The Jewish cemetery of Cuxhaven

"In the then Hamburg office Ritzebüttel - today part of the city of Cuxhaven - the first Jews settled around the middle of the 18th century, a few years later, about 1760 arose in the Brockeswald their Begräbnisplatz, which already had to be expanded in 1818. Around 1800 the ‚Israelitische Gemeinde zu Ritzebüttel’ was constituted, which built its own synagogue in 1815/16.

The area of about 20x20 meters in the middle of the Brockeswald, enclosed by a Jägerzaun, includes about 60-80 gravestones between the beginning of the 19th and the first third of the 20th century. Individual stones are umgestürzt, and under the ground-covering brambles lie perhaps also still more.

The stones are from außen;ergewöhnlich good material qualityät, it dürfte around granite o.ä. act. It is noticeable that some of the stones bear only Hebrew inscriptions, most of the others only short inscriptions in German (name and year of death). Remarkable is a grave complex rather in the center of the cemetery: A grave from the early 20th century is enclosed by a – meanwhile largely rusted – wrought iron fence, in this enclosure a bench invited to contemplative lingering at the grave, one can see in it a document of assimilation, the adaptation to the grave-visiting ritual of the Christian environment.

Location:

In Brockeswald. Coming from Cuxhaven-Sahlenburg one follows the Sahlenburger Chaussee in the direction of Cuxhaven center. To the right you have the central cemetery, after you have passed this, you see left in the Gehölz the jüdischen cemetery lie. At the next crossroads turn left, and after about 100 m follow the signs to the restaurant „Schützenhaus“, turn left again, and park in its parking lot. There is an entrance to the Brockeswald with an explanatory board. From there, look half-left for a Jägerzaun, just under 100 m from the access."

Dr. Hans-Peter Laqueur,
(Dr. Wolfgang Heumann, 1-2019)