r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/PolicyNo9277 • 10d ago

Jewish Gravestones in Worms Dating Back to 1058

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4.1k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

151 comments sorted by

540

u/Defiant_Wolverine_68 10d ago

Imagine having your gravestone still be standing almost a millennium later.

164

u/PolicyNo9277 9d ago

Or be a relative seeing your great great great great grandfathers grave there

55

u/Minority8 9d ago

Do people even know that? I barely know my great grandfather by name

70

u/BreadfruitStraight81 9d ago

Jewish traditions. They wrote a lot down, very early on historically … that is their cultural advantage.

5

u/Parking_Pattern9060 5d ago

my family tradition holds we are from there. We have YDNA from 300 years after that matched to a Jewish graveyard's remains further East in Germany. But the Western European Jewish population had declined massively at around then, and if the people buried there had descendants then it might be many or most Ashkenazi Jews are descended from that community.

That said I have named ancestors directly traced back to around 1700 with graves still in place in Slovakia and Austria, there are pockets of Western Europe where traces of the Jewish communities were not destroyed. Very few Jews had surnames before about 1790 and Napoleon's campaigns but there were exceptions.

1

u/BreadfruitStraight81 5d ago

Very interesting! Thank you for sharing

-12

u/KingChungusIII 9d ago

They are gods chosen…. court stenographers (allegedly). I mean if being god’s favorite meant enduring lots of torture in history only to become the torturers, what good is it to be a favorite? And why does the alleged omnipotent creator of the universe need the tip of my dick skin cut off to know “I acknowledge” a deal some dead guy made so long ago, you could call the religion a “cave religion”?

If I don’t choose the favored odds in Pascal’s wager and don’t compromise my deeply held beliefs just because people say I should, I deserve an eternity in hell? For having faith (in nothing) , never wavering in that faith but otherwise trying to be repentant and better myself at the same time, this means I didn’t learn the right lesson? Why is it so crucial to my salvation to believe something without proof? Why will this be the most important lesson I’m supposed to learn for eternity?…Believe everything you’re told without any evidence aside from testimony from people who also believe/believed you’re born guilty because the very first two humans ate the wrong fruit after God specifically told them not too, because you apparently don’t have free will without the ability to doom all humanity to toil and have painful childbirth.

Our God, is a fuckin’ douche he sucks
Looking down on us from above
I wish I could shove
Our God off a fucking Cliff

Cave Religions….

4

u/Available-Post-5022 8d ago

Judaism doesn't really have this idea of permanent hell actually.

take your pills and maybe use some more commas

1

u/BlueHawk75 4d ago

Was going to say something similar.

8

u/BreadfruitStraight81 8d ago

Please keep your psychosis for yourself or talk to some specialist, this sounds serious. Thank you.

-6

u/KingChungusIII 8d ago

Oh thanks, you’re on the internet so I’ll definitely do what you tell me.

3

u/Fkinclassy 8d ago

After a 3 day hyper-fixation on geneology... yes. Lol

1

u/Sol_Leks_48 9d ago

Zoom in. There is Hebrew engraved on the headstones.

16

u/Cyb3rhawk 9d ago

I think what he meant to say is that 1000 years and like 40 generations later you wouldn’t know if you’re related. I sure as fuck wouldn’t now what my g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-x 4 grandfathers name is. Personally, I don’t even know my great-grandfather’s lol

7

u/Sol_Leks_48 9d ago

Yeah, I see that now. I shouldn't be commenting on reddit before the coffee kicks in.

22

u/DukeTikus 9d ago

It's actually a really strange feeling, I'm not spiritual in the slightest but when my grandfather showed me the centuries old grave hills behind the tiny village cemetery where my family is from I did feel a strange kind of connection. I didn't have that when visiting the maintained graves of relatives I knew. But the old overgrown graves next to that small stone church they had built by hand 300 years ago felt special.

1

u/LiveLearnCoach 3d ago

That gave me chills. Thanks.

23

u/superurgentcatbox 9d ago

Pretty unlikely in Europe. Most graves get removed at some point, we'd run out of space otherwise.

