Jewish Museum and Cemetery, Hohenems, Vorarlberg is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Vorarlberg. The Jewish cemetery in Hohenems is just as old as the first settlement of Jewish people in 1617. The settlement was initiated when Earl Kaspar of Hohenems who welcomed 12 Jewish families from Southern Germany and Switzerland (Rheineck) into his dominion. He assigned a piece of land to them in the so-called 'Schwefel' (sulphur) at the end of the town which they could use for Jewish burials. Today in the same place stands the Jewish Museum and Cemetery, Hohenems, Vorarlberg
The cemetery is located at a timbered slope of the 'Schwefelberg' or sulphur mountain. There might be more than 500 graves in total in the cemetery. There are 370 gravestones that are preserved up till now. Unlike the Christian tradition, the Jewish graves are indissoluble and this assigns considerable cultural and historical importance to Jewish cemeteries. . In recent times, the Jewish Museum of Hohenems has compiled a detailed survey of the cemetery including a photographic documentation of all still existing gravestones out there. The Jewish cemetery, having survived the era of the Nazi regime without being damaged, was bought from the Jewish community of Innsbruck by a group of descendants of Jewish families from Hohenems who lived near the Austrian border in the canton of St. Gallen, Switzerland.
The Jewish Museum and Cemetery, Hohenems, Vorarlberg stands as a regional museum, paying homage to the rural Jewish community of Hohenems and its various contributions to the development of Vorarlberg and the surrounding regions. The museum confronts contemporary questions of Jewish life and culture in Europe, questions of the future of Europe between migration and tradition. The Jewish Museum and Cemetery, Hohenems also deals with the end of the community of Hohenems, the regional Nazi history, the deportation of the last members of the community, anti-Semitism and the Holocaust. Along with these patchy lines of global and regional history, the museum is also devoted to the people and their histories and maintains a cordial relationship with the descendants of Jewish families in Hohenems around the world.
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