One of Europe's oldest Jewish cemeteries awaits salvation

AFP, September, 2007

VIENNA (AFP) — Forgotten behind its high walls, one of Europe's most important 19th-century Jewish cemeteries, now dilapidated, desperately awaits salvation after years of indifference on the part of Viennese authorities.

Over 7,000 graves dating from 1784 to 1874 when Austria was at the height of the industrial revolution, are facing total ruin in Vienna's Waehring cemetery, worn as they are by time, overrun with weeds and sometimes vandalised.

"It is a jewel unequalled in Central Europe. And look what has become of it," said Austrian historian Tina Walzer, who has been trying for 15 years to save the site.

Past the heavy wooden gate, usually closed to visitors, the cemetery recalls the jungle-invaded Cambodian temple of Angkor Wat.

At the foot of hundred-year-old linden trees, thousands of Biedermeier-style tombs have been overrun by weeds, giving the place an almost surreal feeling. ...