Bochnia Jewish Cemetery

Jews began to settle in Brzesko after 1605. In the 19th century, a Hasidic dynasty was established in the city. In 1921, 1,935 Jews lived in Brzesko (61.5% of the total population), most of whom were killed by the Germans in Bełżec in 1942.

The cemetery is located about 600 metres north of the market square, at Czarnowiejska Street, and covers an irregularly shaped plot with an area of approximately 1.3 hectares. The cemetery was likely established in the first decades of the 19th century, a fact which is confirmed by two tombstones dated 1828 and 1835. Tzaddik Arie Lejbusz Lipszyc (died in 1846), tzadik Meszulam Zalman Jehonatan (died in 1855) and Rabbi Efraim Templer (died in 1935) are buried there. During World War I, War Cemetery No. 275 was established within the cemetery, where 21 soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian Army were buried. During World War II, the Germans carried out executions at the cemetery. On June 18, 1942, about 200 people were shot there. The cemetery began to decay around this time and progressed though the following decades.

The last known funeral took place in 1960 when Jadwiga Ziarnecka (known as Sala Ebenholz) was buried there. After 1945, work was carried out to protect and commemorate the cemetery. In 1947, a monument commemorating the victims of the Holocaust was erected. In the 1960’s the ohel of Arie Lejbusz Lipszyc was rebuilt. In the 1990’s, the ohel of the Templer family was rebuilt, and the wall was repaired. In 2017 and 2018, two monuments were erected on mass graves from the war. For several years, the cemetery has been taken care of by local community workers led by Anna Brzyska. In the cemetery, there are about 850 tombstones in various conditions, two ohels, and modern monuments commemorating the victims of the Holocaust. The area is fenced. The owner of the cemetery is the Jewish Community in Krakow and the cemetery is listed in the Register of Immovable Monuments of the Małopolskie Voivodeship. The list of preserved tombstones is available at https://cemetery.jewish.org.pl/list/c_100/?ile=0.