Status: 07/27/2021 6:09 p.m.
For the first time, UNESCO is honoring Jewish cultural assets in Germany. The cities of Mainz, Worms and Speyer were added to the list of world heritage sites as the cradle of European Jewry. The Lower Germanic Limes was also awarded.
Germany receives new world heritage sites. For the first time, UNESCO honored Jewish cultural assets in Germany: The award went to the cities of Mainz, Worms and Speyer as a cradle of European Jewry. The responsible committee of the UN Organization for Education, Science and Culture made the decisions at its meeting in Fuzhou, China. Only cultural and natural sites of “outstanding universal value” are designated as world heritage.
Award for the “Jerusalem on the Rhine”
In the Middle Ages, Speyer, Worms and Mainz were closely connected as so-called ShUM cities and were also called “Jerusalem on the Rhine”. ShUM is an abbreviation from the medieval Hebrew first letters of the cities: Schin (Sch), Waw (U) and Mem (M), which stand for the three city names Schpira, Warmaisa and Magenza.
“In the Middle Ages, Speyer, Worms and Mainz provided decisive impulses for the development of Judaism in Europe,” said the President of the German UNESCO Commission, Maria Böhmer. “The three Jewish communities attracted scholars from near and far, they initiated pioneering reforms and set architectural standards.”
The history of the Jewish communities on the Rhine is also a history of centuries of persecution – from the pogroms of the Middle Ages to the almost complete extinction of European Jewry in the Holocaust, said Böhmer.
Gravestones in the Jewish cemetery “Heiliger Sand” in Worms. Together with Mainz and Speyer, UNESCO recognized the city of Worms as the cradle of European Jewry.
Image: EPA
Trend-setting synagogues and Talmud schools
In the three cities, trend-setting synagogues, women’s schools, ritual baths, Talmud schools and, last but not least, cemeteries were built, which for several centuries have been exemplary for Jewish ritual buildings in Central Europe, according to the application that the state of Rhineland-Palatinate had supported.
“Stone witnesses to an extraordinary story”
Michelle Müntefering, Minister of State for International Cultural Policy in the Foreign Office, said that the recognition of this Jewish community is the culmination of the celebrations in the festival year 1,700 years of Jewish life in Germany.
The Rhineland-Palatinate Prime Minister Malu Dreyer praised the buildings of the ShUM communities as stone witnesses of an extraordinarily rich Jewish history. “They also stand for the cultural transfer between Christianity and Judaism and warn us to see this as a great shared opportunity,” said Dreyer.
UNESCO World Heritage
The UN Organization for Education, Science and Culture (UNESCO) currently has 1,140 natural and cultural sites in 167 countries worthy of protection on its World Heritage List.
Germany has a total of 50 entries. These include Cologne Cathedral, Lübeck’s old town, castles and parks in the Potsdam-Berlin region, the Maulbronn monastery, the Bauhaus and its sites in Weimar and Dessau, the industrial complex Zeche Zollverein in Essen, the Wadden Sea, old beech forests and the hamburgers Speicherstadt.
Criteria for recognition as World Heritage are “the exceptional universal value of the site and a management plan that ensures the preservation of the heritage for future generations,” according to UNESCO. The World Heritage Committee regularly reviews the state of preservation.
Appreciation for the Lower Germanic Limes
In addition to the three cities, the Lower Germanic Limes will also be part of the UNESCO World Heritage in the future. The former border of the Roman Empire stretches along the Rhine from Rhineland-Palatinate via North Rhine-Westphalia to the Dutch North Sea coast. The border region was a center of ancient culture and the beginning of the cities in the Rhineland.
Minister of State Müntefering congratulated those involved. “The Rhine as a” wet “outer border in the north-west of the Roman Empire is still the lifeline that has linked the urban centers dating back to the Romans from Remagen via Bonn, Cologne, Neuss, Krefeld and Xanten for centuries,” said Müntefering.
The President of the German UNESCO Commission, Böhmer, recalled that “some of the oldest evidence of the borders of the Roman Empire” can be found along the former border system. Roman traces included military installations, sanctuaries, statues and everyday objects. “Along the Rhine, the Romans developed forts and settlements from which large cities such as Cologne, Bonn and Nijmegen would grow,” she said. “They owe their flourishing to the fact that the Limes did not serve to isolate themselves, but always also served as an exchange between Rome and its neighbors.”
The amphitheater in the Archaeological Park in Xanten: The border between the former Roman province of Lower Germany and the Free Germania was over 400 kilometers long.
Image: dpa
The new World Heritage site consists of 44 sections from Remagen via Xanten – here the replica of a Roman city gate in the Archaeological Park – to Katwijk in the Netherlands.
Image: dpa
50 world heritage sites in Germany
The inclusion of the Lower Germanic Limes in the world cultural heritage is intended to close a gap between two already protected sections – the Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes and Hadrian’s Wall as well as another in Great Britain. A decision on the Danube Limes can possibly be expected this week.