Germany - The Jewish Cemetery of Altona Königstraße. Sephardic Sepulchral Culture of the 17th and 18th century between Europe and the Caribbean

"Today it is called “The Jewish Cemetery of Altona Königstrasse” in Hamburg. The site covers an area of almost 1.9 hectares and is the amalgamation of two adjacent but separate cemeteries, namely the southwestern part laid out by Sephardic Jews in 1611, which extends over one fourth of the cemetery, and the other section to the north and east, a cemetery laid out by the Ashkenazi Jews in 1616. This makes it not only the oldest Jewish cemetery, but the oldest of all cemeteries in Hamburg. In fact, its Sephardic part is the oldest preserved cemetery of the Sephardim who emigrated from Portugal to northern Europe. Sephardim is the name which those Iberian Jews gave themselves who lived in Spain until 1492 and then emigrated in large numbers to North Africa, the Ottoman Empire or Italy where they founded their own Jewish congregations or joined existing ones. Then there are the descendants of Jews who were baptized against their will in Portugal in 1497. They call themselves “Portuguese”, or, more rarely, Sephardim. At the time they were mostly known as crypto-Jews, New Christians or Marranos. They started to leave Portugal in 1531 and settled in northern Europe at the end of the 16th century. Their preferred destinations were the seaport cities of the Netherlands (Antwerp and Amsterdam), of northern Germany (Hamburg, Glückstadt, Emden, Stade), and, from the middle of the 17th century, also the New World (Curaçao, Barbados, Jamaica, Surinam, Nevis, St. Eustatius, St. Thomas, New York etc.)."

Source: UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List


Jewish Cemetery of Altona. Thanks to Marcel of Germany.