Obj. ID: 31495
Jewish Funerary Art  New Jewish cemetery in Brăila, Romania

The New Cemetery was established in 1874 far from the city center.

In 1906, a cemetery chapel was erected at the entrance to the cemetery.

The graves of two Brăila’s rabbis are marked by mausolea, as is customary in Romania.

Mausoleum of Rabbi Israel Margulies in the New Cemetery in Brăila

Mausoleum of Rabbi Shlomo Meer in the New Jewish cemetery in Brăila

Early tombstones were traditional East-European stelae, while in the first half of the twentieth century an obelisk became the common form. Many such headstones bear the signatures of the artists. One of them is a sculptor from Galaţi, I.N.Renieris (1910s), whose works also preserved in Oltenița and Tulcea. The local sculptors who signed their gravestones are Dumitru S. Lyritis (1910s-20s), Niculai Iutele (1930s-40s), I. Perieţeanu (1930s) and P. Maina (1940s). All of them seem to be Christians. One tombstone was made by a sculptor from Bucharest, Cheiş, and another (1913) by two makers: Santalena from Bucharest and G. Vinante from Galaţi. A tombstone of 1919 is signed by the workshop Wulkan & Neubrunn from Vienna – their work  is also found in the Filantropia Cemetery in Bucharest.

Next to the serialized tombstones of the Jewish soldiers who were killed in World War I, stands a memorial which commemorates them together with members of the community who perished in concentration camps during the Holocaust.  

Memorial to the soldiers of WWI and the Holocaust victims in the New Cemetery in Brăila, Romania

Another Holocaust memorial is situated at the end of the central alley, next to a grave which bears an inscription: “Here is buried the soap made by the Nazi beasts of the fat of the Jews killed by them during the Holocaust.”

Holocaust Memorial and soap grave in the New Jewish cemetery in Brăila, Romania