Jewish Cemetery Niederleuken - Saarburg, Germany
Posted by: dreamhummie
N 49° 36.873 E 006° 33.451
32U E 323567 N 5498641
Jewish Cemetery Niederleuken located at Erdenbach in Saarburg, Germany.
Waymark Code: WM176MN
Location: Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany
Date Posted: 12/24/2022
Views: 0
"The Jewish cemetery in Saarburg-Niederleuken is with 2049 square meters after the cemetery in Freudenburg by far the second largest of a total of 15 such cemeteries in the district Trier-Saarburg. The Jewish community of Saarburg did not occupy a particularly prominent position among the Jewish communities of today's Trier-Saarburg district. In 1933, with a total population of 4179, there were only 40 Jews. It must be taken into account, however, that the Israelite community in Wawern did not maintain its own cemetery, but buried its deceased in Saarburg as well. The first reference to a Jewish cemetery in Niederleuken dates from Napoleonic times. In 1804 a Jewish cemetery pond was auctioned off. In 1820 this pond was identified in the (now Prussian) cadastral survey as the property of a Marx Levi from Wawern.
This oldest part of the Jewish cemetery was apparently extended to the west in the course of the 19th century. A further extension took place in 1907. According to official statements of the Nazi period, the last graves date from the years 1935 and 1936. As early as 1938, desecrations of the cemetery and its neglect are said to have occurred. According to the uncertain recollection of a contemporary witness, some Jewish families even removed the gravestones of their deceased relatives from the cemetery and hid them in cellars and sheds. In November 1928, SA men are said to have knocked over the remaining gravestones, smashed them and partially piled up the remains to form a wall. The last Saarburg Jews were moved to Trier in 1939 as part of the Freimachung (i.e., the evacuation of Saarburg before the attack on Poland, which the Nazis feared would relieve France). In 1942, the site of the Jewish cemetery was sold by the Reich Association of Jews in Germany to Koenen, a civil engineer, for 500 Reichsmark (with the exception of one plot). However, the sale was not registered in the land register. Part of the cemetery was then used as a chicken coop. Since 1947, efforts by various parties (state ministry, district government, district office) to repair the cemetery area."
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