Facebook
TwitterRestoration of Baden Jewish Cemetery completed
Following extensive restoration work, the Jewish cemetery in Baden near Vienna was officially handed over to the local authority, which will be responsible for its further upkeep. The ceremony was attended by the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Fund for the Restoration of Jewish Cemeteries in Austria, National Council President Wolfgang Sobotka, MP Christoph Kainz on behalf of Provincial Governor Johanna Mikl-Leitner, the Mayor of Baden bei Wien, Stefan Szirucsek, and the President of the Jewish communities of Graz and Baden near Wien, Eli Rosen, among others.
From May 2017 onwards, several sub-projects were carried out to restore the cemetery caretaker’s house, the cemetery walls and the gravestones. They were subsidised by the Fund for the Restoration of Jewish Cemeteries in Austria in the amount of approximately 1,160,000 euros. The Province of Lower Austria contributed around 390,000 euros to the renovation.
It was also possible to save most of the historic avenue trees. Extensive replanting was carried out, returning to cemetery to its original appearance.
In the course of the restoration, another interesting project emerged that will be carried out in the coming months with students from the University of Applied Arts. With the financial backing of the Federal Office for the Protection of Monuments, techniques will be tested to determine the extent to which the ornate wrought-iron grave surrounds can be sustainably restored and maintained.
The Jewish cemetery in Baden was created in 1873 and expanded several times. A ceremonial hall built in Art Nouveau style at the beginning of the 20th century was destroyed in the November pogroms of 1938.
The cemetery, which covers an area of around 12,800 m², mainly contains graves of members of the Baden religious community and Jewish spa guests. Occasional burials still take place. The cemetery is kept locked, the key can be obtained from the Baden municipal authority.
