Today’s visitors to Jewish cemeteries are often frustrated by their inability to read the Hebrew inscriptions on the gravestones. In Eisenstadt, Austria, this has been remedied by the attachment of stickers with QR codes to each matzevah in the city’s two Jewish cemeteries, enabling anyone with a cellphone to connect with an online database providing the translation of the epitaph and other information about each stone.
Several medieval matzevot displayed in a special section of the Jewish cemetery in nearby Wiener Neustadt have also been connected to online resources via QR codes.
This vast, complex — and unique — project is the work of Johannes Reiss, the director of the Austrian Jewish Museum in Eisenstadt. A specialist in Hebrew gravestone inscriptions, Reiss has completed detailed documentation of several Jewish cemeteries in Austria’s Burgenland region. This past week he took JHE’s Ruth Ellen Gruber to see the QR code system.
Eisenstadt has two Jewish cemeteries. The “older” has 1085 gravestones — the earliest from the 17th century, all with inscriptions exclusively in Hebrew. It functioned until 1875, when the “younger” cemetery was laid out. It has nearly 300 gravestones, whose inscriptions also are almost exclusively in Hebrew.
QR codes that link to the museum’s web site archive have been glued to all stones in both cemeteries.
“Both of the Jewish cemeteries have been comprehensively documented, digitalized and placed online in the blog of the Austrian Jewish Museum by me personally,” Reiss said in a talk presented at the International Association of Jewish Genealogy Societies annual conference in 2019 (and now posted on the Austrian Jewish Museum’s web site).
The following things can now be consulted: a photo of each gravestone, the map of the cemetery, the script of the gravestone inscription, painstakingly transcribed in line-by-line registers, the translation and commentaries of the Hebrew inscription, genealogical data and links to the graves of relatives buried in these two cemeteries. For all interested parties, especially those searching for their relatives or antecedents, there is a QR-Code on every grave in both cemeteries which leads to the URL of the gravestone, including photo, inscription, links to relatives and a map of the cemetery.
Reiss’s presentation, called “Help! I do not speak Hebrew…,” is a detailed primer on how to read (…or decipher) a Hebrew inscription on a gravestone and is primarily aimed at genealogists.
He has stressed however that the information is not only targeted to them.
It cannot be emphasized often enough: the Hebrew headstone inscriptions are not an obsolete addendum to geneological research, in case they’re even able to fulfill such a role. They are primary sources for historians and genealogists. For Jewish specialists they are an inexhaustible cornucopia of riches which answer both obvious and arcane questions about the internal history of the Jewish communities. Above and beyond their historical value, moreover, the Hebrew inscriptions were composed with profound love and wisdom by human beings for their departed, they gave comfort and solace to the bereaved survivors. They have timeless value and eternal validity. Reading the texts is a dignified memorial to the dead.
Material that can be found when accessing the gravestones via the QR code includes photographs, location of the gravestone, Hebrew inscription and translation (into German), as well as in some cases comments and other information about the deceased.
In Wiener Neustadt, the Jewish cemetery as is dates from the second half of the 19th century, but several massive medieval gravestones were found under the surface in 2007.
The city created an installation of them located in the cemetery that was dedicated in 2009.
Each stone is connected by QR code to the Austrian Jewish Museum database.
The earliest is that of one Joshua, son of Jacob, who died in 1268.
Another is that of a woman who died in 1341; her name is cut off but she is identified as the daughter of Jacob and wife of Rachem.
We recommend that you explore the web site and in particular the Koschere Melange blog of the Austrian Jewish Museum in order to find details on all the gravestones in these cemeteries.
Click to read Johanne Reiss’s IAJGS presentation “Help! I do not speak Hebrew”