Plock New Jewish Cemetery

The new Jewish cemetery in Płock is located about 1.3 km north-east of the Old Market Square, on the contemporary Mickiewicza Street. The cemetery was established in 1845. Before 1939, it occupied an area of approximately 3.7 hectares. During and after World War II, the cemetery was devastated by the Germans as well as some local residents. In 1946, a funeral for 25 people shot by the Germans in Imielnica in 1940 took place at the cemetery. Their bodies were exhumed from a mass grave at the place of execution. In 1949, a monument designed by Beniamin Perelmuter was unveiled at their grave. Until the 1960s, the cemetery continued to serve as the burial place for Płock Jews and was cared for by the Social and Cultural Society of Jews in Poland.

In 1964, city officials raised the issue of taking down the monument on the mass grave due to its poor condition and their plans to close the cemetery. The monument was demolished in 1967. At the end of the 1970s, a second monument designed by Lucjan Kot was erected. In 1981-1982, the Jewish Religious Union had discussions with authorities in Płock regarding the rearrangement of the cemetery and transferring the administration rights to the city. Currently, a lawn covers most of the cemetery. There is a separate plot (approximate dimensions 40 x 70 square metres) in the south-western part of the cemetery, where the monument commemorating the Holocaust victims, a burial plot from 1945-1968, and a wall with destroyed tombstones are located. The owner of the cemetery is the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage.

The first records of Jews in Płock date to 1237. At that time, there was a Jewish district in the city. In 1921, 7,352 Jews lived in Płock. In 1941, the Germans deported most of them to the camp in Działdowo, then to the ghettos in Drzewica, Kielce, Przysucha, Tomaszów Mazowiecki, and other places. In 1942, they murdered them in Treblinka. After the war, there was the Jewish Committee in Płock.