Olpiny Jewish Cemetery

The first records of Jews in Ołpiny date to 1785. In 1870, 477 Jews lived in the village, and 185 in 1921 (about 6.9% of the total population). In 1942, the Germans deported the Jews from Olpina to the ghetto in Gorlice. Most of them were murdered in Gorlice, Stróżówka, and in Bełżec. The cemetery is located about 1.8 km southeast from the centre of the village, among fields, about 400 m south of the War Cemetery No. 34.

The cemetery covers a plot beneath a hill on the north-south axis, shaped like an elongated rectangle. The cemetery’s establishment date is unknown, though it was likely established in the 19th century, simultaneous to the development of the local Jewish community. Within the cemetery there is the War Cemetery No. 35, established during World War I by the Military Department of War Cemeteries C. and K. in Kraków. Four soldiers of the Russian Army (Izaak Korgelow, who died on May 7, 1915, and three unidentified soldiers) and two soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian Army (Abraham Klinghofer and one unidentified soldier) are buried there. In 1917, a trial was held in Jasło against the shepherds Józef S. and Zygmunt S., who knocked over some tombstones in the Ołpiny cemetery, and painted crosses with feces and charcoal on other tombstones.

The devastation of the cemetery began during World War II and some inhabitants of Ołpiny participated in its decay. The tombstones were used for construction. Almost all above-ground traces of the cemetery vanished. In recent years, local community activists have moved more than a dozen tombstones in various conditions found in Ołpiny to the cemetery. Since 2015, the cemetery has been managed by the AntySchematy 2 Foundation, which has restored tombstones from the war quarters and conducted educational activities for students from the local school. The cemetery is listed in the Municipal and Provincial Register of Monuments and it is not listed in the Register of Immovable Monuments.