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The Jewish cemetery at Erfurt served its medieval population from the late 11th century until 1454, when Jews were expelled from the city. Erfurt had been home to a thriving Jewish community(opens in new tab) until that time, although a brutal massacre in 1349 killed more than 100 Jews in the city, possibly because they were incorrectly accused of being responsible for the Black Death.After the 1454 expulsion, a barn and a granary were built on the site of the Jewish cemetery. Centuries later, in 2013, archaeologists unearthed 47 Jewish graves during an archaeological excavation ahead of the site's redevelopment...

Police are investigating after someone placed body parts of dead pigs on wooden stakes at the construction site of a planned mosque in Erfurt. Half of a pig’s head as well as pig feet and entrails were among the body parts found on the nine 1.5-meter wooden stakes at the site of the planned mosque, according to police on Monday. The pig may have been used because many Muslims do not eat pork. A criminal police unit is now investigating who was responsible for the act. “It should simply not be the case that minorities are attacked in this way...

FULL TITLE: Construction of German mosque is halted after right-wing activists hammer ten giant crosses into building site Right-wing extremists in Germany have hampered the construction of a mosque by erecting ten large crosses at the site. The group, planted the wooden structures in the small village of Marbach, near Erfurt, in the central eastern state of Thuringia, in early March. The owner of the site has said he plans to take legal action against the activists, named as 'Citizens for Erfurt'.

A sixteenth-century altar in one of Germany's most historically important cathedrals has been saved from woodworm not by the application of chemicals, but by a swarm of wasps. The Cranach altar in the Erfurt Cathedral was being destroyed by the wood-eating insects, but officials delayed taking action because they feared that chemical treatments might damage its 11 painted panels. Instead they adopted a pioneering technique which may now be emulated in historic buildings across Europe: releasing 3,000 parasitic wasps, which feed on woodworm larvae. The towering wooden altar, riddled with holes, and the large painting above it which also showed...