Old Jewish cemetery

The Old Jewish Cemetery in the Nordstadt, not far from the Christuskirche, offers an astonishing picture: a hill in the middle of the residential area, on it hundreds of old gravestones under tall trees, a walled island of the dead.

Since 1550 burial place of the Jews in Hanover and surroundings, until 1864. Laid out on a sand hill outside the city. Particularly noteworthy: here there were burials in several layers of earth on top of each other. Because the graves in a Jewish cemetery are supposed to last forever, they may not be occupied more than once. In this cemetery additional grave areas could only be gained by artificially raising the hill! Access used to be on the west side, since the closure of the cemetery through the side gate on the east side. Above the side gate there is the picture symbol of the "Priest's Blessing".

700 gravestones are preserved, including those of rabbis and heads of the community. They commemorate men and women, old and young deceased, members of the Jewish community from three centuries. The oldest surviving gravestone is from 1654, for Salman Gans. Here rest numerous ancestors of Heinrich Heine, including his grandfather and great-grandfather.

During the Nazi era, the cemetery was to be eliminated and the hill leveled, at the request of the NSDAP. Miraculously, the site remained untouched despite expropriation in 1943. Today, the Old Jewish Cemetery is an important cultural monument and testimony to Jewish life in Hanover in earlier times.