Monday, May 23, 2011

Jewish Cemetery in Diemen


Last Friday I visited a large Jewish cemetery in Diemen, a suburb of Amsterdam. It is hidden between a highway and a railroad. Although I have been working in Diemen for 10 years now I didn’t know about this cemetery. I coincidentally read about it in this photographer’s blog. 


A lot of the gravestones show WWII dates, also about 400 funerary urns from the Dutch concentration camp at Westerbork have been placed in Diemen. Between the years 1943-1945, under pressure of circumstances, about 529 Jews were cremated in Westerbork. Cremation is quite unusual in Judaism.

next episode: Antonia
posted by Rob from Amersfoort
Pin It
Labels: ,

2 comments:

  1. Nate MaasMay 23, 2011 7:29 PM

    What an interesting find. You never find slate tombstones from as late as the 1940s here in the United States. Do they still produce slate tombstones in Holland today?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Rob From AmersfoortMay 24, 2011 10:35 PM

    Yes, I believe so. But I don't walk around graveyards often so I'm no expert in the matter.

    ReplyDelete

I love to read your remarks and suggestions!

Please don't comment using the name 'Anonymous', because unfortunately these will end up in the spam department, due to the large bots leaving anonymous comments with questionable links...

Also don't use links that refer to commercial sites, this is spam (and me no likey spam)!

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

ShareThis

Gadgets By Spice Up Your Blog Real Time Web Analytics