Minsk Mazowiecki New Jewish Cemetery
Cemetery Information
Historical overview
Jewish settlement in Mińsk Mazowiecki began to develop at the beginning of the 19th century. The city was the seat of a Hasidic dynasty (Novominsk Hasidim). In 1921, there were 4,130 Jews in Mińsk Mazowiecki (39.9% of the total population). In 1942, the Germans killed most of the Jews in Treblinka. The new Jewish cemetery in Mińsk Mazowiecki was established outside the built-up area of the city, “on the road to Targówek,” on a plot of land located between the contemporary Dąbrówki Street and 1 Pułku Lotnictwa Myśliwskiego “Warszawa” Street. The synagogue supervisor in Mińsk Mazowiecki initiated efforts to establish the cemetery in 1873. The contract for the purchase of the plot was signed on May 16, 1878. In 1902, Rebbe Jakow Perłow, the founder of the Nowy Mińsk Hasidic dynasty, was buried in the cemetery. During World War II, the Germans carried out executions in the cemetery. On December 24, 1924, they shot 218 people there. In January 1943, the bodies of the participants of the rebellion in the camp in the Mikołaj Kopernik School were buried there.
The cemetery was degraded during the war and continued to fall into disrepair in the following decades. In 1943, some matzevot were used to harden the yards in the village of Karolina. The cemetery was littered and desecrated. On October 9, 1964, the Minister of Municipal Economy signed an order to close the cemetery. In 1978, 1 Pułku Lotnictwa Myśliwskiego “Warszawa” Street was extended through a part of the cemetery area. In 1965, at the initiative of the Jewish community of Mińsk in France, a monument commemorating the victims of the Holocaust was erected.
In 2016-2017, the Jewish Religious Community in Warsaw, with the support of the European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative, built a new fence around the cemetery. Currently, about 500 tombstones have been preserved, the oldest of which dates to 1878. There is moreover a monument commemorating the victims of the Holocaust. According to the testimonies of residents, in the south-eastern part of the cemetery, there are two unmarked mass graves from the war, visible as vast depressions in the ground. The owner of the cemetery is the Jewish Community in Warsaw. The facility is listed in the Provincial Register of Immovable Monuments. The list of preserved matzevot is available at https://cemetery.jewish.org.pl/list/c_14