Project number: [JOWBR, GERM-03025]
____________________________
The
BURG ELTZ Cemetery in WIERSCHEM , GERMANY
Location: On the slopes of Burg Eltz. Six gravestones in a clearing to the right of a path leading from the left side of the road (in the direction from Münstermaifeld toward Wierschem), just before the road makes a sharp right turn, beyond Wierschem. Very difficult to find. This old cemetery was located near where most of the area's Jewish population lived, working as serfs for the Dukes of Eltz in their medieval castle prior to 1790. As the area's Jews were emancipated, they moved off the Burg Eltz castle grounds and into the surrounding villages including Münstermaifeld, Polch, Mertloch, Gappenach, Naunheim, Roes and Kollig. Burials in this old cemetery ceased when the Jewish cemetery in Mertloch opened in the late 1800s.
On July 13, 1987, Herr Ritzenhofen, the manager of Burg Eltz, told us that the Jewish tombstones were almost all knocked down and smashed during and after World War II by people and falling trees and were covered by the earth. He said he ordered his workmen to put up the six remaining gravestones in a place where they would be easily accessible and not knocked down again.
One can see that some of the gravestones had swastikas hacked into them. Most of the gravestones were removed and were probably used as building stones in the area, and thus a vast historical record has been lost and a religious shrine has been deliberately desecrated.
|
