Content and evaluation Introduction In anthropological research, concern for the deceased is regarded as one of the most important indicators of the beginning of human culture. By taking care of the burial of the mortal remains of members of one's own community, prehistoric man already revealed ideas of a beyond and a connection between individual and community that went beyond death. In the Judeo-Christian culture, burial in a coffin developed into the usual form of burial, which had to take place in a special, specially designated area, the cemetery. The inviolability of the peace of the dead, which is indispensable for Jewish burials in contrast to Christian ones, means that Jewish cemeteries are not cleared and reoccupied after certain periods of rest. As far as they escaped National Socialist barbarism, Jewish cemeteries in Baden-Württemberg were able to grow in many cases over many generations up to the present day. Since it was customary until the 20th century to mention the name of the buried person as well as the name of the father on the gravestones, these inscriptions also represent sources of the highest value for historical-genealogical research. All these cemeteries are today protected cultural monuments. On the basis of a resolution of the Baden-Württemberg state parliament in 1989, which dealt with the documentation and preservation of Jewish cemeteries in Baden Württemberg, the Baden-Württemberg State Monuments Office was commissioned to provide comprehensive documentation of all relevant gravestones. The main basis of this work were prints of photographs taken by the Central Archive for the Study of the History of Jews in Germany in Heidelberg between 1985 and 1992 of almost all Jewish gravestones in Baden-Württemberg. After completion of the project in May 2008, the copy set with around 85,000 copies was handed over to the Ludwigsburg State Archives together with the paper cemetery documentation prepared by the State Monument Office and a database with documentation results for a large part of the graves. In addition to historical, art and linguistic details, this database also contains genealogically relevant facts. In the course of a project financed by the Kulturgutstiftung Baden-Württemberg, this valuable collection was made available for online use as EL 228 b II in the State Archives of Ludwigsburg in 2011. The database, consisting of many individual tables, was prepared in a format suitable for the finding aid system of the State Archives, the entire photo stock was scanned, each photo was given an individual signature and - as far as possible - cemetery by cemetery manually linked with the database contents provided. Thus the condition of the gravestones, which has been confirmed photographically throughout 1985-1992, can be called up worldwide via the Internet in connection with the indexing data for further research. These are photographs of gravestones from over 141 cemeteries (the number of cemeteries in Baden-Württemberg differs slightly depending on the counting method used), of which 89 are located in Baden and 52 in Württemberg. The place names used in their alphabetical order follow those of the register of inventory books I and II ("Dokumentation Friedhöfe in Deutschland") of the Zentralarchiv zur Erforschung der Juden in Deutschland, Heidelberg, using today's official names (e.g. "Bad Wimpfen HN" instead of "Wimpfen (Bad)"). The census (001-143) in round brackets was used for the interlocking with the mentioned register otherwise, whereby the two cemeteries with the numbers 012 (Bremen) and 086 (Michelstadt/Hessen) are missing here, since they lie outside of Baden Württemberg. The first external web link at cemetery level (uniformly referred to as "Zentralarchiv HD") refers to the relevant entry in the online directory of Jewish cemeteries maintained by the Zentralarchiv zur Erforschung der Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland, Heidelberg. In addition to further references to the cemetery in question, details of the respective documentation process, such as the year in which the photographs were taken and the names of the persons responsible for the so-called "basic documentation", can also be found there. The grab descriptions published in the present collection can be traced back to the work of these editors. A second link ("Judaica Alemannia") leads to the homepage of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft für die Erforschung der Geschichte der Juden im süddeutschen und Nachbarden Raum, which also contains further information and web links on the history of the individual cemeteries. Most of these cultural monuments now have their own entry in the online encyclopedia "Wikipedia". The relevant links are provided here as well as individual references to other relevant online projects. In the scans, an automatic compensation of brightness and contrast was omitted in order to obtain as much image information as possible, i.e. as many grayscales as possible. Many images therefore appear to be overexposed or underexposed at first, but this can be adjusted in the image presentation module using the "Brightness" selection button. This preserves a maximum of gray levels, of which a part would otherwise be lost, especially when shooting under extreme light conditions (dark gravestones in front of a snowy background/bright sky or the upper half of the stone in full sunlight, the lower half in the drop shadow of a neighbouring stone, etc.). The consecutive numbers 50689 (substitute slip), 64831-64839 (counting error during scanning) and 65961-65969 (dto.) are not assigned. Additional intermediate numbers are available: No. 2 a, 9 a, 22 a, 152 a, 1284 a, 1292 a, 1307 a, 1688 a, 2452 a, 4428 a, 4547 a, 4993 a, 8181 a, 9176 a, 9897 a, 13167 a, 16624 a, 23823 a, 30473 a, 31863 a, 32057 a, 32089 a, 32618 a, 33484 a, 33750 a, 33758 a, 34171 a, 34480 a, 35260 a, 35264 a, 36518 a, 37187 a, 39173 a, 39182 a, 39183 a, 39591 a, 40379 a, 41358 a, 43307 a, 43307 b, 43427 a, 43741 a, 44042 a, 44047 a, 44137 a, 44231 a, 45714 a, 46237 a, 46498 a, 46799 a, 47166 a, 47996 a, 48400 a, 50329 a, 53334 a, 54281 a, 57077 a, 59247 a, 60555 a, 60577 a, 60780 a, 60781 a, 66832 a, 67249 a, 74123 a, 77366 a, 79502 a, 81074 a and 82090 a. NOTE FOR SEARCH BY NAME: When searching for the names of buried persons, it is best to use the "full-text search" on the "entry page" of inventory EL 228 b II. In order to limit the number of hits for frequently occurring names to a manageable number and to avoid having to wait unnecessarily long, enter the first and last names of the person you are looking for in the Search text field, select "Every term must be found (AND)" as the link and mark "Title and heading" and "Contains notes" in the search fields.
