Poland: Prisoners to renovate Jewish cemeteries

AFP reported that prisoners are to do conservation work in disused Jewish cemeteries, Poland’s prison service said Thursday.

Prison spokesperson Ireneusz Mucha said an agreement had been signed with the national Polish-Jewish heritage foundation enabling the prisoners to volunteer.

Some 1,000 Polish cemeteries need work; many were destroyed by the Nazis during World War II.

“The voluntary, unpaid work will be run with local authorities or Jewish communities. The advantages will go both ways, because the foundation will also provide courses in history and tolerance for the prisoners,” Mucha said.

More than 12 prisons will participate.

Initial projects will be building a memorial in a Radom cemetery, south of Warsaw, and renovation of a Zwierzyniec graveyard in Poland's southeast.

The story added that Jews arrived in Poland from western Europe to escape 11th century pogroms.

Before the Holocaust, some 3.5 million Jews lived in Poland, about 10% of the population and Europe's largest Jewish community.

Of the six million Jews killed by the Nazis, half were Polish. Most perished in concentration camps.

Today, some 5,000-15,000 people in Poland identify as Jewish.

Read more here.

Kohanim: Marking cemetery boundaries

Kohanim - members of the Jewish priestly clan, descendants of Aaron - may not enter cemeteries, as part of the restrictions concerning coming into contact with death or impurity.

On some streets near cemeteries in Queens, New York, certain sections are marked so that Kohanim will not unknowingly walk on a sidewalk that might be disputed territory.

In Eastern Europe, cemetery borders are less well-defined and wartime activities and post-war reconstruction have blurred borders even more. In one small part of Poland, however, arrangements are being made to determine the actual borders and to establish "safe" zones by careful mapping of the grounds and consulting pre-war maps.

The details are in this story from Vosizneias.com.

Poland - Good news from Lizhensk: Kohanim visiting Lizhensk will no longer have to stand on the edge of the road bordering the cemetery and take the risk of getting hit by careless drivers. Kohanim are among the many thousands who visit Lizhensk on the yartzeit of Rebbe Elimelech, but due to their sanctity are unable to enter the cemetery. Now the "Lizhensk Committee," headed by Rabbi Simcha Krakovsky, has mapped the area and found that Kohanim can enter a small area in the open field two meters away from the road.

Several years ago, the municipality was asked to construct a traffic circle in the local market. During the excavation and road work, thousands of tombstones were discovered. These had been taken from the cemetery for road construction. The committee were able to save some of them and they were stacked at the edge of the local cemetery.

The committee knew that the fence around the cemetery was not the actual border and that many graves were outside the fence. An investigation showed that only the nearby road is safe, free from graves, so it is safe for Kohanim to stand on.

Surveyors checked the committee's investigation and confirmed the cemetery area.

Additionally, the committee located a pre-war map showing the cemetery boundaries, as well as a contemporary map. The comparison showed that the cemetery extended to within two meters from the road. Thus they were able to determine the exact borders and provide a solution. Kohanim."

Poland: New catalog of Jewish cemeteries

The Lo Tishkach Foundation has published a new Catalog of Jewish Cemeteries of Masovian Region in Poland.

Established in 2006, the Lo Tishkach Database now contains details on more than 9,000 Jewish burial grounds in 29 countries. The Lo Tishkach Foundation estimates that there are some 20,000 such sites in Europe. The foundation is a project of the Conference of European Rabbis and the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany

The information was reported by the International Survey of Jewish Monuments (ISJM).

Jewish tradition regards burial grounds as sacred sites which must never be disturbed. Jewish cemeteries and mass graves also provide a vivid focal point marking the destruction of Jewish communities and for learning the lessons of the Holocaust. They stand as testimony to the history of Jewish community life across the European continent and are an important part of Europe’s diverse cultural heritage.

The report (October 2008) on the current state of Poland's Jewish cemeteries reveals that dozens are still unmarked and neglected, while others have been built over completely.

The Lo Tishkach Foundation (Hebrew, "do not forget") commissioned the report - Jewish Cemeteries of Poland: Masovian Region - which focuses on the 126 Jewish burial sites of the Masovian Voivodeship, Poland’s largest region.

Lo Tishkach also reports on databases of Jewish cemeteries in Ukraine (some 800 cemeteries). This perhaps the most complete record in English of Ukrainian Jewish mass graves.

Search the database here. The database record contains at least the location and address of each cemetery plus basic information on the specific geographical location of the town or village as well as the source from which this information was compiled.

Some cemeteries indicate additional information is found at the IAJGS Cemetery Project Database.

For additional information, click here.

