The Jewish cemetery, as mentioned above, is situated on the old Fischerfeld. In 1349 the cemetery was enclosed within the city moat and walls, which were fortified with jetties. Beginning in 1424 the neighboring communities also buried their dead there; but this privilege was withdrawn by the magistrate in 1505. When Frankfurt was besieged during the interregnum in 1552, a garrison with cannon was stationed in the cemetery, and an attempt was even made to force the Jews to sink the tombstones and to level the ground; but against this they protested successfully (July 15, 1552). During the Fettmilch riots the whole community spent the night of September 1, 1614, in the cemetery, prepared for death, and thought themselves fortunate when they were permitted to leave the city through the Fischerfeld gate on the following afternoon. In 1640 a dispute in regard to passage through the cemetery was decided in favor of the Jews. The community occasionally paid damages to Christians who were injured by the oxen ("bekorim", the first-born that may not be used in accordance with Exodus xiii. 3) that grazed within the cemetery walls. In 1694 a neighboring garden was bought for the purpose of enlarging the cemetery. During the great fire of 1711 the Jews sought refuge withall their possessions among the tombs of the fathers. The communal baking ovens, which before the fire were behind the synagogue, were transferred to a new site acquired in 1694. The only building preserved from the flames was the hospital for the poor, near the cemetery; behind it, another hospital was built in 1715 to replace the one in the Judengasse that had been destroyed. A slaughterhouse for poultry and a fire station were erected between the ovens and the cemetery. The fire station existed down to 1882; the site of the ovens is now covered by the handsome building of the Sick Fund, and that of the Holzplatz and the garden by the Philanthropin schoolhouse. On the site of the two hospitals the Neue Gemeinde-Synagoge was built in 1882. The cemetery, covering more than , was closed in 1828; its epitaphs have been published by Dr. M. Horovitz.