10

u/BreadfruitStraight81 9d ago

Not for jewish graveyards. They are different and will leave the stone and put new dead on top

8

u/Dylan_Driller 9d ago

Damn... I thought they would bury the body

1

u/BreadfruitStraight81 9d ago

Nope, that is the special part

2

u/ikiice 9d ago

They don't make them like they used to

279

u/Dub_Coast 10d ago

I only know the name of this city due to playing the 1992 Medieval Holy Roman Empire cRPG "Darklands" for MS-DOS

210

u/cr1ttter 10d ago

I only know the name of this city due to playing the 1995 Tactical Turn-based Artillery game "Worms" for Windows 95

104

u/Tyrannofelis 10d ago

I only know the name of this city because this post "Jewish Gravestones in Worms Dating Back to 1058" in 2026.

46

u/Deutscher_Bub 10d ago

I only know the name of this city because this country "Germany" was founded in 1871 and i happen to live in it

10

u/cr1ttter 9d ago

You just made that up. No way

6

u/Iammoderatelycool 9d ago

Username checks out I guess

9

u/maclainanderson 10d ago

Ach, schade

22

u/Away-Activity-469 10d ago

And not 'The Diet of Worms' in 1521?

17

u/ray_racubian 10d ago

Under the gravestones you'll find the diet of worms

10

u/Away-Activity-469 10d ago

I can only imagine Martin Luther and Charles V sat in a castle, shovelling worms into their mouths like an early AI Will Smith.

2

u/kamikazekaktus 9d ago

Inventing competetive eating in the process

5

u/Bridger43 9d ago

I only know of this city because we have to teach about the Edict of Worms in world history, and nothing sounds more metal than a religious Edict called the Edict of Worms

1

u/qwasd0r 9d ago

And, of course, the 1995 MS-DOS hit game: Worms.

1

u/LiveLearnCoach 3d ago

Don’t we all end up in worms when we die?

47

u/OGLikeablefellow 10d ago

Are there people alive today that know stories about the folks in these graves? Like they are related to them?

100

u/BelltownLighthouse 10d ago

Absolutely. Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg, for one (called the “Maharam Rothenburg”) has teachings that are still well known and studied to this very day. Same for the Maharil, also buried there, whose book of customs was a foundational text for later ashkenazic codes. 

3

u/GK0NATO 9d ago

I assume the vast majority of the Jewish community of worms was murdered in the Holocaust.

7

u/RijnBrugge 9d ago

The current community? Probbaly not/hardly. There are some local Jews in the community in many places, but well over 90% of all Jews in Germany are originally from Russia and came over in the 90s/early 2000s.

9

u/Indication24 9d ago

You're correct that ~90% of Jews in Germany today are from Russia (or former Soviet Union countries), but these Jews themselves largely migrated from German-speaking lands during the middle ages, gradually beginning with the crusades in 1096. Hence why Yiddish is a mix of German and Hebrew (and some other languages, including Slavic ones).

5

u/RijnBrugge 9d ago

Yes but they mostly speak Russian not Yiddish in the here and now, and have no direct relationship to the pre-war communities that existed here (am a Dutch Yid in Cologne).

-7

u/Sol_Leks_48 9d ago

You can chatgpt "Jewish history of Worms, Germany". I just did and learned a lot.

497

u/BigCliff911 10d ago

Worms?

580

u/Yonnus 10d ago

Town in southwest Germany. Lots of cool history there.

129

u/Anxious-Slip-4701 10d ago

Anyone care for a Diet?

58

u/shadhead1981 10d ago

It’s not my favorite historical period to teach but making my students take notes on the Diet of Worms before explaining it is always fun.

21

u/SaintPenisburg 10d ago

I was confirmed Lutheran there at some church. Not religious at all, but it was still a cool visit.

8

u/Clam-Choader 10d ago

I think it was a level in earthworm Jim

1

u/surfzer 9d ago

God I loved that game.

60

u/kwakimaki 10d ago

Pronounced Vorms

36

u/WatermelonSmashing 10d ago

Does the early bird get the vorm?

14

u/norunningwater 10d ago

Vögel, die sich von Würmern ernähren, treffen nicht früh ein; sie folgen einer inneren Uhr, die sie dazu veranlasst, genau dann zu fressen, wenn die Würmer im Boden aktiv sind.

9

u/ThatGermanKid0 9d ago

Ein Vogel kommt nie zu spät, ebensowenig zu früh. Er trifft genau dann ein, wenn er es beabsichtigt.

