
The disease spread in an instant, infecting 16,596 hamburgers and 8,605 dying. Of these, about 8,500 were buried at the Ohlsdorf cemetery. The people most affected were those at the harbour in the corridors of the parishes of St. Michaelis and St. Jacobi, where they lived under poor hygienic conditions. Initially, also for fear of trade-damaging quarantine measures, the Senate adopted a wait-and-see attitude with regard to measures against the onset of cholera. It was not until six days after the outbreak that the population was warned and instructed about the necessary behavioural measures. The epidemic raged for ten weeks, the border to Altona was closed until 30 October, and the city was officially declared disease-free only on 16 November.
After 100 years, the Patriotic Society of 1765 took up the theme and donated a memorial stone, which was placed in the immediate vicinity of the former burial grounds, directly on the footpath of the Cordesallee. Exactly 100 years to the day after the outbreak of the epidemic, on 22 September 1992, Senator Traute Müller handed over the memorial stone to the cemetery. It consists of a historical tomb, which was decorated with a relief plate of the sculptor Caesar Scharff, who was working on the cemetery at that time.
Disaster Date: 09/22/1892
Date of dedication: 09/22/1992
Memorial Sponsors: Patriotische Gesellschaft
Parking Coordinates: N 53° 37.148 W 010° 02.614
Disaster Type: Sociological
Relevant Website: [Web Link]
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