Berlin, Grosse Hamburger Strasse

Only a memorial plaque, the restored grave of Moses Mendelssohn and some exhibited historic gravestones reminds today of this Jewish cemetery and its destruction by the National Socialists.After the Judenkiewer Spandau (1314 documentary mentioned)[see link], the Jewish cemetery in Berlin-Mitte is the älteste of the Berlin Jewish community. Today located in the center of the city, the cemetery was established and consecrated in 1672, well before the site. Exact document numbers are not clearly ascertainable. Old sources indicate 12,000 burials, a burial register from 1751-1827 lists 7,063 burials, and when the cemetery was closed, 2,767 graves were counted. According to Jewish tradition, the graves were simple and mostly uniform in design. The entrance was on Oranienburgerstr. Here the first old people's home of the Jewish community was built in 1829. A new, larger old people's home was opened in 1844 on Grosser Hamburger Str. In 1794 it was already decreed that burials could only be made outside inhabited areas. This meant in 1827 the closure of the cemetery at the Grossen Hamburger Str. and the creation of a new burial place, the cemetery at the Schönhauser Allee.