KEMPTEN (Allgäu): 87439 Bavaria, Swabia (Gerz, Peters).
DISTRICT: Urban District.
LOCATION OF CEMETERY:
-
The Jewish cemetery is completely separate but within the Catholic cemetery on Memminger Straße/corner Adenauerring (B) (Detail).
IN USE: From 1876 until 1981. One further burial took place in 2008, by special permission.
NUMBER OF GRAVESTONES: Unspecified.
DOCUMENTATION:
-
Numerous individual gravestone photographs and general cemetery views in Alemannia Judaica.
-
Jüdische Friedhöfe in Bayern publ. Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kunst, Haus der Bayerischen Geschichte (see Kempten).
PUBLICATIONS:
-
Israel Schwierz: Steinerne Zeugnisse jüdischen Lebens in Bayern - refer to Sources below.
-
Michael Trüger: Der jüdische Friedhof in Kempten, publ. Der Landesverband der Israelitischen. Kultusgemeinden in Bayern. 15. Jahrgang Nr. 82 April 2000, page 15.
NOTES:
-
There are two memorials in the cemetery: one is a commemorative plaque dedicated in 1960 in honor of the 16 named Jewish citizens of Kempten who were murdered during the Nazi epoch; the second is a commemorative stone in honor of 6 Jewish concentration camp victims from Poland, Lithuania and Hungary. At the back of the cemetery is an additional memorial stone in honor of non-Jewish prisoners of war and foreign workers who were buried here on the orders of the Gestapo (German Secret Police).
-
According to records kept by Yad Vashem, Jerusalem and based on information in the "Gedenkbuches - Opfer der Verfolgung der Juden unter der nationalsozialistischen Gewaltherrschaft in Deutschland 1933-1945", another 30 named Jewish citizens from Kempten perished during the Nazi era.
-
In order to protect this cemetery from desecration by the Nazis, the then-Lord Mayor of Kempten, Dr.Otto Merkt, ordered the planting of a tall growing hedge including a metal gate in 1939. The cemetery, kept in excellent condition, is still enclosed by the thick hedge and also by wire mesh fencing with a metal lattice gate.
SOURCE: Alemannia Judaica and Schwierz, pages 265-266 (Schwierz LBI).
(Researched and translated from German December 2009)