Ludwig Schoenecke is one of the more unknown people buried in the Zion Cemetery. Ludwig Schoenecke was born on January 26, 1847 in Hannover and died on November 28, 1902, about a year after his famous father-in-law Conrad Schick. Schoenecke came to Jerusalem at the age of about 20 as an employee of the Basel Pilgrim Mission. Christian Friedrich Spittler founded the pilgrim mission St. Chrischona in Basel in 1840. This should educate people to spread Christianity in distant lands, and to help alleviate distress and misery in these countries. Conrad Schick had come to Jerusalem in 1846 as a missionary, as well.

The pilgrim mission, in which Schoenecke worked, was, according to Spittler’s wishes, financially supported by the hoped-for profits. In the course of the dissolution of the not permanently profitable mission act Johannes Frutiger took over their banking division in 1872 and opened in early 1873, the bank J. Frutiger & Cie in a building at Jaffa Gate belonging to the Latin Patriarchate. These events are described in detail in the book by Hans Hermann Frutiger and Jakob Eisler “Johannes Frutiger – A Swiss Banker in Jerusalem”. There are further references to the professional life of Ludwig Schoenecke: Between 1872 and 1875 Schoenecke worked for a former employee of Spittler’s trading business in Philadelphia. He then returned to the Frutiger Bank in Jerusalem, edited debtor affairs and later worked as an authorized signatory at various stores of Frutiger Bank. In 1891 he signed the purchase contract for the Jewish housing estate Neve Schalom, where the corresponding site plan was created by his father-in-law Conrad Schick. Schoenecke was also active in publishing. His publisher let print Schicks guide through the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and there are postcards from this time with the imprint “Verlag L. Schoenecke” on it.

In Jerusalem, Schoenecke came into contact with the German-speaking colony and its members. There was sociability, club life, especially singing clubs, joint excursions, church walks, regular lectures and musical evenings and Schoenecke also got to know the couple Schick and his three daughters. He especially liked their middle daughter Frieda, who was 13 years younger than he. So it happened that on November 14, 1878, he married the 18-year-old Schick daughter Frieda. The wedding was certified by the German consul in Jerusalem Baron von Münchhausen. Schoenecke was warmly welcomed into the Schick family, to which soon the Einsler family (the Schick daughter Lydia had married the doctor Dr. Adalbert Einsler, leader of the “Leper Jesus-Asylum” of the Moravian Church), belonged. There were regular meetings at Schick’s house on Sunday afternoon and a hearty family life. Ludwig and Frieda Schoenecke had a total of seven children, six daughters and a son.

Visits to Germany were rare, but especially for medical treatments one drove home. Schoeneckes arrived in Germany in the summer of 1887 with four children and an Arab nurse in order to have Frieda undergo medical treatment in Berlin. The son Ludwig, born in 1884, was sent to the school in Höxter and later began to study medicine. He died in the First World War in 1915 at a lung penetration in Russian-occupied Poland and was buried there. A brother-in-law wrote that the grieving mother bore the death of her son in pious resignation and “brought this sacrifice, albeit with a bleeding heart, to the Fatherland”. The daughter Hilda, born in 1895, came via Kaiserswerth to Germany, studied medicine as one of the first women, in Halle and Hamburg, and finally came in 1924 to the North Sea island of Amrum. Here she was active as a family doctor and should also clarify whether the former feudal hotel and spa “Zur Satteldüne” was suitable as a children’s rest home. “Miss Doctor”, as she was commonly known on the island, came to a positive assessment, organized the construction of the child rest home, and became its leader until she retired in 1960, honored with the Federal Cross of Merit. Her sister Martha Schoenecke worked in the X-ray department of the children’s home. Almost all other Schoenecke daughters, mostly unmarried, moved to Amrum; they settled in the village of Nebel and died there.

One wonders how the young woman Hilda Schoenecke, who grew up in Jerusalem, could feel comfortable on a rough North Sea island. But Jerusalem and Amrum, in spite of all climatic, political and other contrasts, have something in common: a harsh landscape, a barren flora and a lot of sand. And: Amrum sometimes has beautiful summers “with a wealth of light over dunes and Kniepsand as I only knew it at home in Jerusalem.” Thus, Hilda Schoenecke wrote in her review of the suitability of the hotel as a children’s rest home.

All Schoeneckes were very religious and felt connected to Jerusalem for life. For the baptism of a niece Ludwig Schoenecke 1885 Jordan water sent from Jerusalem to Altdöbern in the Lower Lusatia. The bottle arrived safely. Ludwig Schoenecke died early after a short illness at the age of 55 years. The inscription on his tombstone reads: “Christ is my life and dying is my gain (Phil 1,21).”