Wegrow Jewish Cemetery
Cemetery Information
Historical overview
The first records of Jews in Węgrów date to 1537. In 1921, 5,148 Jews lived in the town (60% of the entire population), most of whom were murdered by in September 1942 by the Germans in Treblinka. The cemetery is located about 500 metres south-west of the Market Square, on the contemporary Bohaterów Warszawy Street (formerly Błonie Chrześcijańskie Street, in the interwar period), Przemysłowa Street, and Berka Joselewicza Street.
The cemetery covers an area of approximately 5.5 hectares. The cemetery was probably established around 1620. Until the 18th century, people who died in places near Warsaw were also buried there. In the 19th century, the area was enclosed with a wooden fence. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were tombstones made of granite fieldstone and sandstone slabs, and a one-floor building, presumably a funeral house or an ohel.
During World War II, the Germans carried out executions in the cemetery. At either the end of 1943 or in the first half of 1944, the remains of the victims were exhumed and burned. the last person to presumably be buried in the cemetery was Icchak Kreda, killed at the end of 1944 while trying to regain family property. The devastation of the cemetery likely began during the war. In the period of the Polish People’s Republic, the area was built over. The buildings of the State Machinery Center and the Complex of Vocational Schools were built there. The boundaries of the cemetery are now imperceptible.
In 1982, at the initiative of the Social Committee for the Protection of Cemeteries at Berka Joselewicza Street, a monument was unveiled, in form of the Ten Commandment tablets, around which about 120 preserved tombstones were placed. The owner of the cemetery is the Jewish Community in Warsaw. The list of preserved tombstones is available at https://cemetery.jewish.org.pl/list/c_27/?ile=1.