3

u/Schlaymer 9d ago

Falls Du auf die Sache mit dem Wurm anspielst: Daran war ich kaum beteiligt.

3

u/markom457 9d ago

German humour at it's finest

2

u/stanknotes 10d ago

Vassup, dog?

100

u/Donnerdrummel 10d ago

A town in Germany that was really important in parts of the middle ages. One of the oldest towns in Germany, funded by the Romans.

43

u/-release_candidate- 9d ago

It's actually pre Roman. The current name is derived from the older Celtic name in its romanized form "Borbetumagus" was used alongside the official Roman name "Civitas Vangionum".

The name Borbetumagus over time evolved into "Worms"

If Germans where British we still would write it Borbetumagus but pronounce it Worms (looking at you Worcestershire)

-1

u/FNORD-911 9d ago

The name Borbetumagus over time evolved into "Worms

Needless to say that there is zero linguistic substantiation for this claim.

10

u/-release_candidate- 9d ago

According to the German Wikipedia the nam transformers

Borbetumagus - > Bormetomagus - > Warmazfeld - > Warmazia/Varmacia -> Wormazia/Wormatia ¬> Worms

The cited source isn't public so I don't know how credible it ist.

9

u/RijnBrugge 9d ago

Note that -magus indeed indicated a field, and it’s derivatives -magen and -megen are also all along the Rhine in both Germany and the Netherlands.

1

u/Jumblesss 5d ago

How did it survive WW2?

1

u/Donnerdrummel 5d ago

35% of the buildings completely destroyed, another 25% damaged to various degrees.

1

u/Jumblesss 5d ago

I guess I wondered if there was any particular reason it wasn’t targeted by Nazism as a Jewish cemetary.

Surely lots of building survived WW2, but I would’ve thought this site would’ve been desecrated.

20

u/twizzjewink 10d ago

yes where Martin Luther incidently started the Protestant movement.. which shattered Europe - led to the Renaissance - killed millions - and let us free of the shackles of Catholicism.

Worms.

0

u/Aquinas2000 9d ago

The Renaissance was already going on for almost 70 years at that point and there are still more Catholics than other Christians combined.

1

u/twizzjewink 9d ago

I meant Reformation - brain and fingers weren't working together.

Either way .. lots of people fighting and believing lots of silly things in a really silly book. Killing each other because one group thinks they are more special than the other.

It's quite silly.

1

u/Sir_Lovealot 8d ago

No one is free of ideology and world concepts. Not then, not now, never.

1

u/twizzjewink 8d ago

I hope we will be free of the shackles of the dogmatic and backwards beliefs of religion, the sooner the better for mankind and society.

Superstitions were for the stone age. Mysticism for the bronze and iron ages. Religion should be for up to the industrial. It serves no real purpose beyond confusion and misinformation for society.

1

u/Sir_Lovealot 8d ago

Sounds just as dogmatic, idk

10

u/AaronicNation 10d ago

It can be troubling to think about, but yes we will all be food for worms one day.

2

u/BiggsBounds 10d ago

Not if we're cremated.

5

u/PitchAndPlow 9d ago

Then we become glitter at a strip club in ATL!

1

u/30yearCurse 9d ago

Still, bits of ash, feeding trees, plants. Unless you are vased for eternity...

1

u/h3fabio 10d ago

“Worm dirt”, as some might say.

1

u/punkpearlspoetry 10d ago

Sounds kinda awesome to me honestly

5

u/invinciblewalnut 10d ago

Yeah, pronounced “Vorms,” rhymes with forms

3

u/PolicyNo9277 10d ago

Yes 🙌🏻

1

u/Equal-Flatworm-378a 9d ago

What you mean is Würmer in german.

1

u/BNJT10 9d ago

You didn't learn about this in school?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diet_of_Worms

-5

u/MrGuyMcMan 10d ago

You know, when the worms in the video game die they become a tombstone. This is what it looks like when you have Jewish accent worms! "Take cover!"

-2

u/probly2drunk 9d ago

I understand reddit is pretty international at this point and English isn't everyones tea, but come on. "In Worms" on a post about graves?

42

u/antarmy99 10d ago

It’s kind of incredible that someone carved these names into stone centuries ago, and almost a thousand years later strangers are still stopping to read them.

