Obj. ID: 43896
Jewish Funerary Art Jewish cemetery in Piotrków Trybunalski, Poland
According to ESJF European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative, the New Jewish Cemetery in Piotrków Trybunalski was established in 1792 and is located about 1.3 km north of the market square, among fields. In 1905, it was fenced with a brick wall with a gateway, which still exists today. During World War II, it was partially destroyed. The Germans carried out executions and burials in mass graves there. After the war, the survivors exhumed the bodies of the victims of a mass execution in the Rakowski Forest and buried them in the new cemetery in brotherly graves. Survivors also partially cleaned up the area.
Since 1996, the cemetery has been cleaned with the participation of city authorities. The tombstones found during the renovation of the streets were brought there and used to build a provisional lapidarium. At the beginning of the 21st century, Jewish organizations rebuilt four ohels of local tzadiks. The cemetery is shaped like an irregular, elongated polygon with an area of approximately 3.5 hectares and is covered with deciduous trees. In the western part, there is the former gravedigger’s house. An avenue runs alongside the cemetery from the gate. There are four ohels, a World War I military headquarters, Holocaust graves, and symbolic tombstones (cenotaphs). About 1,750 tombstones have survived (the oldest one is from 1793). They are mainly traditional sandstone and concrete stelae, non-traditional tombstones (in the form of a tree trunk, broken column, pillar), and post-war ones formed similarly to the Catholic ones. The older tombstones feature various interesting symbolic motifs. The inscriptions, apart from Hebrew, are in Polish, Russian, German, and Yiddish. The cemetery is open (the last burial took place in 2005) and belongs to the Jewish Community in Łódź.
In the western part of the cemetery, near the gravedigger's building, local tzadiks are buried: 1 - Chaim Dawid Bernard son of Isachar Ber from Działoszyn, died on February 4, 1858, tzadik and doctor, student of Jakow Icchak Horowic "the Seer of Lublin" and Dawid Biederman from Lelów. 2 - Meir Menachem Finkler, who died according to various sources in 1912 or 1924, tzadik from the Radoszyce dynasty. 3 - Isachar Dow Ber ha-Kohen, son of Awraham Cwi Tornheim from Wolbórz, died on October 8, 1877, tzaddik, student of Urie from Strzeliska, Isachar Dow from Radoszyce and Eliezer Hofstein from Kozienice, author of the work "Awodat Isachar". 4 - Menachem Mosze Waltfried, tzadik from Rozprza.
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