It was believed for a long time that Jews were buried in this cemetery from the very beginning of their settlement in Subotica (1775), more precisely from 1777. However, there are some oral sources according to which the old Jewish cemetery was located behind the Dudova šuma (Mulberry Forest ) near today’s tennis courts. It is recorded that one, admittedly small, number of eyewitnesses still remembers the tombstones with Hebrew inscriptions, scattered around the courtyards. The location can be accepted as a place for burial, because it is the highest topographical point within the present-day city, on the edge of the part of the settlement inhabited by Jews, on the very shore of the marsh that was called Veliki rit.
Today, cemetery is located on the other, western bank of the former Veliko rit. Once upon a time, the cemetery was behind the city ramparts, and today it is bordered by residential blocks on all sides.
In the cemetery, there are about 1,300 tombstones that represent the cultural history of the Subotica Jewish community. Members of the smaller, orthodox community and members of the majority, neological community were buried here.
The cemetery consists of three time sectors, and one that is the memorial part. The division is as follows:
1st – The oldest burial area where burials took place until the First World War;
2nd – The part where burials were carried out between the two world wars;
3rd – The part where burials were carried out after the Second World War and
4th – Memorial part of the cemetery with a monument to the victims of fascism.
1. The oldest burial area, where burials were carried out until the First World War
Children’s cemetery: In the fourth sector, at the beginning of rows 9, 10, 11 and 11a, there are characteristic small monuments erected to children who died prematurely. The inscriptions are very moving. The names of the buried children regularly appear in the soft, diminutive form. Some of the tiny monuments are small masterpieces of memory decorated with various beautiful, carved motifs. Unfortunately, a large number of these monuments disappeared or were largely damaged over time.
→ Northeast part of sector 5.
In 1998, the entire tombstones from the then abolished Jewish cemetery in Mali Iđoš were transferred to the Subotica Jewish cemetery. The beginning of this memorial cemetery is marked with a small plaque, and it is located in the continuation of the main path that separates the 1st and 2nd sectors of the cemetery. They are placed in two long parallel rows with a wider path in between.
→ Sector 5, continuation of the alley.
A monument dedicated to Jewish soldiers who died in the Hungarian revolution of 1848-49 is also located in this, the oldest part of the cemetery. The monument was erected by the Hevra Kadisha (the Holy Society ) of the Jewish Municipality of Subotica in 1908 in memory of the Jewish soldiers who lost their lives in the battles fought during the revolution of 1848 and 1849. The monument is brick-walled, with a pedestal made of stone blocks bearing a pyramidal obelisk with text in Hungarian and Hebrew.
→ Sector 4, row 8, grave site 5.
2. The part where burials were carried out between the two world wars
This part covers more than half of the total area of the cemetery. Burials took place there when the Jewish community in Subotica was in full swing, when the number of community members was increasing and thus the number of deaths.
Unlike the old part, where the gravestones are almost identical in form and value, in this part of the cemetery class division is visible through expensive and artistically valuable monuments. To the left and to the right of the entrance, in the area that was considered the most respectable at the time, the wealthy were buried, because they had to pay a correspondingly higher price for that place. That part is full of expensive tombstones made of Swedish granite, which also shows the economic strength of a small part of the Jewish community.
The study of these tombstones indicates that throughout the 19th century, due to the emancipation of the Jews and their inclusion in various types of social activities, due to assimilation aspirations, industrialization and other factors, there appeared a desire to prove that new equal position. This was achieved in the area of artistic activity by erecting sumptuous tombstones. Influences from outside led to the abandonment of the characteristic forms of the Jewish tombstone and they were replaced by the then popular classicism, neo-styles and art nouveau.
→ Central part of sector 5.
3. Part for burial after the Second World War
The third part of the cemetery is the space to the right (east) of the alley and the Monument to the Victims of Fascism, and burials have been carried out there since World War II. The tombstones here are modest – which is in accordance with Jewish ethics, almost identical and adapted to the spirit of the times.
→ Eastern part of sectors 1 and 5, north side of sector 3 and next to the alley in sector 5.
4. Memorial part of the cemetery with a monument to the victims of fascism.
This memorial complex of the murdered Jews is located in the western part of the Jewish cemetery at the bottom of the plot, to which an alley leads. The monument to the victims of fascism was erected by members of the Jewish Community of Subotica after the liberation in memory of more than 4,000 Jewish victims of Subotica who lost their lives in deportations, death camps or forced labor camps.
The complex consists of monuments, ten individual and one common grave. These are the graves of Jewish revolutionaries who were sentenced to death for organized resistance to the fascist occupier and were executed on November 18, 1941. The people of Subotica know their names: Dr. Adolf Singer, the Mayer brothers, Lola Wall and others.
The author of the memorial complex is Lajčo Dajč, and it was built in 1948. It was made in the form of an obelisk, a characteristic form of monuments erected immediately after the Second World War. It is made of artificial stone, Brac marble and black granite.
→ Western part of sector 5.
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