The local Jewish community soon became one of the largest in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In 1556, King Zygmunt August issued a privilege in which he granted the Jewish population a royal protection, and a year later he issued a decree prohibiting Jews from the largest centers - Kraków, Poznań, Lublin, Lviv and Chełm - from getting involved in the affairs of smaller kahals. In the mid-16th century, a yeshiva operated here; the learned Reb Judah Aron, rabbi of Lublin, Chełm and Bełżec, whose son was Elijah Baal Shem, a famous Kabbalist.

In the early 17th century, the development of Chełm stopped due to the decline of crafts and a city fire. The Cossack invasion led by Khmelnitsky in 1648 contributed to further destruction; approximately 400 Jews were murdered then.

However, the Jewish community in Chelm quickly rebuilt itself. In 1765, it counted approx. 1,500 people - roughly half the city's population. The Jewish district developed on the northern side of the market square. Jews were mainly involved in crafts and trade, especially horses. Several larger enterprises also operated in the city, including: an oil factory, a tannery, two factories producing brass products.

In 1795, the city came under Austrian rule, becoming part of the so-called Western Galicia, from 1809 it was part of the Duchy of Warsaw, and from 1815 it was included in the borders of the Kingdom of Poland.

At the beginning of the 19th century, Hasidism began to develop in Chełm. At that time, a student of the famous rabbi Dov Ber from Międzyrzecz in Volhynia - Abraham Twerski, called the Magid of Turzysk - was staying in the city. By the end of the 19th century, on the other hand, at Lubelska street, tzadik Heszel Leiner, descending from the Hasidic Izbica-Radzyń dynasty, founded his manor.

In 1913, 12,713 Jews lived in Chełm, constituting more than half of the population. Jews were at the forefront of trade, there were several Jewish printing houses and bookstores, a stationery warehouse, the 'