Work to commence on restoration of Warsaw’s Bródno Jewish cemetery

Work will begin in June to restore the historic (but devastated) Bródno Jewish cemetery in Warsaw’s Praga district, in what Virtual Shtetl describes as “one of the largest projects of the Jewish Religious Community in Warsaw.”  According to the VS report and local media,  the community allocated about $1 million for the restoration.

According to official records, the cemetery was set up in 1780. However, the first burials had taken place before, in the mid-18th century. Tens of thousands Jewish citizens of Warsaw and nearby towns were buried there before the outbreak of the Second World War. After 1939, Germans ordered that the cemetery by partly destroyed. After the war, the official plan was to remove the surviving headstones and build a park there. These plans were not implemented. Presently, there are several thousand uprooted matzevos that are scattered in a vast clearing. The big cemetery plot, with many trees, attracts hooligans and homeless people. The fence, which was built in the 1980s, limited the access to the cemetery, preventing looting of the graves. Yet, the cemetery continues to be in disrepair. In the past years, cemetery visitors were assaulted several times.

The Nissenbaum Family Foundation fenced the cemetery, erected a monumental gate and began some restoration work in the 1980s, but this was never completed, and the cemetery was not secured. The cemetery, owned by the city after World War II, was restituted to the Jewish community by the Warsaw municipality in an agreement reached at the end of 2012 that including the transfer of other land and the stipulation that the cemetery be restored, with funding allocated for the work. (See an article about this here.)

Virtual Shtetl, quoting local media, states that the renovation work, to be carried out by the Renova company, will include clearing vegetation, including some trees, creating new walkways and constructing a building for exhibitions and tourist information. A monument begun by the Nissenbaum Foundation in the 1980s but never finished will be pulled down.

 Matzevos from the central part of the cemetery will remain intact. . . .  A CCTVE monitoring will operate in the area. Additionally, security officers will be hired as well. According to the project, the gate and the fence will be restored. The original layout of the cemetery, which partly goes beyond the current fence, will be designated.

Read full Virtual Shtetl article

Photo documentation of the Bródno cemetery by Jono David