Updated on 05-24-24 // Originally published in 2020
TARCZYN CEMETERY
Honoring the Past
A Jewish Community Cemetery in the Process of Restoration
A Jewish community’s cemetery with no known survivors or descendants. It would have been lost to history if it was not for the cooperative work of Piotr Stasiak, Lech Widawski, Hania Gawrońska, Krzysztof Rowinski (the only neighbor of the cemetery who was helpful), Halina and Darek Noiszewski with their son Andrzej, Marek Osmelak with his brother Jurek, Joanna Debna and her husband Tomek, Piotr Prawucki, Marek Posiadala, Jakub Staszewski, Andrzej Spychala – the majority of them non-Jewish, some devout Christians, all from Tarczyn and the surrounding area and from Warsaw. The oldest member of our group of volunteers survived the war adopted by a Polish family who dressed him as a girl so that nobody would see him peeing. Unfriendly eyes spotting a Jewish boy could have meant death for the Jewish boy and the family who hid him.
Piotr Stasiak, our former chair of Beit Polska and Beit Warszawa, Lech Widawski, a member of Beit Warszawa and Hania Growronska, also a member of Beit Warszawa, and a chairperson of the Lubuska Fundacja JUDAICA organized and oversaw this complex project. Why is this so complex? First, the city of Tarczyn had to grant permission. There are no known Jewish survivors of Tarczyn anywhere in the world and no known descendants who might take a natural interest. The area has become an overgrown trash heap. A large part of the cemetery was stolen by two neighbors and used as a garden and an orchard. The loving-kindness of Piotr, Lech, and Hania has been the main motivator for this effort.
The slideshow above here displays pictures of the Jewish cemetery in Tarczyn, a small town about 20 miles south of Warsaw. The photos were taken at different phases throughout the cleaning and restoration process.
Follow along by joining our Facebook group, Cmentarz Żydowski w Tarczynie
Spring 2020 Renovation Sponsor
Judith Jacobson
A generous donation in Judith Jacobson’s memory helped to sponsor the spring 2020 renovation of the Tarczyn cemetery. Judith Jacobson passed almost a year after her husband, Marcus Jacobson. The family fund was the result of the careful planning of Marcus Jacobson. The funds for the clean up were donated by the Jacobson Family trust by their daughter Mitzi Schwarz of Los Angeles and son, Barry Jacobson of Israel.
October, 2023 Tarczyn Cemetery Update
Beit Warszawa members and friends have taken responsibility for maintaining this cemetery and the community’s memory. Volunteers appear in the photos on this blog post. Also, a generous donation in Judith Jacobson’s memory helped to sponsor the spring 2020 renovation of the Tarczyn cemetery.
This cemetery has no known survivors from Tarczyn who survived the Holocaust. All the Jews of Tarczyn perished in the Treblinka Death Camp or in the Warsaw Ghetto. None are known to have survived the Holocaust and none are known to exist in the larger Polish Jewish Diaspora.
Kever Avot occurs during the fall holiday at Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. Seeking inspiration from ancestors’ lives during the spiritually intense times of the year, family members would gather to remember their departed relatives.
Rabbi Jack Shlachter, and Beverly Shlachter, Piotr Stasiak, and Hania Gawronska-Spiewak visited the Tarczyn Cemetery during the spiritually traditional moment in the calendar for Kever Avot. (Pictures by Hania Gawronska-Spiewak, chair of Beit Polska)
At the site, Rabbi Shlachter recited prayers and was told by Piotr Stasiak, former chair of Beit Polska about future plans for the redemption of this “lost” and orphaned cemetery.
Resources
Jewish Cemetery Restorations in Poland
- Orla’s Jews Remembered: Returning Gravestones (Matzevot)
- Bialystok: Matzevot (Gravestones) Treated with Dignity
- The Fate of Jewish Cemeteries: Recovering Jewish Dignity in Poland
- Why it’s Important to Engage with Poles about Preserving Jewish Culture
- Father Wojciech Lemanski’s Bialystok Visit
Tarczyn Cemetery Facebook Group:
Cmentarz Żydowski w Tarczynie
The Matzevah Foundation : The Matzevah Foundation seeks to remember and honor the Jewish heritage of Poland that was once a vital and vibrant part of the country before the Shoah (the Holocaust). They do this through a variety of means including Jewish cemetery restorations, commemorations of mass graves and cemeteries, and through education.
2020 Project Update from the Organizers
The original size of the cemetery was about 1 acre, but some time after the war half of the land had been seized by two neighbors who used the grabbed land as their orchards. We managed to recover 100% of the stolen land and to give the cemetery its original size and shape, so the fenced-off area covers now the whole pre-war cemetery, which before the war was protected by a fence made of barbed wire, as we have discovered.
There are no documents in the local archives related to the cemetery, so we don’t know when it was established, how many people are buried there, where were men, and where women buried. Sadly, the local authorities still do not acknowledge the existence of the cemetery – it was expected to sink into total oblivion with the help of tons and tons of garbage. But the opposite happened – the cemetery is and will be there for everyone, both from Tarczyn and the world, to see!
We started our work by cutting off bushes growing on the ground of the cemetery. Then we removed dozens and dozens of tons of industrial and domestic waste because the cemetery had been used by the locals as a landfill for many many years.
In the end, we built a solid concrete fence around the cemetery. The fence is simple and it carries a message:
it symbolizes a tallit placed around the cemetery and the motive on the shawl is that of the Western Wall (see pictures in the slideshow).
Because we don’t know the names of people buried there as the gravestones and all cemetery records had been destroyed, so instead we want to honor ALL Righteous Among Nations by placing their names on the wall which surrounds the cemetery. Over 27,000 names!
*The slideshow shows in “a fast forward” style but in real life it took us three long years to bring the cemetery to its current state.
We have a Facebook group devoted to Tarczyn Jewish cemetery and we invite you to join it.