Dzialdowo Jewish Cemetery
Cemetery Information
Country
Poland
Region
Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship
District
Działdowo
Settlement
Działdowo
Site address
Adjacent to Polna Street, 19. Działdowo. Cemetery is situated between private properties at Polna 19 Street and Sienkiewicza 15 Street, opposite the big school building at Polna, 11(Zespół Szkół nr 2).
GPS coordinates
53.229775, 20.166877
Perimeter length
195 metres
Is the cemetery demolished
no
Type and height of existing fence
The cemetery is fenced with a wire net stretched on concrete pillars (approx. 1.6 m. high) and has a metal gate
Preservation condition
Fenced and protected Jewish cemetery
General site condition
Jewish cemetery of Działdowo is situated in the south-wester part of the town. The area is covered with grass and old deciduous trees. Cemetery is well-maintained: grass mowed, no scrubs, almost no litter. The cemetery is partially destroyed, but several tombstones have preserved. There is info about the shootings in the cemetery area during the WW2 and the exhumation of the bodies in 1947 (cmentarze-zydowskie.pl), but no memorial marks are present
Number of existing gravestones
28 tombstone. There are 3 fallen tombstones (two with inscriptions in Hebrew and German, but no dates) and 25 fragments remains (tombstone frames and pedestals). According to https://sztetl.org.pl/en/miejscowosci/d/492-dzialdowo/115-pamiec-w-kamieniu/11943-cmentarz-zydowski-w-dzialdowie-ul-sienkiewicza there were at least 5 more tombstones with inscriptions but our field team hasn’t discovered them
Date of oldest tombstone
1863
Date of newest tombstone
1939
Urgency of erecting a fence
Low
Land ownership
Municipality
Preserved construction on site
No
Drone surveys
Yes
Historical overview
The cemetery was probably established in the mid-19th century. In 1911, a funeral home was built. There was also a mausoleum of soldiers killed during the First World War at the cemetery. In the interwar period, the cemetery occupied a rectangular plot with an area of 0.40 ha, with a centrally running alley. At that time, the building was outside the built-up area. In 1939, its value was estimated at 3,000 zlotys.
During World War II, the Germans shot people captured as part of the so-called Intelligenzaktion, the bodies of the dead and murdered in the camp in Działdowo were buried there. It is estimated that about 300 people were buried in the cemetery at that time.
At the beginning of 1945, Sergeant Sergey Kuzmicz Balabinski (born in 1903 in Jagodkin in the Tver region), who died on February 20, 1945, was crushed by an overturned cannon and buried in the cemetery.
In 1947, the victims of the Second World War were exhumed.
On March 3, 1964, the Minister of Municipal Economy - in response to the resolution of the Presidium of the Municipal National Council in Działdowo of May 25, 1963 - issued a decision to close the cemetery for burial purposes. The documentation states that the area of the cemetery is 0.14 ha, the object is entered in the land and mortgage register no. 310/63.
In the 1980s, the area was surrounded by a metal mesh fence stretched on concrete pillars and a gate was installed.
The object underwent extensive destruction. The cemetery chart in 1990 stated: "Most of the matzevot were destroyed during the war. The rest were destroyed by local residents. There is a wild sports field in the cemetery." As a result of the devastation, several dozen tombstones and tombstones destroyed (including Bertha Engler, died in 1863), a concrete tombstone of S. Bałabiński, concrete tombstones made after the war by Hugo and Minna Piecki, and old trees (linden, chestnut and clone).
The cemetery is entered in the register of immovable monuments of the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship (entry no. 56/2013).
(K. Bielawski, cmentarze-zydowskie.pl)
