Biala Podlaska New Jewish Cemetery

The new Jewish cemetery in Biała Podlaska was established at the beginning of the 19th century (according to one report it was established in 1803) and is located approximately 450 metres north of the market square, which, at that time, was outside the city limits. To the west, the cemetery borders the Christian cemetery. Further information on its history and appearance are not known in detail. In addition to traditional steles, several ohels were erected over the graves of local rabbis and other notable figures. The cemetery was destroyed during World War II. The Germans used the tombstones to reinforce the streets. They then carried out executions in the cemetery. After the war, in 1946, Holocaust survivors exhumed the bodies of victims from various places in and around Biała Podlaska and reburied them in the new cemetery in a mass grave referred to as the “brotherly grave,” which was then covered with a concrete cover, and a monument was erected on top of it dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust. The monument was destroyed in the same year. A year later, in 1947, a second monument—which still exists today—was erected in the same place as the previous monument. In 1988, a part of the cemetery was used to expand Nowa Street. In the same year, city authorities fenced the cemetery with a metal fence on the underpinning. The cemetery is almost completely preserved. The plot of land is shaped as an irregular, elongated polygon with an area of 2.7 hectares, and contains an empty square covered with grass and a few trees. In recent years, three rediscovered matzevot were placed next to the Holocaust memorial monument.