A school and mikvah were also built.

The driving force behind the development of the Jewish community was the “Civic Relations Edic”' issued by King Frederick William on 11 March 1812. That document, commonly known as the "emancipation edict", made Jews partially equal in legal terms to Christian citizens. At the time the edict was issued, 12 Jewish families lived in Krasków.

On 23 July 1847, the Prussian authorities adopted the "Act on Jewish relations", based on that the statute of the Synagogue Community in Krasków was adopted.

However, on 10 July 1856, due to the decreasing number of Jews and following the decision of the Opole Division, the Community was dissolved. Its territory got subordinated to the municipality of Kluczbork.

In 1848, all the above-mentioned facilities (except the cemetery) burnt down and were not rebuilt due to a small number of Jews in the village. In the period from 1858 to 1859, the movable equipment of the synagogue in Krasków was handed over to the municipality of Kluczbork, which was the new place of residence of the Jews from Krasków. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were no longer any Jews in Krasków.

The Description

The Jewish cemetery in Krasków was the last necropolis for Jews from Upper Silesia established in the 18th century. On 22 February 1765, the local Jewish community, represented by Meinster, the son of Solomon, purchased two morgen of land - i.e., 0.42 ha - 55 ells wide, which was part of the estate in Nowy Dwór, from the Knights of the Cross with the Red Star. In the purchase and sale agreement, it was stated that the plot would be used as a burial field and its users would be obliged, apart from the purchase price, to pay a fee of one thaler for each burial and to donate "six pieces of decent handkerchiefs" on Saint Martin's Day, that is on 11 November, each year, to the administrator of the estate and the parish priest of Kuniów. As the local Jewish community did not have legal personality, the cemetery was formally private property, which was not corrected in the land register until 14 April 1817.

The necropolis was located outside of the village of Krasków, south-east of the buildings and south-west of the Nowy Dwór estate, in the southern part of the Krasków colony, west of the local road, which still has no name. The first funeral at the cemetery took place in 1765, and the oldest identified tombstone in the necropolis, or rather only a piece of it, commemorates a man with a Hebrew name of Shlomo, who died on 27 October 1811. The necropolis was used by Jews not only from Krasków but also those from Byczyna, Kluczbork, Olesno and Wolczyn - until they established their own cemeteries.

On 10 July 1856, following the decision of the authorities of the Opole Division, the Synagogue Community of Krasków was dissolved and incorporated into the structures of the municipality in Kluczbork, which, de facto, also became the owner of the whole property of the Community. However, it turned out that the owners of the plot were supposed to be the descendants of Abraham Heymann and four members of the Singer family, who lived in Kluczbork. Finally, the ownership issues got resolved in February 1861, the heirs received monetary equivalent for the plot and free burial places at the cemetery were allocated to them.

In 1890, a new funeral home was erected in the north-eastern corner of the cemetery – in the place of the previous one. A new brick wall with a gate was also built at the same time, most probably. Due to the fact that the cemetery was almost full, the distance of the parent community to the centre and the fact of opening of a new cemetery in Kluczbork in October 1928, the necropolis in Krasków was no longer regularly used. It is assumed that approximately 450 people were laid to rest there. The date of the last burial has not been established.

On 4 July 1939, the necropolis became the property of the Association of Jews in Germany, which, in that area, was represented the local office in Gliwice. On 10 June 1943, the site was seized by the Gestapo and handed over to the district tax office. The fate of the cemetery during the Second World War is unknown, although it can be assumed, with a high degree of probability, that it survived with no damage until 1945.

After the Second World War, the cemetery, left unattended, gradually deteriorated. Some of the tombstones got stolen. Despite this, some 150 whole tombstones and large fragments of them, many tombstones bases or grave enclosures, as well as broken fragments of tombstones in a small lapidarium on the inside of the wall (built in 2009) and fragments of the historic fence in the form of a brick wall with buttresses have been preserved to this day.

A memorial plaque was also unveiled in 2009. Due to the good state of preservation and the high historical value and preserved matzevot, it is postulated that the site be entered in the register of monuments.

Author of the note: Sławomir Pastuszka

Właściciel praw autorskich do opisu: Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich POLIN.