Mayor Grzegorz Benedykciński was quoted by the Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper as saying there were plans to make the cemetery an “educational park” and memorial to the historic Jewish population wiped out in the Holocaust. Before World War II more than half of the town’s population was Jewish.
To accomplish this, the town’s City Council has leased the entire cemetery, within its full historic boundaries, from its owner, the developer Futura G.M., thus blocking Futura’s plans to build a residential complex there.
Work had already been suspended at the site in November 2014, pending investigations to determine its borders, following protests by the Jewish community of Warsaw and local activist Robert Augustyniak.
Benedykcinski told JTA: “All work to clean the area will be conducted in a way that guarantees respect for those buried there, former Jewish residents of Grodzisk Mazowiecki, in close cooperation with and supervision of the Jewish Community of Warsaw.”
The cemetery was founded in the 18th century. It was devastated during the Holocaust, with many gravestones used for construction: dozens of matzevot used for paving were discovered and returned to the cemetery in 2002. After the war most of the cemetery’s territory was handed over to an agricultural cooperative, which used it as a storage area for heavy equipment and later as a scrapyard.
Gravestones remain in only a small portion of the site — but this, with its 19th century gate, was declared a landmark in 1996.
JTA reports:
The agreement signed by the Futura G.M. company and the city of Grodzisk is for an indefinite period. After identifying the legal status of the leased parcels and determining ownership, the municipality intends to purchase the land. The agreement was signed in January but first reported by local media late last week.
Read the Gazeta Wyborcza story
Read our November 2014 story about the case
Read the Virtual Shtetl description of the cemetery and its history
Download a PDF book about the cemetery and its history (from 1999)
1 comment on “Poland: town takes steps to protect Jewish cemetery”
Thank you for posting about this positive turn of events