Makow mazowiecki Old Jewish Cemetery

The old Jewish cemetery in Maków Mazowiecki suffered significant damage during and after World War II. The Germans used some matzevot to harden the roads. In the period of the Polish People’s Republic, the area was taken over by the State Treasury and divided into several geodesic plots. The western part of the cemetery was designated for single-family houses, while a bus station and streets were built in the remaining area. All the above-ground traces of the cemetery have vanished. In 1984, the activists of the Association of Maków Mazowiecki Lovers excavated some matzevot used by the Germans to pave the streets. In 1987, at the edge of the maneuvering area of the bus station, a monument in the form of a step pyramid, designed by Wojciech Henrykowski, was erected using 250 recovered matzevot and fragments of tombstones. The “Mobilis” company has been the tenant of the bus station since 2010.

The list of personal data from 26 tombstones used in the lapidarium is available at: https://cemetery.jewish.org.pl/list/c_89. Tombstones found in recent years have been secured at the property of Wojciech Henrykowski and the Center for Cultural Dialogue “Dom Wesołka”. Matzevot from Maków Mazowiecki were also used to build lapidaries in cemeteries in nearby towns. The cemetery is listed in the Municipal and Provincial Register of Monuments and the Register of Immovable Monuments of the Mazowieckie Voivodeship.

The first records of Jews in Maków Mazowiecki date to the 16th century. In 1910, 6,131 Jews lived in the town (68.2% of the population), and 3,369 in 1921. In 1940, the Germans displaced some Jews to Węgrów, and at the end of 1940, they established a ghetto in Maków Mazowiecki. Most of the people confined there were murdered in KL Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1942. The mikveh and the synagogue have survived in the town until now.