The Geneva Jewish cemetery that straddles the Swiss-France border

Most Jewish heritage sites lie within the borders of one country. But there’s a small minority that straddle international frontiers.

The synagogue of Gorizia, Italy, for example, is in Italy but the Jewish cemetery is across the border in Slovenia; and the historic (but ruined) Jewish cemetery that once served  the German town of Frankfurt an der Oder is now located in Poland, in the town of Slubice.

Both of those cases are due to international borders drawn after World War II.

The Veyrier Jewish cemetery, which serves Geneva,  straddles the Swiss-French border and the vast majority of its territory lies in France — but this is due to other reasons: a law in 1876 that barred denominational cemeteries in the Canton of Geneva.

The cemetery was founded in 1920 and has entrances in both countries: in Etrembières, France and Veyrier, Switzerland.

Rosine Nussenblatt wrote in a 2010 article in the Jewish genealogy magazine Avotaynu:

My hometown Jewish cemetery is an anomaly. In 1876, after religious conflicts between Protestants and Catholics subsided in Switzerland, Geneva cemeteries were declared the property of the various communes, the smallest political entities. The dead were to be buried without distinction of religion in an orderly fashion determined in advance. This presented a problem for Jews and later for Muslims, whose religions require burying the dead in a certain manner that the Swiss cemeteries were not meant to accommodate. For example, Jews must be buried facing east towards Jerusalem. Ironically, a law based on tolerance created a need for a creative solution as represented by the Veyrier/Etre­mbières cemetery, Veyrier in Switzerland and Etrembières in France. The dead would enter the cemetery in Switzerland, but they would rest in France.

JHE director Ruth Ellen Gruber visited the Veyrier cemetery to take a look at the site — and (at least according to google maps) to stand exactly on the international frontier. (Other maps show that a much smaller section of the grounds is in Switzerland.)

The cemetery’s unique trans-border position made it a conduit for clandestine traffic between the two countries — including a route taken by Jews fleeing occupied France to neutral Switzerland during World War II.

It has a large modernist chapel (at the Swiss entrance) with striking stained glass windows, designed by the architect Julien Flegenheimer and dedicated in 1931. 

Today, there are more than 3,000 burials, including those of several notable personalities, including the banker and philanthropist Edmond Safra,  World Jewish Congress secretary-general Gerhart Riegner, and the “cigar king” Zino Davidoff.

At the entrance there is a touch-screen map and search screen that enables visitors to search for individual graves.

Geneva has another Jewish cemetery, the much smaller old Jewish cemetery in Carouge, founded in 1788.

Click here to read a detailed history of the Veyrier cemetery (in French)

See the Geneva Jewish community cemeteries info page