Sosnicowice Jewish Cemetery

Jewish settlement in Sosnowiec began in the mid-nineteenth century. In 1915, the neighbouring town of Modrzejów, where Jews lived from the mid-seventeenth century, was incorporated into the city. In 1938, the Jewish community of Sosnowiec accounted for 28,893 people, most of whom were killed in KL Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1942.

The cemetery is located in the northwest part of the city, in the Milowice district, near Stalowa Street. The land intended for establishing the cemetery was purchased by the Sosnowiec Jewish community in the mid-1920’s. The first funerals took place in 1934, and the official opening of the cemetery took place in 1936. During World War II, victims of German repression were buried in the cemetery, including 13 Jews who were shot on September 4, 1939, on Ostrogórska Street. After 1945, only some funerals took place in the cemetery. The facility has suffered extensive damage. According to the documentation of the Jewish Religious Congregation in Sosnowiec, in 1965, the cemetery was damaged and unfenced, and no restoration work had been carried out since the end of the war.

In 1989, the list of Jewish cemeteries prepared by the Provincial Office in Katowice stated that the Sosnowiec-Milowice cemetery covered an area of 1 hectare, its owner was the Jewish Religious Congregation, the facility was in, “practically residual condition, very damaged and neglected, the slabs are also in a residual state, but there are clear traces of cemetery architecture. Part of the cemetery is functioning as allotments.” Within the cemetery, individual tombstones have survived, some of which are symbolic or placed on the graves of people killed during the war and moved to the cemetery after 1945. The area is unfenced, and the borders are imperceptible. The cemetery is overgrown with untreated vegetation and littering is an ongoing problem. The cemetery is listed in the Municipal and Provincial Register of Monuments.