12 January 2020: The so-called Old Jewish Cemetery in Königsberg continues to send signals to us. With every visit we find new gravestones, this time a couple known to us was present – because they had bought entrance tickets for the opening of the synagogue in 1896. They are the merchant Fischel Rudberg and his wife Johanna . Furthermore we met the stones of Mina Oppenheim (she was only 3 years old) and Friederike Goetz (with beautiful art nouveau writing). The area is relatively large, the cemetery has been destroyed, but the area has been preserved and was given to the Jewish Community. Well known and preserved is the grave of the famous scholar Salanter. This cemetery was active around 1875-1928, after that there was the New Jewish Cemetery with the mortuary and the cemetery guard house built by the star architect Erich Mendelsohn in the west of the city (Steffeckstr. near the Hammerteich, today ul. Leytenanta Katina, we hope to have it officially registered soon at EJCAN — the European Jewish Cemetery Advisory Network and the international register of Jewish Cemeteries (JOWBR). The hall was burned down the day after the synagogues were destroyed on November 10, 1938. The first Jewish cemetery was at Tragheimer Strasse from 1704 and is no longer marked today.

Link to our website with gravestones from the Old Cemetery >>