Braniewo Jewish Cemetery
Cemetery Information
Country
Poland
Region
Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship
District
Braniewo
Settlement
Braniewo
Site address
The former cemetery is located at the junction of Kościuszki and Dworcowa Streets, at the back of a residential house at 116 Kościuszki Street. From the south, it is adjacent to the Roman Catholic cemetery (2 Olsztyńska Street). From the north, the former necropolis is separated by the street from the Braniewo City Hall (111 Kościuszki Street).
GPS coordinates
54.38073, 19.83906
Perimeter length
173 metres
Is the cemetery demolished
yes
Type and height of existing fence
It is partly fenced with a brick-made wall and metal mesh fence. In the other parts, the walls of the buildings constitute the fence.
Preservation condition
Demolished and overbuilt Jewish cemetery
General site condition
No tombstones have survived. Currently most of its plot is a parking lot and garages. The brick wall facing the street probably belonged to the former cemetery. On the same wall there is an information plaque devoted to the former Jewish necropolis and to Jakob Jakobson, a doctor, a distinguished resident of Braniewo, who was buried there.
Number of existing gravestones
No tombstones have been preserved at the cemetery. Several fragments and a couple of tombstones from the cemetery are kept at the lapidarium at the St. Jan cemetery, they date back to the 1916.
Date of oldest tombstone
N/A
Date of newest tombstone
N/A
Urgency of erecting a fence
Fence is not needed
Land ownership
Municipality
Preserved construction on site
No
Drone surveys
No
Historical overview
The first Jew to settle permanently in Braniewo was a certain Filip, who, with the permission of the bishop of Warmia in 1744, was granted the right to live and trade. At the beginning of the 19th century, the young Jewish community, numbering 89 people in 1843, had its house of prayer in one of the tenement houses on the then Lindenstraße, while in 1855 the construction of a synagogue on the then Fleischerstraße (now the corner of Lisia and Kościelna Streets) was completed. The neo-gothic building was set on fire during the "Kristallnacht" and its ruins were soon completely removed.
Much earlier, a Jewish cemetery was organized in the town, which was located at the then Bahnhofstraße (now Tadeusza Kościuszki Street, at the intersection of Dworcowa and Olsztyńska Streets) at the junction to Elbląg and Dobre Miasto. The cemetery occupied an area of approximately 0.2 ha. It was destroyed in the "Kristallnacht". Over the years, it gradually fell into disrepair and was finally liquidated. Now in its place there are garages and parking spaces for cars.
(“Żydowskie domy modlitwy oraz cmentarze na Warmii i Mazurach – stan obecny” book by Seweryn Szczepański, 2017; doi.org/10.26774/rzz.165)
The graves were located on a plot of approximately 0.2 ha, in a trapezoidal plan. It is possible that there was a funeral home deep in the necropolis. Buried at the cemetery, among others, Dr Jakob Jakobson (1807-1858), a doctor and honorary citizen of the city (1853) and his wife Fanny, née Goldschmidt (died 1872), who came from Gdańsk.
The cemetery was profaned during Kristallnacht, on November 9-10, 1938.
Today, no ground traces of tombstones have survived on the surface of the necropolis, only single cemetery trees grow by the street. Most of the cemetery's area is occupied by a car park.
(sztetl.org.pl)
