Obj. ID: 50430
Jewish Funerary Art New Jewish cemetery in Siedlce, Poland
According to ESJF European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative, the New Jewish cemetery in Siedlce is located to the west of the city and was likely established by 1807, although the official documents for the purchase of land for the cemetery date to 1926. From 1869 to 1939, the cemetery was gradually enlarged. Currently, it covers an area of approximately 3 hectares and is shaped like an irregular polygon. The oldest found tombstone dates to 1855, although pre-war sources mention a tombstone from 1827. The latest burials took place in 1988. There is also a mass grave of Jews murdered in the 1906 pogrom in the cemetery. During World War II, the cemetery was used for carrying out executions and mass murders. It is estimated that in 18 graves (5 and 10 metres long) dating from 1942 to 1943, there are approximately 3,000 Jews. The cemetery also contains the remains of Jews from Radom who died during the transportation and 39 Jewish soldiers of the Red Army, killed by the Germans in a POW camp. In 1944, to erase traces of their crimes, the Nazi occupiers dug up mass graves and started burning the bodies.
After the war, the area of the cemetery was largely devastated. The tombstones were used for building roads and curbs, while some were smashed on the spot. After the war, bodies of Jews who were buried in various parts of the city and its vicinity were exhumed and reburied in the cemetery. In 1946, at the initiative of the Jewish Committee, a monument commemorating the victims was erected in the cemetery. During the period of the People’s Republic of Poland, the area remained abandoned and continued to fall into disrepair until the 1980s. There was a pasture in the eastern part of the cemetery. Restoration work was carried out in the cemetery in 1987–1989. As a result, the brick fence was restored, and the area was cleaned up. In February 2009, a plaque commemorating the Jews of Siedlce, funded by the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage and the Jewish Community in Warsaw, was placed at the gate of the cemetery. About 1,000 tombstones have survived in the cemetery. In recent years, the process of returning recovered individual tombstones from the city to the cemetery has also been ongoing.
Date of the oldest tombstone: 1855
Date of the latest tombstone: 1988
