Thursday 14 April 2016

Jewish Cemetery: Große Hamburger Straße

In the heart of Berlin's chic, trendy Mitte district, whose perimeters are defined by streets like Weinmeister Straße and Torstraße, there is a silent space. A space carved out of the houses that fill the area around it - pushing up against it as if to question its resilience to the steady beat of history's distructive knell. This space is not huge - perhaps the size of 3 tennis courts - but it seems bigger because it is empty. This is no park or playground, this is an empty space. Weeds thickly coat the lush green ground and a few trees are scattered around, no doubt witnesses to what came before; but little remains of what used to be here: the oldest Jewish cemetery in Berlin. 

The cemetery was first consecrated in 1672, a year after 50 Jewish families (mostly coming from Vienna) were invited back to Berlin after, in short, centuries of banishment due to vehement medieval antisemitism. These "Schutzjuden" as they were known were invited back by Fredrick Wilhelm, the 'Great' Elector of Brandenburg, and given his 'special protection'. They were given an area in Berlin surrounding the cemetery, at that time called the Scheunenviertel (or Barn Quarter), because of its old function as an agricultural plot with many livestock houses. Back in the 1600s this area was rather outside of the city centre, which instead was concentrated around today's "Museum Island".

Vegetable seller sells fruit outsides his shop to a customer passing by. Scheunenviertel, 1933.
Old Jewish Cemetery before it was destroyed, c. late 1800s.
The Scheunenviertel quickly became a flourishing Jewish living quarter, to which thousands of Jews would come, be born, live their lives and thrive in the city of Berlin. The cemetery located in the midst of this throng held the key to the history of the community. Famous names littered the 2,767 graves; graves that previously stood as testament to the rich and diverse community. Among these graves were the names of Moses Mendelssohn (1729 - 1786) the great philosopher, Marcus Herz (1747 - 1803) the physician and philosopher and Jakob Herz Beer (1769 - 1825) father of Operetta composer Giacomo Meyerbeer and husband of the formidable and widely respected Prussian Jewish socialite Amalie (Malka) Beer. 

Moses Mendelssohn, by Anton Graf, 1771.
Of all these names though, Moses Mendelssohn's probably stands out the most, not only because of his famous composer grandson, but also because he redefined what it was to be Jewish living in a modern enlightened European nation state. By adopting German as his written language and writing extensively on current philosophical and social issues of the day Mendelssohn ingratiated himself with the Prussian élite. Men like Gotthold Lessing, who dedicated his play, Nathan the Wise as a testament to his friendship with Mendelssohn. By retaining his Jewish religiosity whilst simultaneously carving out a secular intellectual position for himself in Prussian society, Mendelssohn laid the framework for secularising assimilating Jews across the whole of Enlightenment Europe. His importance cannot be understated.

A century after Mendellsohn's death, fascination in this now inactive, but eminent graveyard was widespread. In 1887 a journalist, Julius Rosenburg wrote a piece about the graveyard and its keeper, Herr Landshuth. He wrote that:
"Here in the middle of Berlin, amongst the noise, chaos and chatter of every day city life lies a silent graveyard tended by an old man by the name of Landshuth. This man [Landshuth] lives his life in the past as if it were long separated from him. He lives with his dead, and his dead live with him. He accurately knows the story of each of the innumerable dead, of whom nothing is left but a sunken mound and a name. He knows the manifold family, the genealogy, their houses, and their lives. They remain through him."
The cemetery closed its doors in 1827 - not because there were no more Jews in Berlin - but because it had run out of space. The larger cemeteries on Schönhauser Allee and Weisensee later became refuge for Jewish remembrance. 

Sadly, though that graveyard, so carefully preserved by Herr Landshuth for over 70 years in the 1800s, now ceases to exist. In 1943 the SS came and desecrated the near 3,000 graves and later used the stones as part of an air raid shelter for Berliners who were left in the city. At the same time, many of Berlin's Jews had been either forced to emigrate or deported east to death camps or concentration camps where most would perish. The last deportation of Berlin's Jews happened on the 27th February 1943 during the 'Fabrikaktion' or Factory Action, orchestrated by the Nazis to clean out the last Jewish people working in Berlin factories. In total over 15,000 Berlin Jews were rounded up and held in concentration centres around Berlin during this action, including the Jewish Old People's home next to the Old Cemetery. 

Today in front of the once full cemetery there is a sculpture commemorating the victims of national socialism. It is a poignant reminder of where hate can lead us. A group of emaciated, shrunken figures, stand together starting out at the viewer; 11 figures, all of different heights. They look gaunt and starved, a pitiful sight. The tragedy projected by those vacant faces for me, is that that is how they will be remembered: pale, dead and shrunken victims, lain low by callous hatred. But each one of those figures represents what was there before, thousands of graves of vibrant figures who lived full, enriched lives and thus enriched the lives of those around them. Figures that made it into the history books for reasons other than persecution and that remain in public memory not because of how they died, but because of how they lived.

Sunken eyes and gaunt faces stare out at visitors in front of the old Jewish Memorial.
There is only one grave left, inside the graveyard, the grave of Moses Mendelssohn. It has been recreated since the destruction of 1942 to act as a fitting reminder of the rich community of Jewish people who lived in Berlin for hundreds of years before hatred, ignorance and brutality destroyed them.
 

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