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1669 French Jewish Graveyard Goes Digital

A French historical association plans to turn a graveyard near Strasbourg into France’s first “interactive Jewish cemetery.”

The Com’Est association said visitors would soon be able to scan barcodes next to the Judengarten Jewish cemetery of the town of Mackenheim, allowing them to access a database containing historical facts about each person buried in the cemetery, and about Judengarten in general.

One of oldest Jewish cemeteries of the Alsace region in eastern France, Judengarten has graves dating back to 1669, according to L’Alsace, a local newspaper. The historical association said it already designed the website that would service the visitors.

Professor Gil Huttenmeister, a historian at Universite de Tubingen, has researched and translated around 400 headstones, according to an article about the project which appeared in L’Alsace last week.

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