Poland Update: Recovery of long-buried matzevot in Białystok is complete: 120 matzevot dating back the early to mid 19th century were discovered

(JHE) — Exciting news — The removal of Jewish gravestones buried under an artificial mound outside the walls of the Bagnowka Jewish cemetery in Białystok — which we wrote about last week — has been completed, with a remarkable 120 matzevot dating back to the early to mid 19th century recovered — the oldest is from 1809. 

“Excavation on the mound is complete,”  lead cemetery researcher Dr. Heidi M. Szpek, Professor Emerita, Central Washington University and author of a book about the Bagnowka cemetery, wrote in a Facebook post.

120 matzevoth were extracted, 119 boulder-style and 1 stele taken from the former Rabbinic Cemetery in the city center, now beneath Central Park.

The oldest dates to 1809: “Here lies the modest, Rachel, daughter of Yitzhak. She died 3 Tammuz 5569. May her soul be bound in the bond of everlasting life.”

Welcome back to the historic record, Rachel!

The work is being funded and overseen by the the US-based Białystok Cemetery Restoration Project (BCRP), which has been carrying out clean-up, research, and restoration work at Bagnowka since 2016. It is carried out by municipal workers with permission from both local authorities and the office of Poland’s chief rabbi. The recovered stones are all being moved to the fenced part of Bagnowka.

“Boulder-style” gravestones are large chunks of stone, with one smoothed side where the epitaph is engraved, in contrast to the typical cut and smoothed stele.

“A first review of these tombstones, which overall, are in exquisite shape,” Szpek wrote, revealed that “some have the regional folk art symbol of the cornflower, and we now have a first mention of the regional town, Tykocin/Tiktin, the regional head of the Jewish Community until 1771.”

Since work began last week, Szpek (who has written several articles on JHE) has posted a day-by-day report of the recovery process — on her Facebook page and in the JHE Facebook group. We have also shared her posts on the JHE FB Page.

She has also already made translations of some of the epitaphs and has compiled lists of the names of the people commemorated by the stones..

Białystok Jewish heritage researcher Tomasz Wisniewski created a stunning video, using both drone and close-up footage, showing the recovery work:

The matzevot have been identified as coming from the one-time Rabbinic Cemetery, which was the only functioning Jewish cemetery in Białystok in the early to mid 19th century.

In the 1960s, under the post-World War II communist regime, it was razed and turned into the large, central city park. The uprooted matzevot were transported to an area just outside the fenced section of the Bagnowka cemetery — the only Jewish cemetery in Bialystok that survives — and then buried under soil, creating a mound that was three meters high.

In a Facebook post Friday, Szpek reported that just before close of work that day, “BCRP Chair Josh Degen discovered a megalithic granite stele deep in the mound.”

A rudimentary cleaning revealed an amazing inscription unlike any on the boulder-style tombstones previously extracted. This stele measures approximately 2.3 meters tall and just under 2 metric tons. Further cleaning and translation with just a few uncertain words revealed the following inscription:

You can watch below a video by Tomek Wisniewski of a talk by Heidi Szpek on the history of the cemetery and the restoration and documentation process — as well as her own involvement. It’s in English with Polish translation.

 

See our original post about the discovery and recovery

See Heidi Szpek’s  web site about the cemetery and its inscriptions

Bialystok Cemetery Restoration Project web site

See JHE articles by Szpek, about Bagnowka, HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE