Home - Surveys - Poland - Lublin Voivodeship

Łuków New Jewish Cemetery

Cemetery Information

Country
Poland
Region
Lublin Voivodeship
District
Settlement
Łuków
Site address
Warszawska 60B. The entrance to the cemetery is located between the grocery shop "Społem" and a garden shop. The cemetery gate is closed and the key is kept in the grocery shop. There is also a closed gate located on Parkowa street.
GPS coordinates
722 metres
Perimeter length
51.92619, 22.3699
Is the cemetery demolished
yes
Type and height of existing fence
The cemetery has it own fence on both Warszawska & Parkowa streets, the other two sides have a fence shared with the properties adjacent to the cemetery. On Warszawska street there is fully fenced monument with a lapidarium and tombstones surrounding it, next to it there is a gate into the cemetery.
Preservation condition
Fenced and protected Jewish cemetery
General site condition
There are no existing tombstones on the territory of graveyard. On Parkowa street parts of the fence have been demolished. On both sides the cemetery is secured with lockable gates. In the cemetery there is a mass grave of Jews murdered during the liquidation of the Łuków ghetto. This information was not posted at the cemetery. It is given by Krzysztof Czubaszek PHD. in his book about Jewish Community in Łuków ("Żydzi Łukowa i okolic"). The cemetery was established in 1859 after the old cemetery in Rogalińskiego Street was closed. It ceased to function in 1942 after the liquidation of the ghetto.
Number of existing gravestones
There are the remains of tombstones in the bushes to the left of the entrance on Warszawska Street. Also to the right of the gateway, in the bushes, stone fragments were found which may have been parts of tombstones. The rest of the surviving tombstones are in the lapidarium. The tombstones present at the cemetery were collected from all over the territory of Łuków.
Date of oldest tombstone
1881
Date of newest tombstone
1913
Urgency of erecting a fence
Low
Land ownership
Municipality
Preserved construction on site
There is an Ohel dedicated to Akiva Meira ha-Kohena Tornheim.
Drone surveys
Yes

Historical overview

In 1859, an area located about 850 metres west of the market square was designated the new Jewish cemetery in Łuków and the first burials began in 1864. The area was gradually expanded and was shaped like two adjacent, elongated quadrilaterals of 1.5 hectares (ha) (currently 1.4 ha). The cemetery was destroyed during World War II. While the Jews were forced to live in the Łuków Ghetto, the Germans ordered all the deceased to be buried in a former gravel pit located 1.6 km south of the city centre in Malcanowski Forest. There, they also executed about 2,000 Jews who were buried in mass graves. After the war, in 1949, survivors exhumed the bodies from various places in and around Łuków (including the Malcanowski Forest) and buried them in the new cemetery (the graves are not marked). They also moved matzevot found in various places to the new cemetery. In 1950, a pyramid-form lapidarium monument made of these matzevot was erected in the cemetery. It contains over 150 sandstone stelae, the oldest of which is from the 1870’s. In 1989, the cemetery in Malcanowski Forest was cleaned up and fenced, and memorial plaques were erected. Currently, the new cemetery is covered with grass and with new trees. In 2017, in the northern part of the cemetery, a new ohel was built. In recent years, matzevot that were found in the city and its vicinity have been brought to the new cemetery.

Back to the map