Pacanow Jewish Cemetery

The first Jewish settlement in Pacanów dates back to the 16th century. In 1921, 1,689 Jews lived in the town, which was 65% of the total population. The majority of them were murdered by the Germans in Treblinka in 1942.

The cemetery is located approximately 200m north-west of the market square, at Stopnicka Street.
The cemetery was likely founded in the second half of the 17th century. In the interwar period, it covered a L shaped plot. There was a funeral house at the entrance and the area was fenced.

During World War II, the bodies of the dead and murdered in the ghetto, including about 60 people murdered in October 1942, were buried in the cemetery. At that time, the destruction of the cemetery began.

On September 20th 1960, the Minister of Municipal Economy signed an order to close the cemetery. The documentation attached to the ordinance states: “The Jewish cemetery in Pacanów with the area of 7,013m² is devastated. Valuable tombstones and monuments were destroyed during the occupation. The facility has already lost its cemetery character and is properly used as a pasture. The southern part of the cemetery has been closed since 1900. In the northern part, the bodies were last buried in 1942”.

A fire station was built on the site of the cemetery. Between 1980 & 2000, the building housed a branch of the Krakow Electronic Factory “Unitra-Telpod”. After 1987, at the edge of the cemetery, a monument was placed with the inscription: “Jewish cemetery in Pacanów, established in the 17th century. Closed for burial purposes. Object legally protected ”. In 2000, the Volunteer Fire Department in Pacanów returned to the building.

In 2020, at the initiative of students of the Kornel Makuszyński Primary School in Pacanów and Henryk Góra, a new monument was built, a few found tombstones were placed around it and a lapidarium was fenced. The owner of the cemetery is the Pacanów Municipality. The cemetery is listed in the Provincial Monuments Register (E-1987-04-30).