28 | OCTOBER 3 • 2024 J
N
W
hile stationed in
Nuremberg, Germany,
in 1969, the late
Allan Blustein made a surprising
discovery. It would set in motion a
chain of events to forever change
Nuremberg Jewish history.
The army chaplain and rabbi,
who eventually settled in Michigan
and worked at the now-defunct
Sinai Hospital in Detroit, saw
something he would have never
imagined embedded in the stone
steps of the St. Lorenz Church, a
magnificent cathedral in downtown
Nuremberg.
Below his feet was Hebrew
writing — and to be more precise,
remnants of Jewish gravestones that
were cut into shapes that allowed
them to be used as part of a spiral
staircase in the south dome of the
church. Blustein, who was touring
the church with fellow chaplains,
couldn’t believe his eyes, especially
only two short decades after the
Holocaust had ended.
The significance was
unprecedented. Here were glimpses
of Nuremberg Jewish life not
long after Nuremberg Jews had
essentially been wiped out by the
Nazis and their collaborators.
Blustein did some digging and
discovered records tracking the
transfer of the gravestones. They
were taken from a medieval Jewish
cemetery in 1352 and transferred
to the church to be used in its
construction. Blustein shared
the incredible discovery with the
Jewish religious community of
Nuremberg, who then put into
motion the process of rededicating
the stones.
Still, while both Christian and
Jewish religious leaders were
supportive of the effort, there were
concerns about the integrity of the
stones and the St. Lorenz Church
staircase itself. Many feared it
would collapse if disturbed. Yet
after consulting with experts on
stone edifices, all were assured that
both the cut Jewish gravestones and
staircase would remain intact.
More than 600 years later, the
gravestones were returned to the
local Jewish community in 1970
and laid to rest within the funeral
chapel of Nuremerg’s New Israelite
Cemetery.
A HISTORY OF PERSECUTION
While the original cemetery site
of the 1300s was known, it was no
longer in use.
According to Blustein’s records,
the original burials of the four
Jewish community members took
place just prior to the outbreak of
the Black Death, which killed an
estimated 25 to 50 million people
across Europe between 1346 and
1353.
The Jews of Nuremberg were
accused of poisoning the wells
and causing the plague to spread
throughout the city. Due to
this false accusation, the Jewish
community was expelled from
Nuremberg, and many moved into
the neighboring city of Furth, in
addition to other parts of Germany.
Today, the gravestones
themselves are incomplete, but
resting back within their Jewish
community. Only one has a partial
name intact of a woman whose
name ended in “sheba” (likely
Elisheba or Basheba). Two are
indicative of a male, while the
fourth gravestone is illegible.
While the gravestones are a
stark reminder of centuries-long
desecration of Europe’s Jewish
community, they’re not the only
such occurrence in Nuremberg.
Excavations inside the Frauenkirche
Catholic Church in 1986 uncovered
foundations of a Jewish synagogue,
while plaques throughout
Nuremberg recall where Jewish
community institutions once stood.
Still, if it hadn’t been for Blustein,
the gravestones may have remained
embedded in the steps of the St.
Lorenz Church for decades or even
centuries to come, forever lost to
time and history.
A DISCOVERY THAT LIVES ON
Fifty-five years after the chain
of events occurred, Blustein’s
daughters, Naomi Blustein Levine
and Karen Blustein Friedman, who
were 8 and 10 at the time of the
gravestones’ discovery, returned
to Nuremberg in summer 2024 to
pay homage to their late father’s
How a Sinai Hospital rabbi found and
helped rededicate Jewish gravestones
used to build a Nuremberg church.
Laying Four
Medieval
Nuremberg
Jews to Rest
ASHLEY ZLATOPOLSKY CONTRIBUTING WRITER
OUR COMMUNITY
Naomi Blustein Levine and Karen
Blustein Friedman at the funeral
chapel of Nuremberg’s New Israelite
Cemetery, where the rededicated
gravestones are now.