Morphology

Social differentiation was also applied in the cemetery. Some sections were more prominent, and some less so. The general rule is that the more difficult the section is to access (in terms of distance from the entrance, and steepness of the slope in that area), the less prominent is the area. These parts of the cemetery were used to bury socially inferior community members, deceased persons from outside Bratislava, refugees, and victims of epidemics (we may consider here graves from 1918, when the Spanish flu spread). Many graves from this period do not have any tombstone.

There are special sections reserved for kohanim (priests) within sections 2 and 4. The rule of gender separation, i.e. not burying men and women together, has been applied in some sections. In particular, during the 1930s there were either men’s or women’s rows of graves. If the row was mixed, the men’s and women’s parts were separated by one burial lot (e.g. section 3, row 1).

Sections 4, 6 and 7 are the more prominent parts of the cemetery, where the graves of rabbis and other important personalities from the community are located. The graves of the Bettelheim and Pappenheim family members are grouped in two places. The graves of rabbis and their wives are also grouped together. In very rare cases, the remains of the deceased were transported for burial in Bratislava (e.g. Ignatz Deutsch from Vienna, Chaim Sofer from Pest).