A history of Münster's Jewish cemeteries
Wherever a Jewish community is established, efforts to establish a cemetery of its own are given a high priority. Only in that way can the deceased members of the congregation be brought together at a place that offers them eternal rest (Bet Olam – “house of eternity”).
The Jewish cemetery on Einsteinstrasse was - and is - not the only one ...
The first Jewish cemetery in Münster (13th and 14th centuries)
The medieval Jewish community of Münster, which was first established in the 13th century, already had its own burial ground. This was located on the site of today’s Gymnasium Paulinum (high school) and is commemorated by a memorial stone. Only two gravestone fragments - the oldest from 1313/14 and another from 1324 - have survived from this cemetery. A few others were "rediscovered" in the 19th and 20th centuries during construction work at various locations in Münster, where they had been used to reinforce foundations or masonry.
Interlude: the Anabaptist period (1536–1554)
The medieval Jewish community had been wiped out. For a period of some 200 years, there is only sporadic evidence that Jews lived in Münster. This changed due to Bishop Franz von Waldeck. He brought Jewish families to Münster from his home in northern Hesse. They were useful to him as taxpayers, moneylenders and healers. But once again, Jews weren't allowed to take up residence in Münster ...
An urgent request and a new beginning (1811)
It was under French rule that the first Jewish families were able to settle in Münster. At the beginning of 1811, a delegation of Münster's Jewish community approached the acting mayor with the urgent request that they be allocated a burial place, as a death had occurred. The mayor sided with them, but needed approval from the representative of the French occupying power. His response was a cautious one ...
Permission granted in a day! (1812)
One year later, on June 1, 1812, the Jewish community launched another endeavor to obtain its own burial ground. Once again, it was because a child had died. This time Nathan Metz wrote directly to the new Prefect, who officiated from Münster’s Schloss. Citing the new legal situation, which put all religions on an equal footing, he appealed to the Prefect’s goodwill and sense of justice. Would the Prefect be swayed?
Following tradition (1812–1880)
Only one gravestone from the period before 1840 has survived – a Second World War bomb destroyed many of the older stones. The graves on the right-hand side of the cemetery date mainly from the 1860s–1880s, whereas the area to the left of the main path was added from 1887. The older gravestones convey a representative impression of the Jewish families' attachment to tradition and their religious beliefs at the time when Münster was part of the Kingdom of Prussia, and into the early years of the German Empire from 1871 on.
German citizens of the Jewish faith (1880–1933)
In the German Empire (1871-1918), Jewish men and women finally enjoyed equal rights as “German citizens of the Jewish faith”, and this was still the case in the Weimar Republic (1919-1933). The gravestones from these decades, as well as the mourning hallbuilt in 1928, reflect the extent to which the Jews absorbed and adopted the culture of the majority of the population as a matter of course. They document the pride which the Jews took in their German citizenship, but they also reflect the continuing affinity with Jewish tradition – which itself had been undergoing radical change since the early 19th century.
Under the Nazi regime (1933–1945)
During the "Third Reich", barracks were built next to the cemetery. Although the Jewish community was eradicated, the cemetery remained intact. However, the city authorities had plans to sell it off. A series of gravestones are testimony to the succession of events during this period: after initial hopes that the situation would normalize after the 1933 boycott of Jewish stores, the passing of the first laws discriminating against Jews gave way to a growing number of expulsions and, finally, to the deportation and murder of Münster's German-Jewish inhabitants.
A courageous new beginning (1945–1990)
After World War II, a handful of survivors of the Shoah returned to the Münsterland region and the city of Münster. Siegfried and Else Goldenberg were notable for their tireless efforts to revive the community, and this also involved restoring the cemetery. Like all Jewish communities in the young Federal Republic, this one remained small.
Into the present
With the influx of so-called Kontingentflüchtlinge (“quota refugees”) from the countries of the former USSR, the Jewish community tripled in size in the years after 1990. It then became clear that further burial plots would be needed. In 2002, the Münster city authorities provided a burial ground at the Hohe Ward municipal cemetery in Hiltrup that was segregated from the Christian section. Since then, use of the cemetery on Einsteinstrasse has been reserved for members of the community who had already been promised a burial plot there.