However, the ban was not respected because in 1670, in Lublin’s municipal books, a Jew from Czemierniki. After 1680, King John III Sobieski became the estate owner and lifted the ban on his predecessor. More Jews from Czemierniki appear in the Lublin town registers in the following years. There was probably already an organised community there that maintained a synagogue. In 1703, the new owner, Jakub Sobieski, marked out a place for a cemetery. The site chosen for this was north of the city limits, on the forest’s edge.

Gradually, the Jewish community in Czemierniki grew. A new brick synagogue was built in 1730. In 1748, 50 houses in the town were owned by Jews. Around this time, an independent municipality was established, which is confirmed by the Sejm of Four Lands records.

Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, Jews accounted for roughly 40% of the town’s total population. Their existence and further development were interrupted by World War II’s outbreak. In September 1939, some Jewish inhabitants fled to the USSR, while others were crowded into the ghetto, together with those displaced from other towns in 1940. In the autumn of 1942, the Germans deported them to the Parczew ghetto and later to the German Nazi extermination camp of Treblinka.

The Description

During the war, the Germans murdered the town’s Jewish community and did everything to erase its material traces. The synagogue was destroyed, and the cemetery was devastated. No traces of the fence have survived. Only the ditch and the boundary rampart indicate how the historic boundaries of the cemetery ran.

In 2000, a monument in the form of a matzeva with an engraved inscription was erected in the necropolis: “There was a Jewish cemetery on this site between 1703 and 1941. A plaque was erected in 2000 to commemorate the resting place”. In the following years, matzevot were placed next to it, which were most probably found in various places in Czemierniki. The cemetery is included in the “Tyśmienica Valley” blue cycling trail.

The plot of land on which the cemetery is located belongs to the State Treasury and is administered by the State Forests (Lubartów Forest District).

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