Jewish Cemetery on Schönhauser Allee
Why is it significant?
Walk through the gate and the noise of Schönhauser Allee drops away behind you. Ivy covers almost everything, gravestones lean against one another under old trees, and the light comes down in green patches as if you were underwater. Men are asked to cover their heads here, as in any Jewish cemetery.
Key Facts
| Place | Jewish Cemetery on Schönhauser Allee |
|---|---|
| Address | Schönhauser Allee 23-25, 10435 Berlin, Germany |
| Geo Coordinates | 52.53420, 13.41310 |
| Part of Walk | Candles and Courtyards: Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin, from 1933 to the Autumn of 1989 |
| Generated | Generated |
Walk through the gate and the noise of Schönhauser Allee drops away behind you. Ivy covers almost everything, gravestones lean against one another under old trees, and the light comes down in green patches as if you were underwater. Men are asked to cover their heads here, as in any Jewish cemetery.
The Jewish Cemetery on Schönhauser Allee was opened in 1827, when this was still open country outside the city. More than twenty thousand people are buried here. By 1880 it was full, and the community opened its huge new cemetery in Weißensee, so this one became a time capsule of the Jewish Berlin of the nineteenth century, the bankers, doctors, publishers and musicians who helped build the modern city.
Among them lies the composer Giacomo Meyerbeer, the superstar of nineteenth century opera, who was buried in his family's plot in 1864. And here, too, is the painter Max Liebermann, the leading figure of German Impressionism, who had once been president of the Prussian Academy of Arts.
Liebermann died in February 1935, two years into the Nazi dictatorship. Officially, the art world he had led for decades ignored his death. Only a small group of friends dared to come to the funeral, and Käthe Kollwitz, from the square you have just left, was among them. His widow, Martha Liebermann, stayed in Berlin. In 1943, aged eighty-five, as she was about to be deported, she took her own life.
Behind the cemetery wall runs a narrow lane called the Judengang, the Jews' path. The story goes that it was a separate way in for funeral processions, so that they would not have to pass along the main road... and whether that is true or not, it says something about how the living felt they had to tread carefully. Leave by the gate and turn left along Schönhauser Allee. In a few steps you reach a small triangular square with a white marble statue.