Alter Jüdischer Friedhof, Medieval Jewish cemetery in Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Germany.
The Old Jewish Cemetery in Rothenburg ob der Tauber is a medieval burial ground with 45 preserved gravestone fragments dating from 1339 to 1520. The stones originally lay at Schrannenplatz and were later moved to the Rothenburg Museum, where they are now conserved and studied.
The cemetery was established in the 14th century as a burial place for the Jewish community and remained in use until 1520, when Jews were expelled from the city. After the expulsion, many gravestones were reused as building material or buried and forgotten underground.
The surviving gravestones show Jewish burial customs and inscriptions from medieval times, reflecting the life of the Jewish community then. Visitors can discover personal names and dates in the inscriptions today, bearing witness to an established Jewish community in the city.
The restored gravestones are now housed in the Rothenburg Museum and can be viewed during regular opening hours. It makes sense to combine a museum visit with exploring the medieval old town, since Schrannenplatz is located centrally in the city.
In 1914, construction workers unexpectedly found 33 medieval gravestones during excavation at Schrannenplatz. These underground discoveries with their still-readable inscriptions show how completely the stones had vanished beneath soil and rubble and how narrowly they escaped being lost forever.
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