Lubawa Old (Fijewo) Jewish Cemetery

In the 19th century, the cemetery in Fijewo belonged to the Lubawa commune. It may have been established at the end of the 18th century and was associated with the presence of a strong Jewish community in Lubawa and a few Jews in Fijewo itself (in 1788, a pharmacy was allowed to run in a Jewish village). The cemetery was located on an elevation of 180.9 m above sea level, the so-called Fijewska Górka, located between Lubawa and Fijewo (1.5 km north-east of the village), at today's Polna Street. Formerly the hill was called Figehenberge (1892) or Juden-Berg (1912). Before 1860, the cemetery was already overcrowded, so the community bought a new square in Lubawa itself. In order to protect against devastation, the old cemetery was surrounded by a 1.5 m high wall with an iron entrance gate. When the cemetery was closed, there were 50 graves with fieldstone tombstones, 3 were surrounded by iron fences. Currently, the cemetery is quite well preserved. There are relics of the wall at the foundation level and 7 graves, including 5 with granite matzevot made of raw fieldstone. Unfortunately, only 3 of them are still standing: one of them is broken, two of them are overturned - including one with an inscription to the ground. The preserved matzevot are very simple in form, with only Hebrew inscriptions and no decorations. The cemetery shows traces of damage, which, according to witnesses (own interviews of July 12, 2015), took place in September 1939 after German troops entered Lubawa. In the following years, devastation progressed, and the wall surrounding the cemetery was pulled down. The area of ​​the former cemetery is approximately 0.2 ha. (“Żydowskie domy modlitwy oraz cmentarze na Warmii i Mazurach – stan obecny” book by Seweryn Szczepański, 2017; doi.org/10.26774/rzz.165)