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Brzesko New Jewish Cemetery

Cemetery Information

Country
Poland
Region
Lesser Poland Voivodeship
District
Brzesko
Settlement
Brzesko
Site address
Okulickiego Street. The cemtery is located on the corner of Czarnowiejska and Generala Leopolda Okulickiego streets.
GPS coordinates
49.97416, 20.60668
Perimeter length
567 metres
Is the cemetery demolished
no
Type and height of existing fence
There is a stone fence 1.5 metres high.
Preservation condition
Fenced and protected Jewish cemetery
General site condition
There are a few memorials.
Number of existing gravestones
300
Date of oldest tombstone
1846
Date of newest tombstone
1960
Urgency of erecting a fence
Fence is not needed
Land ownership
Municipality
Preserved construction on site
There are two ohels. The survey team were not able to gain access to them, as the key keeper was out of the town. According to the sztetl.org.pl, the first ohel protects the graves of Arie Lejbusz, son of Chaim, who died in 1846, the founder of the Hasidic dynasty in Brzesko; Meszulam Zalman Jonathan, son of Arie Lejbusz, who died in 1855, a Tzadik in Brzesko and Tobiasza (Towie) Lipszyc, son of Meszulam Zalman Jonathan, who died in 1912, another Tzaddik of Brzesko. The second ohel holds the tombs of the Templer family: Pinchas Templer, likely a Rabbi in Brzesko in the 19th century; Baruch, the son of Pinchas, a Rabbi from Brzesko; Abraham Eliezer, son of Pinchas, who died in 1907, a shames in the Brzeg synagogue and Efraim Templer, son of Baruch, who died in 1938, a Rabbi who ran a house of prayer on Krótka street.
Drone surveys
Yes

Historical overview

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.

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