Pieniężno Jewish Cemetery

A Jewish cemetery was opened in the 19th century outside the city, on the edge of a hill called Jewish Hill (Judenberg). The cemetery, established on a rectangular plan, had an area of approx. 0.2 ha. In the former Jewish cemetery there is a war cemetery of Soviet soldiers, quite well kept. A cemetery old-growth forest has been preserved.
(sztetl.org.pl)

“372 square meters of lies, or a short history of the cemetery of Soviet soldiers”
In my opinion, no soldiers of this army are buried at the cemetery of Soviet soldiers in Pieniężno. The cemetery of Soviet soldiers in Pieniężno is 372 square meters of lies. Because it is really an old Jewish cemetery.

On the map of the pre-war town plan, included in the book “Chronik von Mehlsack”, in the place of the Soviet cemetery there is a cemetery marked as “Jüdischer Friedhof”, founded in the 19th century, which miraculously survived the Third Reich.

I am writing about a miracle because in March 1933, in the elections to the Reichstag, the NSDAP obtained 56.5% of votes in East Prussia, which proves that the climate of National Socialism favored the devastation of places commemorating everything that was non-Aryan. In what was then Mehlsack, it was possible without any major adventures to preserve the resting place of the people living here, working here, who are one of the many building blocks that make up the mosaic of the community.

The cemetery also survived the 90% bombing of the city in January/February 1945 and the attack of the 3rd Belorussian Front, commanded by Ivan Danilovich Chernyakhovsky. Tanks went towards Berlin, and the Jewish cemetery in Mehlsack stood as it stood.

However, he did not resist bulldozers, which in 1972 or 1973 crushed with caterpillars more massive matzevah (Jewish tombstones). The damaged plates were dragged towards today’s grain elevators. In this way, the area for their construction was leveled. It should be remembered here that a similar practice was used by the Nazi authorities, but they paved the city sidewalks with Jewish matzevot. Several smaller matzevot were thrown off the escarpment, towards the “KS Wałsza” stadium, the greater part of which (from the side of the railway tracks to about half of the pitch) was a pre-war cemetery of unknown religion, also pacified in the same way in the early 1970s (…)

In place of the Jewish cemetery, concrete plinths were cast and decorated with a red star.
(…) Jewish remains, as they rested, rest in the same place as before the war. Only the landscape on the surface has changed.

Why am I writing about this? One of the reasons is to say that a cemetery is a memory. A cemetery is a trace which, once placed, will not blur any political option. Even if the mastabas were replaced with crosses, the mausoleums were covered with barrows, those who were first will remain the first. There is no way to reverse it.

The best examples of the above are the cemeteries of Polish Citizens in Kharkiv, Mednoye, Ostashkov, Tver, Kozelsk, Starobilsk and Katyn. Someone might say that this is a completely different story, a completely different story, a different story. Yes. Much more tragic. In this case, attempts were made to conceal the cemeteries and at the same time the crime scenes, hide them and forget them. Attempts were made to bury them in the backwoods, attempts were made to plant a forest on them. However, it failed because it could not. There was no right to go.
John Kovalsky.
(https://gazetaolsztynska.pl/pieniezno/372-m2-klamstwa–czyli-krotka-historia-cmentarza-zolnierzy-radzieckich,71010)