CELLE | NIEDERSACHSEN (LOWER SAXONY) | International Jewish Cemetery Project

CELLE: 29223 Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen) (Gerz, Peters).

DISTRICT: Celle.

LOCATION OF CEMETERY:

IN USE: From 1692 until 1953.

NUMBER OF GRAVESTONES: 288.

DOCUMENTATION:

1974-92 photographs, copies of inscriptions with translations of all gravestones by Bar-Giora Bamberger, in cooperation with the city of Celle.

PUBLICATIONS:

Naftali Bar-Giora Bamberger: Der jüdische Friedhof in Celle - Memor-Buch BET HA-KEVAROT HA-YEHUDI BE-TSELLEH publ. Heidelberg, C. Winter [c1992], 231 pages illust.,maps, tables (LBI).
History in Celle 1974, pages, 47-54.
Complete documentation by Bamberger 1992.

NOTES:

The low fenced-in area of the cemetery acquired in 1704 was enlarged in 1741 and again in 1758, which included a half-timbered dwelling for a caretaker. This building was renovated in 1879. At the same time a hearse was purchased. A replacement for the original wattle fence by a high, gated wall was started in 1885 and continued through 1904. The cemetery was enlarged in 1879. A domed mortuary was built in 1910/11.
The mortuary was demolished during Kristallnacht (9/10 November 1938) but damage to the gravestones was prevented by the non-Jewish caretaker, August Schmidt. He still maintained 11 graves in 1940. The cemetery was compulsorily acquired by the city authority in September 1944.
In 1947 nearly 500 displaced Jews, mostly concentration camp survivors from Silesia and Poland, lived in Celle.
Cemetery reconstruction was undertaken in 1951 and ownership transferred to the Jewish Trust Cooperation. The Association of Jewish Communities in Lower Saxony became the legal owners in 1959.
The cemetery was vandalised 3 times between 1962 and 1970 and again in 1985. A 7-year old boy was killed in 1966 by a toppling gravestone whilst playing, because the cemetery had become completely neglected. The dilapidated small prayer house and the caretaker's dwelling were demolished in 1974.

(Researched and translated from German June 2009)