Gogolin Jewish Cemetery

Although the history of settlement in the area dates back to the Neolithic period, Gogolin received town rights only in 1967. The first Jews began to settle in Gogolin around 1845. In 1850, 17 Jews lived in Gogolin, in 1880, there were 84 Jews. Due to the small number of Jewish inhabitants, the Gogolin Jewish community belonged to the Opole kehilla. In 1921, the Jewish population decreased to 45 people. Due to increasing anti-Semitism, most of the Gogolin Jews left the town in the first half of the 1930s.

The Jewish cemetery in Gogolin is located on today’s Wyzwolenia Street. It was established in 1857 on land donated to the Jewish community by Meyer Fränkel. The last burial of took place on May 13, 1935 for a Moritz Hausdorf. In 1939, the cemetery became the property of the Jewish Association in Germany, and in 1943 it was taken over by the Gestapo. The cemetery was not damaged during World War II. At the beginning of the 1960s, the funeral house was demolished due to its poor technical conditions. In the 1990s, by order of the town authorities, the area of the cemetery was cleaned up and marked. In 2006, the fence was renovated. Originally, the Jewish cemetery and the adjoining Christian cemetery were separated from each other by a two-meter wall made of limestone. Currently, both cemeteries are located in one area, seemingly forming one necropolis. The Jewish cemetery is on the left side, the Christian section on the right. In a total area of 0.25 hectares, about 20 matzevot (mostly made of sandstone) and about 50 tombstone bases have been preserved. The oldest preserved matzevah dates from 1852 and commemorates a deceased child, Emilia Stenger. In the cemetery, there is a mass grave of the victims of forced labor camps for Jews, camps which existed in Gogolin from 1940–1944, and of the camp in Otmęt. The grave is neither located nor commemorated. There is no visible division into quarters. The cemetery is well-kept and is covered with grass and ivy. At the main gate, there is an informational board detailing the existence of a Jewish cemetery there. By the decision of December 4, 1989, the cemetery was listed in the Register of Monuments (No 229/89).