The still-operating New Jewish Cemetery in Leipzig was established in 1928. Its characteristic element used to be a funeral parlour topped by a more than 20-metre-large dome. However, this construction was mostly destroyed during the so-called ‘Night of Broken Glass’ (the ‘Crystal Night’), while the remaining parts of the building were obliterated in 1939.
The cemetery holds the graves of approximately 60 Polish Jews, most of whom died in 1940 in German concentration camps. Their urn graves can mainly be found in Section No. III in two rows marked on the cemetery’s plan with the letter ‘D’. A number of the graves, however, have not survived, having been destroyed during or after the war. The cemetery is marked by a memorial that commemorates all the Jewish victims of Nazism from Leipzig. The stone sarcophagus with a Star of David bears the following memorial text:
‘All the nations, listen and behold my pain!
In the years 1933-1945, more than 14,000 Jews from this city - men, women and children - fell innocent victim to the racial fanaticism and the bestiality of the Nazi thugs.
Let the present and the future generations always remember that racial fanaticism plunges mankind into utter misery.
Remember that you will not be forgotten.’ In the central part of the alley and in front of the above-mentioned sarcophagus, there is an information board that states that some sacred Scrolls of a Torah from Poland that were stolen in 1939 are buried here. After this robbery, the Torah was taken over by the University library where, in 1998, it was found. In 1999, the Scrolls were buried in this cemetery.
