Kazimierz Dolny New Jewish Cemetery

The first records of Jews in Kazimierz Dolny date to 1406. In the 19th century, the Kuzmir Hasidic dynasty was founded in the town by Rebbe Jechezkiel Taub. In 1921, 1,382 Jews lived in the town constituting 41% of the entire population, most of whom were murdered by the Germans in Bełżec in 1942.

The cemetery is located about 950 metres southeast of the market square, on Czerniawy Street, on the slope of the gorge. The cemetery was established in 1851 as the old cemetery on Lubelska Street was overcrowded with graves. The land for the cemetery was donated by Motek Hercberg. It was fenced, and a funeral house was built next to it. The cemetery coves a rectangular plot of land and its longer side is adjacent to the road (Czerniawy Street). Before 1939, cemetery covered an area of approximately 1.5 hectares. During World War II, the Germans carried out executions at the cemetery. The gradual degradation and destruction of the cemetery began around that time. Some matzevot were used by the Germans to pave squares and streets, including the yard occupied by the gendarmerie of the Reformed Monastery. Some inhabitants of Kazimierz Dolny participated in the destruction process as well. On April 29, 1959, the Minister of Municipal Economy signed an order to close the cemetery. In 1971, local authorities demanded its liquidation. At that time, there were 16 tombstones and a brick wall. In 1984, at the initiative of the Association for Protection of Monuments of the Past in Kazimierz Dolny, the Vistula Region Museum of Kazimierz Dolny, and the Heritage Conservation Officer, several hundred tombstones from the town were transported back to the cemetery. The recovered matzevot were used in 1986 to build a lapidarium designed by Tadeusz Augustynek. Currently, within the cemetery, there are about 300 tombstones in various conditions, most of which are gathered in the lapidarium. The cemetery is not fenced, and the area is forested. The owner of the cemetery is the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage. The facility is listed in the Register of Immovable Monuments of the Lubelskie Voivodeship. The list of personal data is available at https://cemetery.jewish.org.pl/list/c_53.