The Sarajevo cemetery, located outside the town on Mount Trebevic, is one of the most famed Sephardic burial grounds in the world. Founded in 1630, when Rabbi Samuel Baruch rented the land, it is the oldest intact burial ground of any religious group in Sarajevo and is known for its age and beauty.
Rabbi Baruch’s gravestone existed until the recent fighting. Unfortunately, the fate of this grave and so many others is uncertain since access to the cemetery has been limited due to the danger, and a full assessment of the damage caused by the war has is still underway.
During the siege of Sarajevo, the Jewish cemetery was in the front line of fighting and was used as an important artillery position by Bosnia Serbs. The damage to the cemetery and nearby buildings was mostly caused by returned fire from the city below.
The cemetery occupies a square area approximately 200 x 200 meters in size, surrounded by a masonry wall surmounted in places by a metal fence. The cemetery was entered through a triple arched gateway, which led into the modern section, at the lower left level of the site. The older stones are in the other sections, mostly set away from the walls. In the front area was the large, elaborate ceremonial hall, reportedly built between 1926 and 1930.
The Bosnian Serbs extensively mined the cemetery before their withdrawal. Cemetery gained worldwide fame as the place from which Sarajevo was attacked the most and from which snipers killed innocent citizens as a part of daily routine. This was the situation until last April, when the Bosnia-Herzegovina Mine Action Center which was responsible for prioritizing d-emitting tasks, asked the Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA), an international group assisting post-war reconstruction in Bosnia, to de-mine the cemetery because of its historic significance, as well as its proximity to inhabited areas.
As a result, the NPA began clearing 32,000 square meters of land, removing 60-70 land mines and approximately 100 pieces of unexploded ordinance, mostly artillery shells. The cemetery clearance ended in August, and on September 15, 1998, the cemetery was officially returned to the Jewish community for reopening. The cemetery walls and much the site, however, remain badly damaged. The cemetery is on a rather steep hill, which rises even more just beyond it. The site is flanked by clusters of what were family houses, and these house extend behind as well.
Like many centers of the Ottoman Empire, Sarajevo provided a haven for Jewish refugees from Iberia after the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492, and the subsequent persecutions and forced conversion to Christianity in Spanish and Portuguese lands throughout the world. Spanish-speaking Jews settled in Sarajevo in the 16th century and the ruling pasha built a Jewish quarter for them by the end of the century, including a synagogue, a great courtyard and housing for the poor. This was not a ghetto, as Jews had freedom of movement and also lived elsewhere, but the congregation of Jews into one quarter was in keeping with historic patterns from Spain, and also the custom of segregating “nationalities” in cities of the Byzantine and subsequently Ottoman empires. The Jewish quarter, known as El Cortio, burned down in 1879, but the Old Synagogue was rebuilt and after World War II it became the Jewish Museum.
Before World War II, about 12,000 Jews lived in Sarajevo. Of these, approximately 9,500 perished in the Holocaust. Before the recent war, approximately 1,500 Jews lived in the city. Today, about seven hundred Sarajevans identify themselves as Jewish. In her guidebook to Jewish sites in Eastern Europe, Jewish Heritage Travel, journalist Ruth Ellen Gruber described the site, this way: “The big, slightly rounded blocks with Hebrew inscriptions on one face, thrust out of the ground on the hillside like miniature pillboxes, making an eerie, unforgettable site.
This type of tombstone in fact resembles the medieval Christian stecaks, big blocky grave markers shaped like sarcophagi and often featuring vigorous relief carving that are particularly common in Bosnia and Herzegovina”. The stones were quarried in a stone-pit near the cemetery and carried to the site. Most are almost identical in size and form, giving the hillside a patterned look. Only the gravestones of prominent rabbis and scholars were larger or more lavish. The older stones are only inscribed in Hebrew. Later stones are in Hebrew and Spanish, and the new one also in Bosnian.