JHE friend Krzysztof Bielawski’s important book, The Destruction of Jewish Cemeteries in Poland, is about to come out in English, published by Academic Studies Press — and you can already pre-order it via amazon and other platforms.
Krzysztof is a historian and longtime Jewish cemetery researcher who now works as Project Coordinator for the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland (FODZ) after many years as the Jewish heritage specialist at the POLIN Museum. He also created the website www.cmentarze-zydowskie.pl, a sort of online encyclopedia of Jewish cemeteries in Poland.
His book, published in Poland in 2020 as Zagłada cmentarzy żydowskich details the destruction of Jewish cemeteries in Poland before, during, and after WW2 — up until the present day: The majority of the text deals with the devastation after WW2.
Focusing on the territory of today’s Poland, it is the first publication to deal with this subject in such a comprehensive, documented way, providing detailed description and background information as well as case studies, documenting — among other things — how Jewish cemeteries were targeted for wanton violence and were used as quarries, how they were damaged during military action, and how they were damaged by the digging of mass graves for mass executions.
Fully footnoted, Krzysztof’s research disproves some myths, including that of the mass destruction of Jewish cemeteries during Kristallnacht and that “cemeteries were totally destroyed by Germans.”
In fact, he writes, even if a cemetery was devastated by Nazis during the war, it was also destroyed by the local population — and very often by the postwar state. After the fall of communism the situation changed, but, he says, “Jewish cemeteries are still in danger.”
In 2020, we posted excerpts of the English translation, by Richard Bialy, which you can read HERE.
We are honoured that Krzysztof asked JHE director Ruth Ellen Gruber to write the Foreword to the English version of the book.
We post it here below — after the teaser video for the book — to give you a taste of this important work.
FOREWORD to THE DESTRUCTION OF JEWISH CEMETERIES IN POLAND
By Ruth Ellen Gruber
This book is not an easy read. But it is an important read. And in many respects an essential one.
Honoring the dead is a basic tenet of Jewish practice. In Judaism, cemeteries are sacred spaces. They are cemeteries “forever,” even if there are no longer any headstones in place. Bodies may not be moved or disturbed, except under certain specific conditions. And there are various religious rules regulating visits.
In Poland, as in other countries whose Jewish population was destroyed in the Shoah, Jewish cemeteries take on a special role. They bear witness as the most widespread physical remnants of the pre-Holocaust Jewish world. By definition commemorative sites, Jewish cemeteries can thus serve as memorials not just to the individuals buried there, but to the Holocaust itself.
There are an estimated 1,200 Jewish cemeteries on the territory of today’s Poland. They range from huge urban expanses, such as in Warsaw and Lodz, to remote village graveyards. For many, however, only their site is known, as they have been built over, bulldozed, used as quarries, or otherwise eradicated. Few, if any, surviving cemeteries have escaped damage of one sort or another. Some have only a scattering of standing headstones, or less.
Krzysztof Bielawski rescues Poland’s Jewish cemeteries from oblivion by itemizing their annihilation in often excruciating detail.
He chronicles how the Nazis and their collaborators deliberately targeted Jewish built heritage, including cemeteries, along with the destruction of the Jewish people. But, tackling a subject once virtually taboo, he goes much further, documenting in graphic terms how that destruction and desecration continued after the Holocaust under Poland’s communist rule and even has gone on in the past three and a half decades of democracy.
His aim, he writes, is “to present the process of Jewish cemetery destruction in Poland as a result of human actions and to identify the perpetrators.” Using archival material, legal records, official documents, first-hand testimony, written recollection, and interviews, he does just that.
And he presents a chilling picture.
Uprooted matzevot were crushed for gravel, repurposed as millstones, and used as raw material to construct buildings, pave roads and courtyards, and line drains and waterways. Housing developments, hotels, shops, schools, factories, clinics, markets, bus stations, and more were built atop cleared areas where bodies still lie buried. Human bones emerged during building works; they were tossed on trash heaps or shattered and mixed with sand as construction material.
The book is arranged both chronologically and by several broad themes:
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- The destruction of Jewish cemeteries in the territory of today’s Poland in 1933-45, through Nazi policies, military operations, and actions by the local population;
- The destruction of Jewish cemeteries after 1945, via both state legislation and policy and the participation of the local populace
- State policy regarding Jewish cemeteries after 1989
- The destruction of Jewish cemeteries as perceived by Jews and by non-Jewish Poles
The descriptions snowball as the book progresses, an avalanche of meticulously compiled evidence documenting both official policy and private operations. Bielawski cites orders, names names.
Importantly, he brings the story up to the present. He describes not only some modern episodes of destruction, but just as relevantly – or even more so – he notes the many initiatives to protect and recognize Jewish cemeteries that have been undertaken since the political changes of 1989, via state and local policy and also by the efforts of individuals, NGOs, descendants groups, and local and international Jewish organizations.
Anyone who has dealt with Jewish built heritage in Poland has had to reckon with the devastation of the country’s Jewish cemeteries. We have all made guesses, broad-brush assumptions as to how and when and just what took place — and by whom.
Thanks to Bielawski’s unflinching investigation, now we know.
Click to read excerpts from the book we posted in 2020
Click here to purchase the book from the publisher, Academic Studies Press
Click here to purchase the book on amazon.com