OLD JEWISH CEMETERY OF KOVAČIĆI

Used between 1630 and 1966, this Jewish cemetery (Staro Jevrejsko Groblje u Kovačićima) is the largest in Europe after Prague. Since 2018, it has been included on the Unesco World Heritage Tentative List. Its exceptional character lies in its 3,850 Sephardic tombs with various forms that are close to three distinct traditions: traditional Spanish burials, tombstones inspired by Bosnian stećci, and others by Ottoman stelae. The site covers 3 ha on a hillside with large, poorly maintained areas and graves damaged by Bosnian Serb army gunners stationed here during the 1992-1996 siege. It includes a chapel built in 1924, an Ashkenazi ossuary created when another cemetery was closed in 1962, a gueniza (place where damaged books are buried) used from 1916 onwards, and four Holocaust memorials: one for Sephardic victims, two for Ashkenazi victims, and one for victims of the crimes committed by the Croatian Ustasha.

Hebrew and Ladino. The "Spanish-style" tombs (horizontal or sarcophagus-shaped slabs) recall the origin of the Sephardim of Sarajevo, who were expelled from the Iberian Peninsula in 1492 and settled here from 1550. These stones are frequently engraved with symbols (felled tree, hourglass, skull...). The "Bosnian-style" tombs take the monolithic chest shape of many stećci in medieval necropolises in the country. As for the later "Ottoman-style" graves, they have a sometimes rounded or ridged upper part evoking the turban that adorns the nişans of Muslim cemeteries. This variety of burials testifies to the persistence of imported traditions or, on the contrary, to an assimilation of local cultures. Moreover, in the epitaphs, one can also distinguish inscriptions sometimes in Hebrew, sometimes in Ladino, the Sephardic language close to Spanish, or even in Ottoman Turkish (Arabic characters) for a deceased person from Constantinople, the Ottoman capital. But the influence of the Ashkenazi culture of Central Europe is felt: from the nineteenth century, most epitaphs are written in Hebrew, although Ladino continues to be spoken. For the record, since 1966 the city's small Jewish community has had a plot in the large municipal cemetery in Bare (Jukićeva Street, 1.5 km northwest of the Koševo Olympic complex).