Obj. ID: 49724
Jewish Funerary Art  Site of the Old Jewish cemetery in Kazimierz Dolny, Poland

According to ESJF European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative, the cemetery was established in the 16th century and its existence was first mentioned in 1588. In 1780, the cemetery was expanded. In 1792, the administrative authorities ordered the cemetery to be closed and a new burial place to be established outside the of the city, which did not happen until 1851. Funerals were sporadically still held in the old cemetery, such as for Rebbe Jechezkiel Taub who was buried there in 1856. Before 1939, the cemetery covered an irregularly shaped plot of land measuring approximately 60 x 60 m and was enclosed with a limestone wall. At that time, the oldest part of the cemetery was neglected. During World War II, by order of the Germans, part of the cemetery hill was leveled, and barracks were erected in the cemetery. In the 1950s or 1960s, a school and playground were built in the cemetery. Parts of some tombstones were used to build a retaining wall at the playground. Currently, the southern part of the cemetery is the school and playground. A monument stylized as a tombstone was erected outside the school fence. In the northern part, on the hill, there are remains of the original cemetery wall, which mark the northern and north-eastern border, and single fragments of some tombstones (mentioned in the Cemetery Card from 1992). Periodically, bones slide from the leveled part of the hill. Archaeological research carried out in recent years has revealed many graves in the location of the playground. The Kazimierz Dolny Commune is the owner of the cemetery. The facility is not listed in the Municipal and Provincial Register of Monuments or the Register of Immovable Monuments of the Lubelskie Province.

In the 1980s, the tombstones found in the city were transported to the new Jewish cemetery in Kazimierz Dolny on Czerniawy Street and some were moved to the Nadwiślańskie Museum at No.11/13 Senatorska street. A few small fragments of tombstones on the slope behind the pitch have been preserved.