Visiting a Jewish cemetery: Experiences, emotions

Ruth Ellen Gruber's posting at JewishHeritageTravel covers emotional and mystical experiences at Jewish cemeteries, both her own and of others.

Visiting a Jewish cemetery in Europe, and particularly in East-Central Europe, can be an emotional experience.

This holds true whether you go there as a volunteer helping clean up an abandoned cemetery overgrown by weeds and trees, or as someone on a roots trip looking for a long-lost, or long-forgotten, family grave, or as a "straight" tourist interested in history or the powerful imagery of tombstone art.

In the introductory chapter of Jewish Heritage Travel: A Guide to Eastern Europe I addressed these emotions, describing how I myself felt when I began exploring these sites.

I became absolutely mesmerized, even a little obsessed with what I was seeing. I wanted to visit, touch, see, feel as many places as I could. I almost felt it a duty. As I entered broken gates or climbed over broken walls into cemeteries where a Jew may not have set foot in years, I wanted to spread my arms and embrace them all, embrace all the tombstones, all the people buried there, all the memories.

In the first editions of the book, I added a further sentence, describing how I projected my thoughts toward these all so often forgotten places: I'm here, I told them mentally; SOMEONE is here.

Back then, my trips were voyages of discovery. Everything was new; there was little literature on the subject, few visitors had made their way to such sites, and there were few efforts to preserve, maintain or restore them. But even today, after scholars and genealogists and tour guides have studied and mapped and documented almost everything -- I still feel the pull.

Ruth continues on to detail a Jerusalem Post story by Jonathan Gillis who took part in a restoration project of the Czestochowa (Poland) Jewish cemetery and his experiences. She includes photos (1991, 2006) of the old Jewish cemetery cemetery in Nazna, Romania - near Targu Mures - and describes her almost mystical experience there.

Read Ruth's complete post at the link above.

Poland: Jozefow Bilgorajski cemetery cleaned

After the clean-up, Jozefow Bilgorajski Jewish Cemetery, Poland (FODZ)

Ruth Ellen Gruber writes in Jewish Heritage Travel about the clean-up project in the Jozefow Bilgorajski Jewish cemetery in eastern Poland.

The project was co-financed by the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland (FODZ) and the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.

Ruth has posted her own photographs, and FODZ has also created an online photo gallery of the results.

Jews settled in Jozefow in the 18th century, and by 1921 nearly 80 percent of the local population was Jewish. A very nice baroque-style synagogue, built in the late 18th or early 19th century, now serves as the town library.

The oldest tombstones in the cemetery date from the 1760s. I visited there in the summer of 2006, when I was doing the updates for Jewish Heritage Travel. The local librarian was very helpful, giving me explicit instructions how to find the cemetery, located near quarries on a hill just outside town. Access is via a dirt road off Kamienna street.

Parts of the cemetery were - sort of - clear, or at least fairly accessible, even in "high weed" season. But much of the cemetery was jungle.... Here are some photos to compare how it was, with the pictures on the FODZ site showing the area after clean-up.

Do visit Ruth's blog to see her photographs. Follow the links for more information.

Poland: Przemysl's Jewish cemetery project

David Semmel writes the Jewish Prezemysl Blog, which is devoted to the descendants who are researching and remembering 700 years of Jewish life in the town.

A recent post details work on the cemetery project, and a plea for funds to continue preservation and restoration work at the Slowackiego Street Cemetery, spearheaded by Dr. John Hartman, who leads The Remembrance & Reconciliation Foundation.

Anyone who has been to the site ten years ago and recently can testify as to the progress - and the amount of work that remains.

We wage a constant battle against the elements in the form of yearly maintenance and repair. In general, the winters in Przemysl are harsh and combined with the hilly topography of the site, there is constant and serious erosion in many places.

In addition, there was a windstorm recently that downed several trees, requiring an unplanned, emergency clean-up.

We are lucky to employ one of the very few Jews left in the town, Mr. Jocaim Glettner, a mason by trade, as the general contractor/overseer. Paying him, and just keeping up with maintenance usually costs $5,000/year – but over $8,000 this year as the dollar tanked.

Hartman and Semmel together raise about two-thirds of the funds which are mostly used for current upkeep with no funds for restoration or other projects.


Prezemysl descendants may be interested in remembering their ancestors by contributing to star plaques commemorating mass-murder victims ($100 each); Jewish historical plaques for the cemetery wall ($500 each); construction of a walkway between the two mass-murder monuments ($7,500); and the clearing of walks and access paths in the cemetery's older sections ($1,000) .


The Foundation is a tax-exempt, non-profit 501(c)3 organization and contributions are used only for projects in Poland. See the Foundation link above to make donations, or obtain more information.


