Jewish Cemetery, Warsaw
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| Warsaw Jewish Cemetery | |
|---|---|
 Graves at Okopowa Street Jewish Cemetery | |
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| Details | |
| Established | 1806 |
| Location | |
| Coordinates | 52°14′51″N 20°58′29″E / 52.24750°N 20.97472°E |
| Type | Jewish cemetery |
| Size | 33 ha |
| No. of graves | 200,000-300,000[1] |
The Warsaw Jewish Cemetery is one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in Europe and in the world. Located on Warsaw's Okopowa Street and abutting the Christian Powązki Cemetery, the Jewish necropolis was established in 1806 and occupies 33 hectares (83 acres) of land. The cemetery contains over 250,000 marked graves,[1] as well as mass graves of victims of the Warsaw Ghetto. Although the cemetery was closed down during World War II, after the war it was reopened and a small portion of it remains active, serving Warsaw's existing Jewish population.
As the necropolis was established to replace many smaller cemeteries closer to the city centre, it was designed to serve all Jewish communities of Warsaw, regardless of their affiliation. Hence, it is subdivided into several districts dubbed quarters (kwatery), historically reserved for various groups. Among them are three Orthodox (for men, women and one for holy scriptures), Reform Judaism, children, military and Warsaw Ghetto Uprising victims.
The cemetery, which has become a dense forest in the post-war period, is filled with monuments dedicated to notable personas such as politicians, spiritual leaders, inventors, economists and others. Many of the markers are simple, others are elaborately carved and richly decorated. Large mausoleums appear in styles ranging from
History
In 1806 Warsaw's Jewish Commune petitioned the government to establish a new cemetery for Jewish inhabitants of Warsaw.[2] The Bródno Jewish Cemetery, in existence since 1769, was nearly at capacity and the chevra kadisha sought a new burial ground.[3] The lot chosen was located right outside of the city limits in the borough of Wola, next to a new Catholic Powązki Cemetery established in 1790. The petition was accepted and in the following year the cemetery was established. The earliest headstone was dated December 6, 1806 and belonged to certain Nachum son of Nachum of Siemiatycze, but it did not survive to our times. The first woman interred there was certain Elka Junghoff, daughter of Jehuda Leib Mulrat of Kalisz. Her tombstone is dated November 26, 1804, but the date is most likely wrong. Hence the oldest surviving headstone belongs to Sara, daughter of Eliezer (died September 8, 1807).[4]
Unlike other cemeteries in Europe, all the graves in the Okopowa Street cemetery have their backs to the cemetery gate. The tradition of placing graves facing the cemetery gate stems from the belief that at the future
During the first decades of its existence the new Okopowa Street cemetery was used mostly by the higher strata of Jewish society, with poorer Jews interred in the Bródno Jewish Cemetery in the easternmost borough of
Historically the cemetery was separated from the city centre and the quarter inhabited by Jews by a deep ditch, the so-called
As the cemetery was used by all groups of Warsaw's Jewry, conflicts arose over control of the cemetery and various burial-related issues. In 1913 it was agreed to split it onto four parts: one for
During World War II the cemetery was partly demolished. German forces used it for
In the 1990s the neglected cemetery started to be renovated for the first time since the 1930s, mostly by the re-created Warsaw Jewish Commune and the Nissenbaum Family Foundation, as well as the City of Warsaw municipal government. The cemetery is still open, with 20 to 30 new burials every year.
Notable interments
- Solomon Anski, writer (Solomon Zangwill Rappaport), author of "The Dybbuk"
- Szymon Askenazy, archaeologist
- Meir Balaban
- Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin, Rosh yeshiva of the Volozhin Yeshiva and author of several major Jewish works
- Mathias Bersohn, philanthropist
- Adam Czerniakow(1880–1942), head of the Judenrat in the Warsaw Ghetto
- Szymon Datner, historian
- Jacob Dinezon (1852–1919), writer
- Marek Edelman
- Maksymilian Fajans, artist, lithographer and photographer
- Maurycy Fajans, founder of the first steamboat line on the Vistula
- Alexander Flamberg, chess master
- Edward Flatau, neurologist
- Uri Nissan Gnessin, writer
- Samuel Goldflam, neurologist
- Ester Rachel Kamińska (1870–1925), the "mother of Yiddish Theater", mother of Ida Kamińska
- Michał Klepfisz
- Janusz Korczak, famous author and physician
- Izaak Kramsztyk, rabbi and lawyer
- Aleksander Lesser, painter and art critic
- Szlomo Zalman Lipszyc, first Chief Rabbi of Warsaw
- Dow Ber Meisels, rabbi of Kraków and Warsaw
- Eliyahu Shlomo HaLevi of Lida, Hasidic rabbi
- Samuel Orgelbrand, publisher of the Universal Encyclopaedia
- Isaac Loeb Peretz(1852–1915) one of the most important Yiddish language writers of the 19th-20th centuries
- Samuel Abraham Poznański
- Józef Różański, communist activist
- Józef Sandel, art historian and critic
- Hayyim Selig Slonimski, Hebrew publisher, astronomer, inventor and science author
- Chaim Soloveitchik, founder of the Brisk rabbinic dynasty & the "brisker method" of Talmudic study[2]
- Julian Stryjkowski, (born Pesach Stark) 1905–1996, writer, author of "Austeria" "Voices in Darkness"
- Hipolit Wawelberg, founder of Warsaw Technical College,
- Szymon Winawer, chess player
- Lucjan Wolanowski
- Ludwik Zamenhof, doctor and inventor of Esperanto.
See also
- Jewish cemeteries of Warsaw
- Monument to the Memory of Children - Victims of the Holocaust
- History of the Jews in Warsaw
References
- ^ a b "Okopowa Street Jewish Cemetery - Sightseeing - Warsaw". Retrieved 12 January 2017.
- ^ a b c Tercatin, Rossella (July 22, 2020). "Unexploded Nazi mortar uncovered in 'Warsaw Ghetto' Jewish cemetery". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 2020-08-07.
- ^ Ami Living, January 25, 2017, p. 16.
- ^ "Wirtualny Cmentarz". Retrieved 12 January 2017.
External links
- Okopowa Street Jewish Cemetery at Museum of the History of Polish Jews, Virtual Shtetl
- Website of an ongoing project of writing down all the names from the Okopowa Street Jewish Cemetery
- "Gesia" Jewish Cemetery Foundation - https://web.archive.org/web/20180131184103/http://www.jewishcem.waw.pl/english/start.htm
- http://history1900s.about.com/library/holocaust/aa100499.htm Archived 2017-01-06 at the Wayback Machine
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