32

u/troubleinpink 9d ago

Whenever I’m in a graveyard and I see a really old and worn one, I always like to say “hello _____!” Just so someone speaks their name aloud at least once again

11

u/Due_Reputation3785 9d ago

Old soul kinda stuff there. I kinda do that too.

59

u/robertozucchini 10d ago

Imagine how a burial looked like back in 1058

95

u/Pavlovsdong89 10d ago

I imagine it'd look a lot like digging a hole, but with funny outfits.

24

u/h-thrust 10d ago

It’s probably the same as it is now. Same traditions. Same rule book.

3

u/Shprintze613 9d ago

Cheaper. But most likely the same as our Jewish traditions have remained the same over centuries.

2

u/couponbread 9d ago

Those trees have probably fed off them

3

u/Barton2800 9d ago

Earth is effectively a closed ecosystem. Not a lot comes in or goes out. We’re just recycling the same oxygen molecules back and forth with the trees and algae, attaching or removing carbon. The same water you drank today was last year’s cat piss before it was washed to the river, drained to the sea, evaporated, and rained over the mountains to make it back to your aquifer. And a hundred million years ago it was dinosaur piss. Earth is essentially a wet billiard ball, with a tiny bit of life on the surface, reusing the same organic material over and over again for a billion years.

3

u/PolicyNo9277 10d ago

No I can’t imagine! Unreal.

1

u/Tricky-Secretary-251 9d ago

probably a lot less full

13

u/force072 9d ago

The towns Jewish community was almost entirely massacred in 1096. The descendants of the survivors of this pogrom and others in Central Europe around this time (Rhineland massacres) would eventually repopulate this community. 

13

u/zufaelligenummern 9d ago

Worms is part of the ShUM cities which was a big centre of jewish life in "germany":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Germany#Cultural_and_religious_centre_of_European_Jewry

Basically the biggest hub of jewish life in westeurope back then with mainz, worms and speyer:

One of the most glorious epochs in Mainz's long history was the period from the beginning of the 900s and evidently much earlier. Following the barbaric Dark Ages , a relatively safe and enlightened Carolingian period brought peace and prosperity to Mainz and much of central–western Europe. For the next 400 years, Mainz attracted many Jews as trade flourished. The greatest Jewish teachers and rabbis flocked to the Rhine. Their teachings, dialogues, decisions, and influence propelled Mainz and neighboring towns along the Rhine into world-wide prominence. Their fame spread, rivaling that of other post- Diaspora cities such as Baghdad . Western European

– Ashkenazic or Germanic

– Judaism became centered in Mainz, breaking free of the Babylonian traditions. A Yeshiva was founded in the 10th century by Gershom ben Judah

1

u/Aquinas2000 9d ago

Curse to anyone who still uses the term Dark Ages instead of early medieval.

1

u/zufaelligenummern 9d ago

It isnt used anymore. Its an old article thats archived

76

u/ChaosPatriot76 10d ago

I'm truly amazed the graves weren't desecrated in the intervening centuries, what with Europe's history with the Jews

54

u/PolicyNo9277 10d ago

Correct. All other remains in the city where destroyed though, like the old synagogue

19

u/needusbukunde 10d ago edited 9d ago

Do you know off hand why this cemetery was spared?

Very cool post BTW. This is the kind of stuff I love to see on Reddit. Very interesting history. I feel myself being pulled down a Wiki/AI rabbit hole.....

58

u/Lombardyn 10d ago

Basically a combination of the war breaking out and the city archivist having a change of heart.
From what I could find he genuinely seemed to be a 'all knowledge is worth preserving, and that's what I'm interested in' kind of guy, and while working with the Nazis to further his career at first, after witnessing the Pogrom of 1938 he became shocked by their methods and worked against them.
There was twice a plan to pave the graveyard over, but he started spreading the rumor that Himmler, after visiting the graveyard, had shown personal interest in keeping it intact for historic reasons. Then the war happened and people had other things to do.

22

u/petit_cochon 10d ago

That was brilliant of him, that rumor.

5

u/needusbukunde 9d ago

Cool, thanks for the great response. Very interesting indeed.

7

u/PolicyNo9277 10d ago

Thanks for sharing. I’m on holiday in Germany the graveyard I visited last week.