Contact Semmel through his blog and Hartman through the Foundation.

Poland: Lodz Jewish cemeteries, photoblog

Credit: Krystian Kozerawski

Here's a photoblog I've just discovered. It offers a four-part series on the Lodz New Jewish Cemetery, here, here, here and here.

The Krystian Kozerawski Photoblog is written by a young man with an MA in Archaeology and field experience in Poland, Ireland, Scotland and Central Europe. He's a Polish press columnist in Ireland and Poland; a musician and an amateur photographer.

Krakow: Five burials, one tombstone

A Schamroth tombstone identified in Krakow’s Miodowa Street cemetery opens up a new family branch previously unknown.

The tombstone has three sections. The curved writing and first two lines in the upper section reads:

Here lies the betulah [young maiden] Rivka Judessa, daughter of Isaac Halevi Horowitz.
She died on 1 Adar 5691 [18 February 1931].
In this grave lie 3 generations

The rest of the inscription reads:

In eternal memory: Yitzhak Halevi Horowitz
And his grandson, Avraham Arie s/o Dov Ha’levi Ehrenstein
Killed by the Germans in the year 1942.
May Hashem avenge their blood

The middle section forms the main part of the tombstone. At the top is written:

Rivka Judessa, daughter of Ha’rav [the Rabbi],

Ha’Gaon [the great Torah scholar] Yitzhok Itsche Schamroth
Died on 5 Tamuz 5665 [8 July 1905]

Below that is a poetic description of Rivka Judessa’s attributes… each line beginning with an initial from her first name.

The lower section reads:

Here lies Doba Fradel
wife of Yitzhok Halevi Horowitz
daughter of Avraham Tzvi Klein
Died on 29 Tevet 5687 [3 January 1927]

In summary, there are actually five people buried beneath this tombstone, including a mother (Rivka Judessa Schamroth), her daughter (Doba Freidel Klein), and her granddaughter (Rivka Judessa Halevi Horowitz). Based on these inscriptions as well as other data, the family structure has been reconstructed below. (As an aside, the Halevi Horowitz family is one of the few well-established lineages that can trace their origins back to Rashi, and from there back to Adam and Eve).

Click image to enlarge

This information was writen by Julian Schamroth and published on the Horowitz Family Association website.

Eastern Europe: Wooden Jewish tombstones

As I have often mentioned on Tracing the Tribe - The Jewish Genealogy Blog, the online Jewish Magazine offers excellent articles. The November issue has a story by Tomek Wisniewski on wooden tombstones from Eastern European Jewish Cemeteries.

The article is illustrated by photographs from Lokache 1915, Druzhkopola 1916, Kisielin 1917, Pinsk 1918, Wilkomir 1915, Ozdziutycze and Lokacze.

The introduction reads, "Tens of thousands of the most beautiful stone tombstones managed to survive in Poland, but not one single wooden one has been preserved."

With a few exceptions, small-town Jewish cemeteries in Poland 'exist' only on old maps and old photographs. Their rich artistic heritage has been lost, or survives only in fragmentary or merely symbolic form, e.g. walled cemeteries behind whose walls practically nothing is to be found. The most interesting and impressive tombstones (matzevot) have disappeared. They all met the same fate.

The Germans used them to cobble roads and pavements, to reinforce escarpments and clad the beds and banks of rivers. They were used in the construction of flights of stairs and farmers used them as sandstone knife-sharpeners. Despite these years of destruction, tens of thousands of the most beautiful stone tombstones managed to survive in Poland, but not one single wooden one has been preserved.

The author comments that Jews erected wooden markers for centuries and were usually found in the poorest localities where it was hard to find stone. They were ordinary wood, painted with the name and dates. Those with a little more money would carve in the wood the names in Hebrew.

In Polesie and around Pinsk (today Belarus, then Poland before 1939), the Jews lived in wooden houses, prayed in wooden synagogues and wooden tombstones were an old tradition.

Wooden tombstones were also used in Volhynia, Mazowsze and Wielkopolska and by the poorest Jews in larger towns such as Bialystok, Wilno and Lublin. During the First World War wooden tombstones were often erected on the graves of Jewish soldiers of the Austrian army, especially in the Beskid Niski region. During the First World War several hundred wooden Jewish tombstones in the old cemetery in Lublin (founded in 1541) were also used by Russian soldiers for firewood.

The oldest Polish wooden markers date from the 18th century, around Miejsce. The Jewish cemetery there has photographs of markers from 1771-1805, which can be seen in the collection of the Jewish Museum in Frankfurt-am-Main.

The oldest carved inscription - February 19, 1771 - reads:

Here lies a brave and honorable woman, Mrs. Chajosen, daughter of the venerable Mr. Alexander, of blessed memory. She died on Tuesday, the fifth day of Adar in the year 5531" (19 February 1771).

Photos are rare traces of these wooden markers; there are fewer than 12 photos dating from before 1939. Following years of research, Wiesniewski writes about his collection:

....[he] managed to acquire several original photographs or postcards of wooden tombstones pre-1939 from Ozdziutycze, £okacze, Droshkopol and Kisielin in Volhynia, as well as of wooden ohels with inscriptions from Piñsk in Polesie and from Wilkomierz in Lithuania, and just one photograph from Radom, dated 1941, of a wooden matsevah in the ghetto.

He describes the markers:

Wooden Jewish tombstones were usually tall and after some years had passed and the wood had begun to rot, the lower part would be cut off and the tombstone buried deeper in the ground.

According to the article, the same tradition was followed in Christian cemeteries. Eventually, the wooden marker would be removed and replaced by stone.

In existing photos, the markers were similar: long narrow wooden planks of oak or pine with little ornamentation. The narrow wood meant inscriptions and dates were truncated, abbreviated or adjusted in other ways, such as spacing. The author gives very detailed examples of inscriptions.

In the 18th century marker from Miejsce, inscrptions are brief. There are three photos containing 15 legible and almost complete inscriptions (from 1895-1913). In Kiesielin, there are two complete and one partial legible inscription detailed by the author. In Lokacze, there are six readable inscriptions. In Ozdziutycz, there are seven inscriptions in a photo. There are translated inscriptions, such as

"Here lies a modest woman, the married Berkah(?) daughter of R. Szlomo. She died the 13th day in the month of Tevet year 5671 (1911) as the abbreviated era. May her soul be bound in the bond of everlasting life."

Women are described as "modest" or "proper;" men as "perfect" or "perfect and upright." and provide only the essential details such as the name of the person, father's name, death date and the abbreviation of 1 Sam 25:29 which "May his/her soul be bound in the bond of everlasting life." At the top is "peh nun," "here lies." There are no surnames.

Read the detailed complete story at the link above. the photographs are fascinating and are from the author's collection.

A book by the author, "A History of Lost Jewish Shtetl Cemeteries" will be published by Kreator later this year.

Warsaw: Jewish tombstone photo exhibit planned

Ruth Ellen Gruber posted on her Jewish Heritage Travel blog about an exhibition planned on misused Jewish tombstones.

The Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland has posted an announcement that it will be working with the Ethnography Museum in Warsaw to put together a photographic exhibition on a fascinating, little-examined (and rather uncomfortable) topic - the use of Jewish tombstones (mazzevot) after the Holocaust in improper, even deliberately desecratory ways.

See here for more, including photographs.

Poland: Jewish cemetery website

JewishTravel.Pl offers information about sites of Jewish interest, including a list of Polish cemeteries, and also arranges tours.

President/founder Tomek Kuncewicz is director of the Auschwitz Jewish Center. Co-founder/International Affairs vice president Daniel Feldman is completing a PhD in Shoah history and literature at Yale University. Co-founder/Specialized Tours vice president Kate Craddy works for the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. Read more about them here.

There's an interactive map based on proposed tours of various geographical locations. This is an interesting feature pointing up Jewish sites in these places.

However, the real interest for the Jewish Graveyard Rabbit is the place index, billed as an introduction to all known places in Poland with remaining sites of Jewish interest. Enter the keyword "cemetery" and view a long alphabetical list of towns with Jewish cemeteries.

Caveat: While some entries have more detail, many merely say "one Jewish cemetery remains."

Tip: To find more information on the town cemeteries listed on JewishTravel.pl , google the town of interest.

Under Zdunska Wola (in Lodz District, Sieradz Province), it says merely "Both a Jewish cemetery and former synagogue building remain." Google zdunska wola jewish cemetery and view nearly 600 results for more information.

Zdunska Wola's cemetery is undergoing an ongoing major restoration and preservation project, and contains unusual colored tombstones. This is the project of Dr. Daniel Wagner of the Weizman Institute (Israel) and a team of dedicated researchers in Poland, Israel and elsewhere.

Wagner's own site is here, where he writes "I believe that the total number of gravestones is probably as high as 1200 or more. It is the largest Jewish cemetery in the Sieradz region. The oldest gravestone is that of Elazar LIPSZYC, who died in 1837. The last recorded Jewish burials were in 1946.

Take a look for your own ancestral towns in the list at JewishTravel.pl at the link above.