Obj. ID: 13528
Jewish Funerary Art Jewish cemetery in Lesko, Poland
According to ESJF European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative, the cemetery was in use from the 1540s until the Holocaust. Its area had been successively enlarged from the 17th century. The large area attached to the cemetery from the eastern side after 1854 was called the new cemetery. After that time, the cemetery was fenced with a new stone wall, which was pulled down during World War II. On the northern side, near the entrance to the cemetery, there was a funeral home. During the Soviet occupation (1939–1941), the occupiers took tombstones made of valuable rocks away. Later, the German occupiers used some tombstones for building purposes. At the cemetery, executions and burials in unmarked mass graves took place. Near the entrance, there is a monument from 1995 dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust.
The cemetery is located on a hill, approximately 200 meters east of the Market Square. The area of 3.08 hectares was laid in the shape of an irregular polygon and has been entirely preserved. It is covered with old trees and numerous self-seeded plants. On the southern and eastern sides, it is ringed with concrete buildings. The entrance to the cemetery is from the north, from Słowackiego Street. It is surrounded mainly by residential buildings. There are no tombstones in the majority of the cemetery. The preserved tombstones are traditional stelae made of local sandstone. Some tombstones from the 20th century are made of concrete. Tombstones from the second half of the 18th century and the 19th century are richly decorated with plant and animal motifs with folk art characteristics. The cemetery was entered into the Register of Monuments in 1969.
There is a concrete fence with a gate, with no lock. In the northern part of the cemetery, the fence is damaged in a few places. There are the remains of an Ohel (only a roof, not an actual building). It is dedicated to Rabbi Menachem Mendel Rubin. There are 2058 gravestones.