Another milestone in the documentation of Jewish life in Königsberg
September 2020: We are pleased to announce that thanks to the cooperation of Ralph Salinger in Israel (JewishVilkaviskis.org) and Michael Leiserowitz from the Association of Jews in East Prussia, another source has been added to the database “Jews in Königsberg”. It will one day become the basis for an information centre on Jews in Königsberg.
When the Chewra Kadischa (the Holy Brotherhood) in Königsberg celebrated its 200th anniversary in 1904, it was decided to produce a commemorative publication in order to consciously deal with its own history from 1704 onwards. Quote: “Prayer and worship were conceivable without a fixed community organisation; the acquisition of the burial ground, the recovery of the first corpse in native soil, the first fulfilment of all services of love to a brother in faith in the home town had to be the first assurance of the continuity of the Jewish settlement and had to lead to the union to religious activity. (…..) Here in Königsberg, as in many other Jewish congregations in Germany, care for the dead was the beginning of religious community life, and older than the congregation itself is the Chewra Kadischa”. Rabbi Hermann Vogelstein.
This commemorative publication also contains a specially compiled list of 779 male buried subjects. In addition, there are indexes with surnames, because the index does not go by family names, but is ordered by Hebrew first names. In the beginning there were no family names for a long time, only the first name and the first name of the father were listed.