A number of cemetery clean-ups and other initiatives and developments have taken place in Poland in recent weeks — and also some vandalism. We have reported on some of them, but here are notes about others. Virtual Shtetl has also run a round-up of recent cemetery news, with more details.
- Warsaw: Matzevot and fragments are being returned to the Bródno Jewish cemetery in Warsaw. The city of Warsaw has begun to return hundreds of Jewish gravestones and fragments that had been used to build a pergola and stairs in a park in the city’s Praga district. The Warsaw Jewish community and others, including in recent months the From the Depths foundation, have long lobbied for these fragments to be taken back to the cemetery, which itself is slated for renovative and clean-up.
- Warsaw: At the end of September, several dozen small fragments of matzevot which a Warsaw resident had kept in her basement were transported to the main Jewish cemetery in Warsaw with the aid of Virtual Shtetl. VS states that in 2005, while searching for her family roots she visited Ozorków near Łódź the person (who wished to remain anonymous) picked up more than 20 fragments of broken tombstones from a devastated Jewish cemetery and placed them in the basement of her Warsaw home. In September, she informed the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews that she wanted to return them.
- Przysucha: A group of students from Przysucha produced a list of tombstones from the local Jewish cemetery. They cleaned and photographed the matzevot. Names of the deceased have been deciphered on the basis of those photographs and the documentation posted in the “Memory in Stone” section of the “Virtual Shtetl” portal.
- Seroczyn, Sławatycze and Szydłowiec: The Jewish cemetery in Seroczyn in central Poland, was cleaned up and cleared of vegetation, with aid from the Nissenbaum Family Foundation, whose workers used chemicals to get rid of brush and bushes. The Nissenbaum Foundation has also carried out clean-up work in the Jewish cemeteries in Sławatycze and Szydłowiec.
- Tarczyn: Jewish cemetery, long overgrown and used as an an illegal garbage dump, has been demarcated and some basic clean-up took place. Also, local man Maciej Irzykowski transferred a matzevah discovered in the town to the cemetery and erected an information sign about the cemetery prepared by the team of the Kirkuty.pl portal.
- Klodzko: Several gravestone at the Jewish cemetery in Klodzko were damaged by unknown perpetrators. FODZ notes that “The damage done to the cemetery is even more regrettable considering the fact that the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland for years has efficiently cooperated with local volunteers for the upkeep of the Klodzko Jewish cemetery.”
- Rajgrod. A ceremony Sept. 18 rededicated the Jewish cemetery in Rajgrod and a monument that was made in Israel and brought to Poland was unveiled. The project was realized by FODZ in cooperation with the descendants of Rajgrod Jews.
- Wroclaw: In September, another stage of the renovation of the Jewish community-owned building complex at 7/9 Włodkowica surrounding the White Stork Synagogue was completed. The building was erected in 1901, and the Jewish community has plans to gradually restore the entire complex. Major funding came from the provincial heritage protection office.
- Czudec: Renovation has been going on at building in Czudec that housed the mikveh. (The building now houses the headquarters of the Polish Union of Retirees, Pensioners and Invalids as well as apartments.)
- Jeleniewo: In September, the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland (FODZ) oversaw cleanup works at the Jewish cemetery in Jeleniewo. This action was made possible by the financial support of Mr. Herman Storick of New York, who had already supported the fencing and restoration of the cemetery (which has only about 30 matzevot left) in the 1990s.
2 comments on “Poland round-up: cemeteries, synagogues, etc”
Looking for Wachsberger family from Gdow.
Hoping to find the names of moritz Fragner & Rosalie or rosa Fragner. They were born in the area of krakow and may have died in or about 1929. They did travel between morocska Ostrava CZ and Poland.
They had 2 daughters Helena & Karola. Karola was married to married to maximillian liebeskind and Helen was married to Artur Neuman. They perished somewhere in poland during the nazi round up of Jews. Are there any records of Helena & Karola?