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.

