Jewish cemetery in Roßau, Jewish cemetery in Alsergrund, Vienna, Austria.
The Jewish cemetery in Roßau, also called the Seegasse Jewish cemetery, lies in the courtyard of the former Jewish sick house at Seegasse 9–11 in Vienna's 9th district, Alsergrund. It covers about 2,000 m² and is the oldest preserved cemetery in Vienna. Its gravestones, inscribed entirely in Hebrew, were largely buried during the Nazi era and later re-erected using Bernhard Wachstein's plans from the 1910s.
The cemetery functioned as Vienna's main Jewish burial ground from 1540 until 1783, when Emperor Joseph II banned burials within city walls. The gravestones were later hidden to protect them from destruction during times of persecution.
The gravestones carry inscriptions entirely in Hebrew, as required by Jewish burial custom. The cemetery's name shifted with the lane outside: in 1629 it was recorded as Gassel allwo der Juden Grabstätte, from 1778 Judengasse, and only in 1862 did it become Seegasse, after a fish pond once called a lake in a 1415 document.
The cemetery lies in the courtyard of the pensioners' home at Seegasse 9–11 in Alsergrund and is reached through the building, so access must be arranged with the home's administration beforehand. The roughly 2,000 m² grounds are a Jewish burial site; men traditionally cover their heads there.
In January 1941 the Nazi authorities decided to raze the cemetery and build over the site; Jewish forced labourers were ordered to remove part of the gravestones and bury them at the Zentralfriedhof. In the 1980s, 280 of the original 931 stones were found there and re-erected using Bernhard Wachstein's surveys from the 1910s. Restoration since 2008 has also uncovered stones buried within the Seegasse grounds themselves.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 94,063 contributors worldwide.