Yesterday, on the 17th November 2022, a rededication ceremony took place at the Seroczyn Jewish cemetery in Poland, which the ESJF fenced and protected earlier this year with funding from the Auswärtiges Amt.
Jewish settlement in Seroczyn dates back to the early 18th century. The small community of 179 Jews that lived in the village in 1921 were almost completely wiped out by the atrocities of the Holocaust. At the start of the 20th century, the Seroczyn Jewish cemetery had a wooden fence with a roofed gate but this was destroyed during the Second World War when the Nazis decided to use tombstones to reinforce roads in the surrounding area. However, the cemetery boundary was still visible thanks to its preserved trench. Between 2011 and 2015, the local community recovered over 20 tombstones in the village and took care of the upkeep of the site. 30 of these can still be found in the cemetery with the oldest dating to 1851.
The event started at the local school in Seroczyn, where at the invitation of the school’s headmistress, Mariola Olejnik, Andrzej Jankowski from the Jewish Community in Warsaw, led a lecture on Jewish community on Seroczyn. The lecture had a unique intergenerational character, as the youngest and oldest residents of Seroczyn listened to it.The venue of the ceremony was special because in the school building, before the war, Jewish children made up 20% of the pupils.
After the lecture, the assembled audience, together with the guests invited to the ceremony, continued to talk about the Jewish community of Seroczyn over refreshments. Among the guests was Damian Lewadndowski, who has made a special contribution to recovering the memory of Seroczyn Jews (and his association,”The Boguslaw Werner Historical and Collecting Club”) , by regular cleaning of the cemetery space and placing an information board on the history of the Seroczyzn Jewish community.
The ESJF’s CEO Philip Carmel and Public Sector Liaise Ambassador, Kamila Dabrowska were joined at the event to commemorate the protection of this site and its sanctity by Wojciech Klepacki, the Mayor of Wodynie, Dr. Yacov Livne, Israeli Ambassador, Bogdan Potapczuk, Priest from the local parish and Rabbi Michael Schudrich, Chief Rabbi of Poland. We would like to thank all who attended as well as the Jewish community in Warsaw (Gmina wyznaniowa żydowska w Warszawie) and in particular, Andrzej Jankowski who supported us with this project!
