The cemetery Endingen-Lengnau is also called "the good place" - because the graves were protected from storm and flooding.
Ester Unterfinger/swissinfo.ch
The lettering was in Hebrew script. German was used only from the middle of the 19th century onwards.
Ester Unterfinger/swissinfo.ch
The old gravestones were made of local sandstone.
Ester Unterfinger/swissinfo.ch
Wealthier families used marble for the tombstones that weathered less quickly.
Ester Unterfinger/swissinfo.ch
Emblems indicate occupational activities of the deceased. The places of death mentioned show where the Jews had moved before their death.
Ester Unterfinger/swissinfo.ch
The old part of the cemetery is marked by the weather and decay.
Ester Unterfinger/swissinfo.ch
According to the Jewish funeral culture, the deceased rest until the Day of Resurrection. Therefore, the graves are never closed.
Ester Unterfinger/swissinfo.ch
The last graves on the 'Jewish island' were closed and the dead were re-buried here.
Ester Unterfinger/swissinfo.ch
The custom of putting small stones on tombstones goes back to when graves of the Israelites were erected in the desert under pyramids. They threatened to collapse, disturbing the peace of the dead. To ensure that the dead could rest in peace, visitors laid a new stone on the pyramid.
Ester Unterfinger/swissinfo.ch
According to Jewish tradition, people are buried with their feet pointing east, but here they lie to the north. The reason for this is not known.
Ester Unterfinger/swissinfo.ch
The cemetery is still in use. Men and women are buried in separate rows.
Ester Unterfinger/swissinfo.ch
The Holocaust memorial at the Jewish cemetery was inaugurated in 2014. Several hundred Swiss citizens lost their lives in the Holocaust.
Ester Unterfinger/swissinfo.ch
How did the largest and oldest Jewish cemetery in Switzerland come to lie in a wooded no man's land between the villages of Endingen and Lengnau in the north of the country?
It began in 1646, when Swiss authorities decided to expel all Jews from the country. But because no other nation wanted to take them in, they were finally allowed to stay in the county of Baden, an area situated west of Zurich which was the subject territory of all Swiss Confederates.
The bailiff of Baden was not opposed to the idea, since he was assured of receiving high protection money and taxes from the Jews. But the town of Baden did not want them, and the Jewish families therefore moved to the villages of Lengnau and Endingen in the nearby Surb Valley.
Proximity to Baden was important, since the Jews were only allowed to work as peddlers and traders and they could do some modest business there. For decades it was the only place where they were allowed to live.
Similarly, the Jews were only allowed to bury their dead on a small island in the Rhine river near Koblenz. Since this so-called “Jewish islandExternal link” was repeatedly devastated by floods, in 1750 the Jews of the Surb Valley asked for a cemetery to be built near their villages. They managed to buy a piece of land on the road between Lengnau and Endingen for 340 gulden, and they built a burial site.
Over the years, the cemetery was enlarged several times, and today it contains around 2,700 graves and has been listed as a cultural heritage site of national importance since 1963.
Around 18,600 Jews live in SwitzerlandExternal link, corresponding to 0.4% of the population. Two Jewish families still live in Endingen and Lengnau. In the middle of the 19th century, half of the population was Jewish. Synagogues, rather than church buildings, mark both village centres.
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