The Schwanenberg Jewish Cemetery is located at the end of the village of Lentholt, a hamlet that belongs to Schwanenberg, a district of Erkelenz in the district of Heinsberg near Mönchengladbach (North Rhine-Westphalia).

In Schwanenberg there is a Jewish community since the early 19th century. Presumably, however, there were already Jews in the area since the 16th century.

The de Vries family, for decades at home in Nordhorn and widely branched out as a family, operated a textile trade in Neuenhauser Straße with Benjamin de Vries and his wife Rosa née Cohen. The merchant was regarded in Nordhorn as a noble, friendly and upright person. After Rosa de Vries died in 1923, son Moritz took over her place in the business.

Moritz de Vries married Ella Hopfeld, also from a Nordhorn textile merchant family. Their sons Robert and Paul were born in 1924 and 1926.

The Süskind family was originally based in Neuenhaus. Julius Süskind (b. 1888), however, operated a large used goods trade from Nordhorn, ranging from raw skins to industrial equipment. He lived with wife Ennegje, called „Emilie“, née Jakobs from Werlte as well as the children Siegfried (b. 1929) and Julie (called „Julchen“, b. 1930) the house in the Alkenstiege on the outskirts of the city center of Nordhorn.

The Schaap family had been based in Nordhorn for a long time. After the business in the Ochsenstraße was destroyed in a district fire, the butcher shop moved to the Lingener Straße. There, son Moritz (born 1895) and his wife Erna, née Oppenheimer from Osnabrück, took over the management of the business. Daughter Lina Schaap married Salomon David de Jong from Utrecht and moved to him in the Netherlands.

Max Salomonson, born in 1892 in Nordhorn, ran a prosperous business in the Hauptstra;e, but died very early at the age of 41 in 1933. He was married to Rosetta „Rika“, born 1901 in Werlte Frank. Their daughter Ruth was born in Osnabrück in 1929. She first attended the Altendorf school, but in 1938 she had to leave, like all other Jewish students, because of the order that Jews were not allowed to attend German schools.“ Like the other Jüdische Schüler she attended from then on the castle school.

Josef Salomonson, born in 1860 in Nordhorn, was a leading member of the Jewish community. For a long time he held the chair, led the services and taught the boys in religious matters of Judaism. The fact that he knew a variety of languages: the regional Low German, Yiddish and Hebräisch, Dutch, English and French, came in handy in his commercial life.

Josef Salomonson died already in 1930; his wife Emma née Dankwert followed him in 1937. Both lie in the Nordhorn Jewish cemetery in a double grave – a relative novelty in view of the single graves prevailing so far.

Friedrich Salomonson was born in 1897 as the younger brother of the butcher Max Salomonson in Nordhorn. He was married to the two years äolder Niederländerin Esther Phillips. Both had two children: Lion was born in 1930 in Osnabrück, Hanni 1942 in Nordhorn.

In Hagen Street, the two Roozendaal families ran a modest used goods business that allowed only a poor standard of living. Both husbands had died very early: Mozes in 1920 at the age of 41, Salomon in 1912, 36 years old. The wives were left behind with four and three children, respectively. They were often provided with food by well-meaning neighbors.

In Nordhorn's main street the Oster family ran a textile business, known mainly for work clothes. They did not belong to the old-established Jewish families, but had immigrated. The family had two children: Max, the older one, and Margarete, called „Gretl“. Max married Ruth Rochacz from Leipzig. Both fled to the Netherlands in 1935, where two children were also born, Helga and Benjamin.

From 1933 Johannes Körner had a job at the employment office in Nordhorn (then at Lingener Straße 1). For this purpose, they moved from Lingen to the house of the Jewish family Schaap, Lingener Straße 51. Soon they demanded of him (who had been honored with the Iron Cross for his service in the World War) to separate from his Jewish wife - otherwise he would lose the job.