page_title: Weißensee cemetery
section_title: Post-World War II
hierarchical_section_title: Weißensee cemetery / Post-World War II
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. ADN-ZB-Schindler-11.9.88-Berlin: Gedenken an jüdische Opfer des Faschismus - Dr. Peter Kirchner, Vorsitzender der Jüdischen Gemeinde Berlin (r. mit Kranz) legte auf dem jüdischen Friedhof in der Weißenseer Herbert-Benz-Straße einen Kranz nieder.
context_page_description: The Weißensee Cemetery is a Jewish cemetery located in the neighborhood of Weißensee in Berlin, Germany. It is the second largest Jewish cemetery in Europe. The cemetery covers approximately 42 ha and contains approximately 115,000 graves. It was dedicated in 1880.
context_section_description: After World War II, Jews from all parts of Berlin continued to use the cemetery up until 1955. Between 1955 and German reunification in 1990, only the small Jewish community in East Berlin used it.
  During the four decades of the German Democratic Republic, the cemetery was relatively neglected because most of Berlin's Jewish community had been murdered during, or had fled from, the Holocaust. Many of the graves were left unattended and became overgrown with weeds.
  In the 1970s, plans to build an expressway over part of the cemetery were considered, linking Michelangelostraße to the newly constructed Hansastraße.  This proposal was dropped due to strong objections from the remaining Jewish community.
  It has been estimated by cemetery officials that the cost of fully repairing the damage caused by years of neglect would amount to 40 million euros. On the occasion of the cemetery's 125th anniversary, appeals were made to the Berlin government to increase funding, so that a bid can be made to add the site to the UNESCO world heritage list. The bid was supported by Berlin's former mayor Klaus Wowereit.
  The cemetery is open to visitors, and the index of grave sites is largely intact.
caption: September 1988
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