Koscierzyna Jewish Cemetery

Until 1786, Jews from Kościerzyna and its vicinity were most probably buried on a hill east of the town. That year, however, a certain Kaspar Gerson, for the needs of the new cemetery, leased the area near today's Strzelecka Street to the Jewish community. The area covered 1.34 ha, of which the cemetery was 610 square meters. A year after the conclusion of the contract, the first deceased was buried. In the interwar period, the area of the necropolis was already about 1 ha. At that time, the manager of the area was N. Relaff. In 1938, the last Jewish funeral was held in the city - Paul Michaelis, a well-known baker and confectioner in the city, was buried. Already in the first days of World War II, the cemetery was devastated by the Germans. The remains of the tombstones were visible until the end of the 1960s. On April 8, 1971, the cemetery was officially closed. On January 6, 1972, the undeveloped area of the former cemetery became the property of the State Treasury. Most of the cemetery is now occupied by the buildings of the "Sopotplast" company. We learn about the fate of the cemetery in the times of the Polish People's Republic from a reader's letter in the local press in Kościerzyna: "[...] the decision to liquidate the Jewish cemetery was made in 1971. The fact is that that year there were no matzevot at the cemetery revealing the place of burial. and few people knew about its existence. In the years 1972-1976 the cemetery was gradually leveled. The land was transported especially to the wetland between 3 Maja Street and the railway viaduct. This fact should be directly related to the construction of the present Wojska Polskiego Street. Human bones were found there, it was immediately realized that there must have been a cemetery here and that further works were abandoned. The mortal remains of the inhabitants of Kościerzyna were collected in a box and buried in the Jewish cemetery. So the question of commemorating this place remains open." (“Śladami żydowskimi po Kaszubach”, book edited by Miłosława Borzyszkowska-Szewczyk and Christian Pletzing; © 2010 Academia Baltica, © 2010 Instytut Kaszubski)