Jewish cemetery Hemmerden

Already before 1526 there was a Jewish cemetery in Hemmerden. The plot was donated to the community by the sovereign Elisabeth zu Salm-Dyck. When all Jewish inhabitants had to leave the village in that year, the cemetery was abandoned. The old Jewish cemetery of Hemmerden was located at the Stesser Mühle. The land was returned to the original owners in 1826. Schulte gives 1827 as the year of foundation of the new, still existing Jewish cemetery. The database Epidat as well as Pracht-Jürns mention 1813 as another possible year of foundation. The land was donated to the Jewish communities in Hemmerden and neighboring Bedburdyck by Fürst Josef zu Salm-Reifferscheid for joint use. In 1892, the cemetery was destroyed in the course of anti-Jewish riots following the Buschhoff Affair in Xanten. Bloodstained gravestones were thrown through the windows into the apartments of Hemmerden's Jewish residents. During the November pogrom in 1938 the cemetery was also destroyed. 2004 took place again a Schändung.

On the cemetery are 39 gravestones. The oldest was placed for a person who died in 1809 and was apparently transferred here from the previous cemetery. The youngest gravestone is that of Marianne Stern-Winter who died in 1998. After 1945 there were four more burials in the cemetery. In addition, several private memorial stones were placed for members of both communities who were murdered during the Shoah. In 1964, after intensive efforts of the survivor Marianne Stern-Winter, a memorial stone was placed for the members of the Jewish community in Hemmerden who were murdered during the Shoah. In 1990 the cemetery was entered in the list of monuments of the city of Grevenbroich.