Obj. ID: 50510
Jewish Funerary Art  New Jewish cemetery in Mińsk Mazowiecki, Poland - Photos of 2021

To the main object: Jewish cemetery in Mińsk Mazowiecki, Poland

According to ESJF European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative, the New Jewish cemetery in Mińsk Mazowiecki was established outside the built-up area of the city, “on the road to Targówek,” on a plot of land located between the contemporary Dąbrówki Street and 1 Pułku Lotnictwa Myśliwskiego “Warszawa” Street. The synagogue supervisor in Mińsk Mazowiecki initiated efforts to establish the cemetery in 1873. The contract for the purchase of the plot was signed on May 16, 1878. In 1902, Rebbe Jakow Perłow, the founder of the Nowy Mińsk Hasidic dynasty, was buried in the cemetery. During World War II, the Germans carried out executions in the cemetery. On December 24, 1924, they shot 218 people there. In January 1943, the bodies of the participants of the rebellion in the camp in the Mikołaj Kopernik School were buried there.

The cemetery was degraded during the war and continued to fall into disrepair in the following decades. In 1943, some tombstones were used to harden the yards in the village of Karolina. The cemetery was littered and desecrated. On October 9, 1964, the Minister of Municipal Economy signed an order to close the cemetery. In 1978, 1 Pułku Lotnictwa Myśliwskiego “Warszawa” Street was extended through a part of the cemetery area. In 1965, at the initiative of the Jewish community of Mińsk in France, a monument commemorating the victims of the Holocaust was erected.

In 2016-2017, the Jewish Religious Community in Warsaw, with the support of the European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative, built a new fence around the cemetery. Currently, about 500 tombstones have been preserved, the oldest of which dates to 1878. There is moreover a monument commemorating the victims of the Holocaust. According to the testimonies of residents, in the south-eastern part of the cemetery, there are two unmarked mass graves from the war, visible as vast depressions in the ground. The owner of the cemetery is the Jewish Community in Warsaw. The facility is listed in the Provincial Register of Immovable Monuments. The list of preserved tombstones is available at https://cemetery.jewish.org.pl/list/c_14

There are 2 wooden ohel (roof on 4 posts) with original tombstones: one dedicated to local rabbi and tzaddik Yekhiel Michl Rabinowicz, son of Yeshaya (died in 1919) and the other dedicated to the chairman of rabbinical courts in Siennica and Seroczyn Scharfsin Yosef Yona Gavriel, son of Eliezer Paltiel (died in 1935). There is also a tombstone dedicated to Tzadik Yakov from Minsk, son of Shimon from Zavikhvost (died in 1902), situated near the memorial.

By the entrance, there is a metal plaque with information about the history of the cemetery and its renovation in 2017. A new fence - wooden panels on iron posts (1.5 m high), was erected in 2016 by ESJF and the Jewish Community of Warsaw.

There are more than 300 tombstones in rows, and the area has separate burial sections for men and women. Most tombstones have traditional vertical shapes with semicircular tops. Inscriptions are mostly in Hebrew, although there are several tombstones with inscriptions in Polish and Yiddish. 

The cemetery is situated between Dąbrówki and 1 Pułku Lotnictwa Myśliwskiego Warszawa Street. The northern border of the cemetery adjoins the backyards of private commercial and residential properties on Dąbrówki Street, 38A-42A.