Sarajevo Jewish Cemetery

The burial ground complex of the Sarajevo Jewish Cemetery is in the southwestern quarter of Sarajevo in the part of town known as Kovačići-Debelo Brdo. It stands above the recently built ring road. The oldest part of the cemetery is thought to be the part which took shape alongside the medieval necropolis of stećak (tombstones) in Borak above Terezije street (formerly Mićo Sokolović street). The old Jewish Cemetery is the largest Jewish sepulchral complex in Europe after that of Prague and is of outstanding value. It records an indispensable part of the history of the Jews since the 16th century following their expulsion from the Iberian peninsula. The Jewish Cemetery documents certain features of the life of the Sephardim and later of the Ashkenazim in the city, as well as of the evolution of Sarajevo and the typical life of the city over the centuries. The Sephardim in this part of the world created their own unique style of tombstone which, with their house-like shape, artistic treatment and polysemic symbolic motifs, resembles no other Jewish tombstones elsewhere in the world. This cemetery was on the front line during the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Over 2,000 burials have been recorded here and approximately 95% of the monuments have been destroyed. It has been designated a National Monument by The Commission to Preserve National Monuments. Source: Commission to Preserve National Monuments, Sarajevo, November, 2005