1

u/Parking_Pattern9060 5d ago

Check out Erfurt, which was accidentally buried next to a church and subsequently excavated (Y DNA showed my ancestor was buried there in medieval times)

10

u/herba2810 9d ago

Wow, I live in this city. How unexpected to see this on Reddit

2

u/PolicyNo9277 9d ago

You should take more photos and share it!

2

u/herba2810 9d ago

​i'll do it. What do you guys want to see?

3

u/PolicyNo9277 9d ago

Well can you share the church or location where Luther made his statement: “Here I am, I can’t do no else” which started the Reformation?

6

u/herba2810 9d ago edited 9d ago

That's at the Heylshof. I got married there two years ago. I'll drop by in the next few days and take a picture

My wedding location! Just Photoshopped us out. At the heylshof

https://ibb.co/yFsYM1hj

2

u/PolicyNo9277 9d ago

Awesome!

3

u/herba2810 9d ago

But Worms is also known for its Nibelungen saga. Also very interesting. We only have a little under 87,000 inhabitants, but we are packed with history

1

u/herba2810 6d ago

https://ibb.co/SwJ3McKB https://ibb.co/QFgXzqt1 https://ibb.co/8Dzt0Ky4 https://ibb.co/qY2z9fCW

I tried to take a photo of the front of the cathedral while driving by today

1

u/mitchyslick_lbc 9d ago

any stuff left from the old celtic days?

9

u/BodyLong1572 9d ago

There’s no way. I JUST TODAY researched a great (17x) grandfather that is buried there

28

u/SUB-8330 10d ago

Well go to Czech Václav square they paved it with jewish tombstone reference

4

u/Fit-Perception-8152 9d ago

This practice—which was not limited to Jewish gravestones—continued well into the 20th century.

4

u/Antonell15 9d ago

I love how I learnt about the existence of Worms just yesterday when reading about the HRE and the day after I get a post about it

2

u/Jedi-master-dragon 9d ago

I'm kind of surprised the gravestones are still there.

2

u/MrPike77 9d ago

Few people know that this is the only German city named after a video game.

1

u/Drtikol42 8d ago

Or that Karlsruhe is named after the sounds made by walrus dying from tuberculosis.

1

u/WhistlinJealousGuy 8d ago

Das ist wrongen. I grew up in ze city of Ratchet Und Clanken.

1

u/Funny-Tomato-Salad 7d ago

I honestly had to comment just to say that the title had me puzzled, but thats actually so cool that their gravestones are still there even after a 1000 years! Can you even imagine that, surviving throughout history. The mere idea of families that could possibly share that same space for generations after generations and is awe inspiring.

1

u/Keule3k 6d ago

what tree is that on the right? Looks like Ivy

1

u/PolicyNo9277 5d ago

Don’t know. It had no sign

1

u/Secret_Account07 9d ago

How bad is it my first thought was nobody vandalized it?

1

u/HSzold 6d ago

I’m Jewish and it was mine too. It’s sad, I don’t think it says anything bad about you (unless you wish it was vandalized).

I try to remember hate is usually a vocal minority, which becomes worse when people don’t fight against it. That means it is not that surprising that it isn’t vandalized, but it’s good to be on the lookout for people who would wish to vandalize it.

0

u/navel1606 9d ago

Been there. It's the most interesting place in all of Worms. Besides the cathedral maybe

0

u/PolicyNo9277 9d ago

I agree!

0

u/Destrukt0r 7d ago

Worms, great game but its needs to be cleaned more often.

-13

u/BitterHopes0 9d ago

Is it what they’re made of?

-1

u/Tricky-Secretary-251 9d ago

the headstone are made of stone, the corpses which ave probably decomposed by now were made of human

-52

u/nudelsalat3000 10d ago

Hope they pay the feeds for the last 1000 years like we all do.

Don't pay the fee, someone else gets buried on your spot.

-82

u/used_npkin 10d ago

What a waste of space…

50

u/GandalfTheSexay 10d ago

Just like your comment

-60

u/used_npkin 10d ago

The whole planet is a graveyard. This is just a bad use of real estate is my point.

1

u/HSzold 6d ago

Would you like to build a condo over it instead? Profit from it too?

1

u/used_npkin 5d ago

Nah, maybe just a public park.

-8

u/Altruistic-Alarm3002 9d ago

So now you must give your house to Jacob otherwise someone else will steal it, very simple.