Despite many positive developments, such as the recent decision of the town of Grodzisk Mazowiecki to protect its Jewish cemetery, and the transfer of headstone fragments found in the Vistula river to Warsaw’s Brodno Jewish cemetery, many threats remain to Jewish cemeteries that have lain neglected for decades — and even to those that are tended and generally maintained.
These threats formed part of the focus of the international, cross-disciplinary conference on Jewish cemeteries held in Vilnius last October.
Recent incidents in Poland — Gdansk, Płońsk, and Płaszów near Krakow, highlighted some of them — in particular theft, disinterment of the deceased, and vandalism.
— A construction crew unearthed bones while repairing a gas pipeline laid decades ago at the site of a Nazi concentration camp that was built on the territory of two Jewish cemeteries in Płaszów. JTA reports that police are investigating and tests are being carried out to determine if the bones are human.
“All the former Płaszów camp area is a cemetery,” [Krakow Jewish community president] Tadeusz Jakubowicz said in an interview with the Dziennik Polski newspaper. “Also, this area is listed on the register of national historic monuments.”
— Vandals toppled or smashed a dozen or so matzevot in a Jewish cemetery in Gdańsk, including the gravestone of a noted 18th century rabbi, Rabbi Elchanan Ashkenazi.
— A Holocaust memorial erected in 1983 at the site of the Jewish cemetery in Płońsk was dismantled and stolen. The cemetery was destroyed in World War II and most of the area was built over in the post-War period. The monument was erected on the one part of the cemetery that had not been built over, though no gravestones remained. Three symbolic matzevot were included in the memorial. According to Virtual Shtetl there is an ownership dispute over the site.
The police have secured the monument. It will be transported to an area owned by the city. It is not known whether it will return to the cemetery.