Places of remembrance

After being granted permission to build a prayer house on Grabenstrasse in October 1844, Monheim’s Jewish community established a cemetery in the Sandberg area, at that time still far from the nearest settlement.

The oldest legible inscriptions on the six gravestones that still exist date from the 1890s, including those for Bernhard Herz (1830–1896) and his wife Friedericka, née Josephs (1826–1891). The final burials were those of Helene Wagner (née Herz) in 1953 and her husband Hermann in 1960.

In 1967 the town had the cemetery grounds redefined and enclosed by a wall. On May 18, 1969, a stone slab with an inscription commemorating Monheim’s Jewish community was unveiled. Designed by sculptor and master stonemason Heinz Püster (1908–1983), it was donated by the local branch of the association for civil self-protection "Bundesverband für den Zivilen Selbstschutz."

On November 9, 1988 – the fiftieth anniversary of Kristallnacht – a memorial with an inscription commemorating the injustices of 1933–1945 was unveiled at Kradepohl. It recalls the victims of the National Socialist persecution of Jews. The German inscription also appears in Hebrew: "זכר לעוול". The work was created by the Baumberg sculptor Hans Schweizer (1925–2005).

Regular commemorative events take place at the memorial, for example during the annual youth exchange between the Otto-Hahn-Gymnasium and Shifman High School from our Israeli twin town of Tirat Carmel or on November 9 after the annual ceremony in the Altstadtkirche church to remember Kristallnacht on the same day in 1938.

Near the southern wall of the Catholic cemetery, a memorial stone for twenty forced laborers buried there was dedicated in December 2018. The German plaque reads: "Here lie forced laborers who lived and worked in Monheim." It unites but also corrects the inscriptions of two older stones which can be found close by.

One of them was donated by the chain factory Pötz & Sand, as the inscription suggests: "Erected by the company Pötz & Sand in gratitude to our loyal Russian colleagues, who perished in the bombing raid on February 21, 1945." However, not all of the ten people honored with inscriptions actually died on February 21, 1945, not all of them were of Russian origin, and they didn’t all work for Pötz & Sand.

A smaller stone whose donor is unknown mentions the names of a further ten forced laborers.

The sculpture "Klagende Mutter", or "Lamenting Mother", by the Monheim sculptor and master stonemason Heinz Püster (1908–1983), was unveiled on the national day of mourning in 1954. In front of the group of figures, there is a stone tablet with the inscription "For our dead | 1914–1918 | 1939–1945". A document was inserted into the base of the monument, which reads:

"[...] nine and a half years after the end of the Second World War, the community of Monheim dedicates this memorial to the memory of those who have fallen in all wars and of those who gave their lives for their convictions. This memorial was created from a seven-ton limestone block according to a design by the sculptor Heinz Püster. It depicts a mother with two children who has lost all her worldly belongings following the death of her husband at war and the devastating night-time air raids. Her gaze into the unknown is marked by mourning and lamentation. The boy’s face shows that he has already acknowledged this misery, while the girl looks up at her mother, amazed and unaware. All have come to know mankind’s capacity to kill. The dead shall be honored, but the destruction of the life created by GOD shall be condemned. […] It is the will of its sponsor, the office director Hugo Goebel, that this memorial should remind the community of the inviolable dignity and the natural rights of every individual to life, freedom, property, freedom of conscience and the right to resist."

Monheim am Rhein had the sculpture and plaque restored in July 2020.