Gizycko New Jewish Cemetery
Cemetery Information
Country
Poland
Region
Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship
District
Giżycko
Settlement
Giżycko
Site address
Smętka Street next to Plac Targowy (according to NID and 1926-1934 city plan).
GPS coordinates
54.038056, 21.776111
Perimeter length
84 metres. The perimeter and location are only indicative. There are no exact sources confirming the location of the new cemetery.
Is the cemetery demolished
yes
Type and height of existing fence
No fence.
Preservation condition
Demolished Jewish cemetery that has not been built over
General site condition
Former Jewish cemetery area is currently part of the city park adjacent to the Christian cemetery. No tombstones preserved. The area is clean, grass trimmed, alleys for walkers have been marked out. It is just partially built-up with a small yellow building of unknown purpose, probably electrical substation.
Number of existing gravestones
No tombstones preserved.
Date of oldest tombstone
N/A
Date of newest tombstone
N/A
Urgency of erecting a fence
High
Land ownership
Municipality
Preserved construction on site
No
Drone surveys
No
Historical overview
Around 1860, at the northern edge of the then Evangelical cemetery (at the intersection of today's Smętka and I Dywizji im. T. Kościuszki streets), a place was organized for a new Jewish cemetery.
Another wave of violence swept through Giżycko during the "Kristallnacht". The synagogue was set on fire and the cemeteries were destroyed. The synagogue was pulled down and the cemeteries were closed, although in 1939 there were still twenty Jews living there. Some of them left, the rest were deported to camps.
No traces of the synagogue or necropolises have survived. Even in the 1950s, at the cemetery (the so-called new cemetery), there were single scattered matzevah, until 1998 a fragment of matzevot from the grave of Simon Engel (1841–1924) survived. Currently, this area serves as a park.
(“Żydowskie domy modlitwy oraz cmentarze na Warmii i Mazurach – stan obecny” book by Seweryn Szczepański, 2017; doi.org/10.26774/rzz.165)
