The local Jewish community grew in size after 1605 – that year, all Jewish residents were expelled from nearby Bochnia by virtue of a royal decree and some of them probably settled in Brzesko.

The Description

An organised kehilla must have existed in Brzesko in the 17th century, as a Jewish cemetery was founded in the town towards in the end of the century. It was located in the Dolne Miasto district, at today’s Głowackiego Street. At the end of the 18th century, a dispute over the cemetery grounds arose between the Jewish community and the owner of the town, Count Żeleński. The count was planning to move the necropolis to another site and use the area to expand the local mill and develop houses for craftsmen. He offered to grant the Jewish community a plot of land on the other side of the Uszwica River, near Okocim. The case was brought to the High Governorship in Lviv, which decided that the plot was unsuitable for burial purposes and claimed that the very fact of the count asking Jews to move the cemetery showed his lack of respect for other religious customs and was a sign of religious intolerance.

In the 1830s, the cemetery was completely full. Surrounded by a stone wall, the necropolis survived until World War II. The armed conflict marked the beginning of its devastation. After the war, the municipal authorities built garages on the cemetery grounds, ignoring the fact that there was still a handful of matzevot at the site. A car park is currently located at the site. The only remnant of the cemetery is a fragment of its stone wall.

The second Jewish cemetery in Brzesko had likely been founded before all burial plots were filled at the old necropolis. The new cemetery was located north of the centre, at the junction of Czarnowiejska and Okulickiego streets. According to some sources, it was established in 1846, but these claims are contradicted by the inscriptions appearing on some of the preserved tombstones, which include the dates 1824 and 1826.

The new cemetery was used by the Jews from Brzesko and the surrounding towns. In 1846, it became the burial site of the first tzaddik of Brzesko, Aryeh Leibish Lipschutz, son of Chaim. Resting next to him are his successors: his son Meshullam Zalman Yonasan and grandson Tobias (Tovye) Lipschutz. An ohel used to stand over their graves; it was destroyed during World War II.

In 1902, the cemetery was expanded to the west and south with adjacent plots. A year later, the whole area was fenced.

During World War I, the Military Cemetery no. 275 was established at the site. It is the burial place of 21 Jewish soldiers serving in the Austro-Hungarian Army, killed in battles taking place near Brzesko.

During World War II, the cemetery was used to bury Jews murdered in the town by the Germans, including 200 people killed on 18 June 1942. The cemetery was also an execution site – in December 1942, a group of 15 people from Zakliczyn was shot there.

After 1945, symbolic tombstones of Holocaust victims were placed in the cemetery. In 1947, a monument was erected on the mass grave of the 200 people murdered in June 1942.

In the post-war years, the cemetery was looked after by Szymon Platner, the only Jew who remained in Brzesko. In the 1960s, the ohel over the graves of the local tzaddikim was reconstructed on the initiative of Elimelech Glantz from New York. Three richly decorated matzevot adorned with polychromatic paintings are placed inside the ohel. In the 1980s, the municipal authorities financed repairs of the fence around the cemetery. The second ohel at the site was erected on the initiative of Sender Waksman and the Eisen family from the USA. It stands over the graves of the Templer family (Efraim Templer, who ran the Brest prayer house, his father Baruch, the rabbi of Brest, his uncle Abraham Eliezer, the local shamash, and his grandfather Pinchas Templer).

In the 1990s, Iwona Zawidzka of the Stanisław Fischer Museum in Bochnia took inventory of the cemetery and used the findings in the monograph Cmentarz żydowski w Brzesku (English: The Jewish Cemetery in Brzesko), first published in 2001.

Circa 300 tombstones have been preserved in the cemetery, which has an area of ca. 2 hectares. The oldest matzeva commemorates Itel, who died in 1823 or 1824. The last recorded funeral took place on 10 April 1950, when Jadwiga Ziarnecka was buried at the site.

In 1992, the Jewish cemetery in Brzesko was entered into the register of monuments under the number A-353, dated 8 October 1992.

Description copyright owner: POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews