Wrocław: If you have more time...
Jewish Cemetery / Mieczysław Michalak / Agencja Gazeta
Sepulchral Art Museum
This branch of Wroclaw Municipal Museum is not the typical exhibition area one might expect, but an old Jewish cemetery which is the city's only end of 19th and beginning of 20th century necropolis preserved until today. The first burial took place there in 1856 and the last one in 1942. During that time the cemetery was enlarged 3 times to the size of today's 5ha where about 12,000 can be found. Original and unique grave sculptures can be admired there as well as petite architecture blending with well-kept greenery. You can see the changes in sepulchral design over decades. Besides traditional mitzvahs some monumental family tombs can be found there whose frequently daring forms reflect contemporary fashion and architectural influences ranging from antiquity through the middle ages to Art Deco and Modernism. Numerous eminent persons are buried there e.g. Ferdinand Lassalle (1825-1864) - founder of German's first working class party; Heinrich Graetz (1817-1891) - founder of the famous historical school; Ferdinand Cohn (1828-1898) - biochemist of worldwide renown; Herman Cohn (1836-1906) - eminent oculist; Leopold Auerbach (1828-1897) - biologist of worldwide renown: Friderike Kempner (1828 - 1904) - famous Silesian writer; Auguste and Siegfried Stein - Edith Stein's parents (St. Theresa Benedicta of The Cross; HenrykToeplitz (1822 -1891) - artists' patron, among them Stanisław Moniuszki; Jakob Rosanes (1842 1922) - mathematician and chess master; Clara Sachs (1862-1921) - Impressionist painter; Gedalje Tiktin (1810-1886) - Wroclaw's orthodox rabbi; Marcus Brann (1849-1920) - historian, specialist of Jewish History in Silesia; Max Kayser (1853-1888) - Social Democrat, Reichstag member. The cemetery was declared a historical monument in 1975 and it was turned into epulchral museum in 1988.