In medieval and early modern times, Jews in the Duchy of Bavaria were persecuted on multiple occasions and eventually expelled from the territory ruled by the Wittelsbach dynasty. Bavarian Jews therefore lived almost exclusively in areas outside the former Bavarian Electorate, i.e. in Franconia, Swabia, and the Palatinate. It was not until the 18th century that a small Jewish community was also established in Munich, the members of which mostly served the Wittelsbach court. Discrimination was still an everyday occurrence as the municipal authorities in Munich tolerated neither burials nor births of Jewish children within city walls. This meant that Jews in Munich had to travel to Augsburg-Kriegshaber for births and funerals.
Jewish women were only allowed to give birth in Munich from the end of the 18th century, while the construction of a Jewish cemetery allowed Jews to be buried in Munich from 1816 on. Jewish cemeteries are designed to be ‘eternal resting places’; the reuse of abandoned gravesites is forbidden out of respect for the dead. The growing community made numerous additions to the cemetery in Thalkirchner Straße, most recently in 1881; it now contains approx. 5500 gravestones dating from the 19th and 20th centuries. A new cemetery hall was built in 1882 as the old ‘purification house’ had become too small. In 1904, the community had to open a new cemetery; from then on, burials could only take place in existing family graves. Some Jewish victims of the violence at Dachau Concentration Camp were laid to rest there between 1933 and 1940. In 1942, the Gestapo put a stop even to additional burials in family graves, and the cemetery site fell victim to ‘Aryanization‘.
The relevant sales contract was rescinded, but the Nazi metal collectors had already removed the iron grave enclosures. Parts of the cemetery were used by a horticultural business. The apparently unused areas in the cemetery are gravesites from which the gravestones are missing. During the Second World War, parts of the cemetery were destroyed by bombs and the Nazis had some of the gravestones removed.
The inscriptions on the gravestones and monuments are in Hebrew and German, sometimes both. The animal illustrations, e.g. of deer and bears, are significant as they portray the names of deceased males. The Bible associates certain names with certain animals as mentioned in Jacob’s blessing (Genesis 49), which links some of the tribes of Israel with animals, e.g. Judah with the lion, Naphtali with the deer. Michael Beer (Giacomo Meyerbeer’s brother), for example, who is buried in the cemetery, has a sarcophagus designed by Leo von Klenze and decorated with illustrations of bears. The cemetery still exists today but is not open to the public. Guided tours are possible.
