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Krakow Military Section on Municipal Cemetery

Cemetery Information

Country
Poland
Region
Lesser Poland Voivodeship
District
Kraków
Settlement
Kraków
Site address
1, Biskupa Jana Prandoty Street.
GPS coordinates
50.07782, 19.95519
Perimeter length
198 metres
Is the cemetery demolished
no
Type and height of existing fence
The entire cemetery is fenced with a metal fence about 2m high. The section is also fenced with metal fence about 0.5m high.
Preservation condition
Jewish section
General site condition
The tombstones are at the headquarters of the British Commonwealth soldiers who died during World War II. There are 13 tombstones of Jewish soldiers in the section. The tombstones are scattered around the sector. They are marked by a Star of David engraved on the tombstones.
Number of existing gravestones
13. The tombstones are in the quarter of the Commonwealth soldiers.
Date of oldest tombstone
1941
Date of newest tombstone
1945
Urgency of erecting a fence
Fence is not needed
Land ownership
Property of local community
Preserved construction on site
No
Drone surveys
No

Historical overview

The first records of Jews in Kraków date to the 12th century. At the end of the 15th century, Jewish settlement began to develop in Kazimierz, which, in 1800, was incorporated into Kraków. One of Kraków’s most famous rabbis was Mosze Isserles (Remu), author of Ha-Mapah. Most of Kraków’s Jews were murdered during the Holocaust. Currently, there are over a dozen Jewish organizations in the city.

This cemetery is in the southwest part of the Jewish cemetery on 55 Miodowa Street, adjacent to the wall on the side of the railway embankment. The cemetery was established around 1915 by the Military Department of War Cemeteries C. and K. in Kraków as a burial place for Jewish soldiers who died during World War I. The original design for the cemetery, by Hans Mayr, included a mausoleum on a pedestal with three steps, decorated with plaques stylized as matzevot, with sculptures of two lions and a menorah, though the project was never fully realised. The cemetery was limited to positioning tombstones in rows, all of which were rectangular sandstone stelae, placed on concrete pedestals, with a Star of David in the finial and an inscription displaying information on the deceased person in Polish and Hebrew. The cemetery consisted of 161 single and 14 collective graves, numbered 1 through 175. Nearly all of the 147 identified people buried in the cemetery were soldiers who served the Austro-Hungarian Army, while 3 of them likely served in the Russian Army. After the war, Markus Dąbek (a rank-and-file soldier of the 11th Infantry Regiment, died on December 23, 1919), Juda Filozof (a rank-and-file soldier of the 51st Infantry Regiment, died on August 11, 1920), and Dawid Beer (died in the hospital for war invalids in Bochnia on November 29, 1921) were buried there.

The cemetery has suffered much damage and, as a result, there remain only 26 tombstones which are in various conditions. After 1945, several damaged tombstones were affixed to the wall at the entrance to the cemetery. The cemetery is owned by the Jewish Community in Krakow.

A list of people buried in the cemetery is available at http://cmentarza-zydowskie.pl/krakow_cmentarz_wojenny_387.htm.

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