Jewish Cemetery, Währing

The Jewish Cemetery in Währing, opened in 1784, was the main burial site for members of the Jewish Religious Organization ("Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Wien") of Vienna. Besides the St. Marx Cemetery it is the last remaining cemetery of Vienna in the Biedermeier style. After its closure in the 1880s, it was partially destroyed during the time of the Third Reich, and is now only partly accessible due to its deteriorating condition. A long-running debate over the restoration of the cemetery has been taking place since 2006 between politicians of the federal and local levels as well as experts.

Location

Originally the cemetery was part of the Viennese suburb of Währing. Today, however, due to boundary changes, the cemetery, despite its name, is no longer part of the 18th Vienna district of Währing, but belongs to Döbling, the 19th district. The entry is at No 3 Schrottenbachgasse.

History

Due to the sanitation ordinance of the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, every graveyard in Vienna within the city walls had to be closed. In place of the old local graveyardsthat had developed around the parish churches, new graveyards were constructed outside the city walls. The Jewish community was also affected by this measure, as they maintained a cemetery in the Seegasse (Roßau). This cemetery was closed. For this reason, in 1784 the Jewish community acquired a 2-hectare plot of land next to the newly constructed General Cemetery of Währing; there, in the same year, they opened the new Jewish cemetery, demarcated by a wall. Originally, the cemetery consisted only of the part to the west of the entrance; however, it was twice expanded towards the east through the purchase of more land. Until the completion of the Jewish part of the Zentralfriedhof in 1879 approximately 8000 to 9000 graves were constructed here. Unlike at the Jewish cemetery in Roßau, where only Hebrew inscriptions may be found, in the Währing cemetery gravestones with Hebrew as well as German writing exist. A last few, occasional burials took place in the family vaults in the late 1880s. After that, no more burials took place at the cemetery. Around 1900 an avenue of lime trees was planted in the middle of the unused cemetery. This is a sign of how liberal the Jewish community in Vienna at the time was, as lime trees planted next to priests' graves are supposed to dissolve the separation between these graves and the surrounding graves in the traditional Jewish mindset.

The neighbouring General Währing Cemetery ("Allgemeiner Währinger Friedhof") was broken up in the 1920s and turned into the Währingerpark. The Jewish Cemetery, on the other hand, was left standing due to the Jewish religious laws regarding consecrated ground. In the Nazi period, a substantial portion of the cemetery was however destroyed. Approximately 1,500–2,000 graves were destroyed through excavation work for a fire protection pond that was never constructed. The congregation exhumed the affected graves so far as possible beforehand, and transported the remains to the Zentralfriedhof after the large-scale organising of trucks and fuel, where they were buried in a mass grave. The excavation material for the pond was used for building work at the Urban-Loritz-Platz. The remains of a further 200 dead were brought to the Naturhistorisches Museum of Vienna by the Nazis for analysis and research in the field of "racial studies". The remains were later likewise interred at the Zentralfriedhof. In 1942 there followed the expropriation of the whole plot of land; the Jewish community was forced to sell the cemetery to the city. After the premises of the cemetery were declared a bird sanctuary by a courageous city civil servant, at least the remaining land could be preserved.

After World War II the cemetery was returned to the Jewish "Kultusgemeinde" after tough negotiations, but the destroyed part had to be given to the city in exchange. Thereupon, the city decided to develop the plot of land that had been cheaply acquired as grassland; it then constructed the "Arthur Schnitzler-Hof", a Plattenbau from the 1960s. Meanwhile, the rapid deterioration of the cemetery began, as the Jewish "Kultusgemeinde" could not afford to preserve it. Even after the Republic of Austria obliged itself in 2001, in the Washington Agreement, to render assistance for the preservation and restoration of Jewish cemeteries, no steps were taken towards the preservation of this cemetery. The Republic of Austria's payments to the Jewish "Kultusgemeinde" for the upkeep of Jewish cemeteries are used for the preservation of the two Jewish sections of the Zentralfriedhof, and as such, there are hardly any funds available for the maintenance of the Jewish Cemetery in Währing. Even after the declaration by the Vienna Restitution Commissioner Kurt Scholz that usage of the site as a park would be enabled, only a few rotten trees were felled. Following calls by the Vienna Greens for a clean-up of the cemetery, at the end of February 2006 the city councillor responsible for city finances at the time, Sepp Rieder (Social Democratic Party), suggested as a solution a foundation, in which the federation, the city and private donors would have a stake. However, in June 2006 the mayor, Michael Häupl, called on rather the federation to pay for the repairs, and saw any possible contribution from the federal states as at most a "voluntary contribution". Concrete steps were therefore not taken. As no further maintenance of the tree population was undertaken, further gravestones were destroyed through wind damage (see Kyrill (storm)). In early 2007, the Jewish "Kultusgemeinde" estimated the cost of repairing the cemetery at 14 million euros and planned to turn the caretaker's house into a meeting house. In January 2007, along with the Educult institute, the Jewish "Kultusgemeinde" started an initiative that envisaged the publishing of a book and a photo calendar, as well as an exhibition, that would contribute to restoring the property. In addition, the until then irregular guided tours of the cemetery are now offered on a monthly basis. On 2 March 2007, the Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) and the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) finally agreed to a proposal by the Greens in the city council, that the "worst dangers and damages" on the cemetery should be cleared by the city of Vienna through the city's horticultural agency. To be able to restore and preserve the property long-term, however, the city of Vienna is relying heavily on the federation participating. The President of the National Council, Barbara Prammer, with a working group of representatives of the federation, federal states and local authorities, is planning the formulation of an all-Austrian solution.

References

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