The oldest visible preserved Jewish cemetery in Berlin comprises 22,500 individual and 750 family graves. The cemetery installed 1827 comprising five hectares served for all Jews who died until 1890 in Berlin but also took in a few individuals up to 1970.

Of particular interest is the fact that there are bilingual inscriptions on the gravestones in German and Hebrew. They are witness to the conflicts in the Jewish lives in the 19th century but also show the will of the Jews in Berlin to integrate themselves into German society. The names read like taken from a "Who is Who" of the Prussian history of culture. Ludwig Bamberger (1823-1899, revolutionary, Member of Parliament, banker, co-founder of the German Reichsbank), Gerson Bleichröder (1822-1893, banker of the Hohenzollern Dynasty and of Chanceller Bismarck, first Prussian Jew raised into nobility), Meno Burg (1788-1853, first Jewish officer in Prussia), Rabbi Abraham Geiger (1810-1874, important jewish theologian, co-founder of the University of the Science of Jewish History and Culture), Eduard Lasker (1829-1884, jurist, Member of Parliament, reformer of law), Max Liebermann (1847-1935, impressionist painter and graphic artist, President of the Prussian Academy of the Arts) Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791-1864, composer of operas), Leopold Ullstein (1826-1899, publisher). The ruins of the cemetery building destroyed in the Second World War were demolished in 1956. On the grounds of the mortuary and the prayer house stands a lapidary since 2005 (Architects: Ruth Golan and Kay Zareh). In the presentation hall made out of black granite, glass and steel precious Jewish gravestones are being preserved as well as Jewish memorial and burial rites explained.

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