SokoIow Podlaski New Jewish Cemetery

Jewish settlement in Sokołów Podlaski began to develop the 16th or 17th century. 7,745 Jews lived in the town in 1910 (70% of the total population), and 4,430 in 1921. Most of Sokołów Podlaski’s Jews were murdered in 1942 by the Germans in Treblinka. The cemetery is located about 1.2 km southwest of the town centre, next to a dirt road from Bartoszowa Street, and covers plot no. 1593 (shaped like a trapezoid), with an area of approximately 1.5 hectares.

The land intended for the cemetery was purchased by the Jewish communities of Wincenty Wojewódzki and Marianna Remiszewska, among others. The notarial deed was signed on March 12, 1920. According to the Sokołów Podlaski Memorial Book, the cemetery “was established about 50 years before the extermination of the Jewish community.” Prior to 1939, there was a funeral house at the entrance and the cemetery was fenced. The construction of the fence was financed by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.

The cemetery was destroyed during World War II and continued to degrade in the following decades. The tombstones were removed from the cemetery, the fence and the funeral home were torn down, and the area was used as a gravel mine and a garbage dump. On June 10, 1959, the District Court in Sokołów Podlaski transferred responsibility for the cemetery to the State Treasury. On December 6, 1963, the Minister of Municipal Economy—following the resolution of the Presidium of the Municipal National Council in Sokołów Podlaski dated February 13, 1963—signed an order to close the cemetery and designate the land for other purposes.

In 1991, after the intervention of the Provincial Office in Siedlce, the Municipal Office in Sokołów Podlaski leveled excavations in the cemetery with earth and placed an information sign prohibiting the extraction of gravel. As a result of the destruction of the cemetery, only single, destroyed tombstones have survived. There is no fence, and the borders are partially visible. The area is overgrown with dense, untreated vegetation (trees and shrubs). There is no form of commemoration. The owner of the cemetery is the State Treasury, and it is listed in the provincial Register of Monuments.