Cemetery

In 1840 the cemetery was established at the lower Kamphausener Straße. The 881 m² large area can hardly be seen from the outside today. The cemetery replaced an older Jewish cemetery in Odenkirchen. This is said to have been located nearby at the Hohlweg on the side of the Kölner Straße. The burial area of the cemetery is divided into two parts. The older part is not on the right side of the entrance. Here people were buried until the end of the 1880s. The younger part of the cemetery was used for burials from 1890 until about 1950. After that the cemetery was declared closed.

The site of the present Jewish cemetery on Eifelstraße was acquired in 1832 by Heinrich Stern. This was not in his capacity as head of the Jewish community, but for private purposes.

Slowly, the Stern family made parts of the property available to the community as burial grounds. These parts of the land were transferred to the community as property. 

Before that, until 1836, a small burial ground had been used in the same part of the village, which was called the "Judenkirchhof aufm Heydberg" in 1782. It was located at the end of today's Watelerstraße. 

The Jewish Cemetery is located on Hügelstraße in the Westend district of Mönchengladbach (North Rhine-Westphalia) and is the largest preserved cemetery in the urban area of today's Mönchengladbach. 

In 1841, the Jewish community acquired the land with an abandoned gravel and sand pit from the merchant Busch. The land acquisition replaced an older cemetery, which must have been located nearby, but can no longer be located. The oldest surviving gravestone is dated 1875 (first burial 1841).

Jüdische inhabitants are documented here since about 1730, 1840 formed seven families from Beverstedt, Schiffdorf and Wulsdorf a religious community, their prayer room was located in a private house. A small burial ground was laid out in the parcel „Hinter dem Busche“.

Location:

"The oldest Jewish cemetery was located on the Helenenberg and was officially opened in 1867, but was closed again in 1900, as it could no longer be expanded.
It was leveled during the National Socialist era.
Today there is only a memorial stone on the site.
The other remaining tombstones were partly put up again on the Ledderken cemetery." (Klaus Wupper, 1/2022)

To the old or first Jüdischen Begr bnisplatz in Bernburg is little überliefert. It lies at Kaiplatz next to the Kurhaus Bernburg on a green strip in front of a building used today (2022) as retirement home. Nothing points to this first Jewish cemetery. No gravestones have survived. - It was initially located outside the city walls and was used until 1826. In 1826 the new Jewish cemetery was inaugurated on the hill. At the end of the 19th century, the town of Bernburg planned to become a spa and health resort, which included a spa hotel (today a retirement home).

For the year 1758, a Jewish burial society - a Chewra Kaddischa -  is verifiable. The site of the cemetery was at the Kaiplatz. Because this was occupied, the cemetery preserved to this day was built on May 30. May 1826 on the Rö&April;eberg - a small hill between the Bernburg valley town and today's Waldau district - was inaugurated by Duke Alexius of Anhalt-Bernburg (1767-1834)  Duke Alexius is also referred to in the inscription above the archway: "Gottesacker/Erbauet unter der glorreichen Regierung Sr.