Dülmen, Jüdischer Friedhof -- 2023 -- 6451 (bw)

About this work

Jewish cemetery in Dülmen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany In Dülmen, the old Jewish cemetery was located at Lüdinghausen Gate – a burial site that had been used by Jewish community members since the early 17th century and existed until 1937. The dead of the Jewish community were buried there before a new cemetery was later established on Kapellenweg. In 1937, under pressure from the National Socialists and against the will of the Jewish community, the old cemetery was closed and the land sold. The gravestones of those buried there were moved to the then newer Jewish cemetery on Kapellenweg, but no exhumations took place within the tight deadline. After the cemetery was leveled, the vacated area was given the name Hindenburgplatz, named after the former Reich President Paul von Hindenburg. This square was created directly on the site of the former burial ground. Parts of the graves that had not yet been removed were covered; the local NSDAP used a swastika flower bed to plant the square, which symbolically represented the desecration of a sacred place. After the end of World War II, the name Hindenburgplatz was no longer officially used. The former cemetery area was later built…