Weißensee

My favourite place on earth is a cemetery. Sounds morbid, but it's really exactly the opposite, if you can believe it. Because this particular cemetery, located in the Berlin district of Weißensee, is in fact full of life, and it tells an enduring story of Jewish life in this city. It's the most peaceful place you can probably find in Berlin, and it's certainly one of the most eerily beautiful. But, here, see for yourself:

There. Do you see why I love this place so much?

Pictures can't really do it justice, of course, not only in terms of its beauty but also its sheer size, the expansiveness of the place. It is the largest Jewish cemetery in Europe, containing over a hundred thousand graves. It is...immense. When I went yesterday, on a quiet Tuesday afternoon, I encountered a mere handful of people, and this was mostly only at the entrance. For most of the time, I was entirely alone. It was just me and the hundreds of birds that must live among those hundreds of trees.

Mostly, it seems like a wild place. Green covers virtually everything. Ivy climbs the stones, the trees. A thin sheen of moss even covers the marble pillars of some of the mausoleums. Time has ravaged many of the tombstones, making the names and dates on them illegible. Some of the more elaborate structures have collapsed, or are in the slow process of deteriorating, into ruins. It seems like a place that has been abandoned to nature and its vagaries. But at the same time, there is an undeniable coherency to the place. The paths stretch on forever, crisscrossing geometrically to produce these well-ordered (of course, in Germany) plots, neatly organised into sections and fields. The imprint of man's design. It's like giving a colouring book to a child who scribbles like crazy, beautifully--but miraculously stays within the lines.

I took this photo (from a sign posted by the entrance) so I wouldn't get lost.

I can't imagine the nightmare it must be to be a groundskeeper in Weißensee. How does one strike that balance? How do you fight to maintain the integrity of these graves while also preserving the wild beauty of the place?

And the history within those walls...jeez. I couldn't even tell you how many notable German Jews are buried in that cemetery. Loads. The first burial in the cemetery took place in 1880. The cemetery has seen Berlin's Jewry through its golden age and darkest hours. For some reason, the Nazis left Weißensee mostly alone during the Third Reich. Under the threatening rule of Hitler, hopeful emigrants learnt and practiced horticulture techniques in the cemetery to prepare them for their lives in then Palestine. Later on, once the deportations to the death camps in the east began, Jews who went underground took refuge in the cemetery. And, after the fall of the Nazi regime, the shattered remnants of Berlin's Jewish community not only built a Holocaust memorial on the site, but also saw that the ashes from hundreds of concentration camp victims were interred in the sacred ground of the cemetery. In addition, hundreds of Torah scrolls that had been desecrated at the hands of the Nazis, and then hidden for the duration of the war by members of the community, were given a proper burial in following with Jewish custom.

The stone reads: "Here lie desecrated Torah scrolls."

And then, with the rise of the Cold War and the division of the city, Weißensee found itself on the East, where the tiny Jewish community lacked the resources and ability to properly take care of the cemetery. Slowly, over the years, and particularly since reunification, Weißensee has been restored to the form it is in today. But still it continues to bear witness to Jewish life. It has been the site of vandalism on many separate occasions, and will likely continue to be a target for antisemitic douchebags for years to come--probably because its enduring solidity threatens them just as much as it comforts me.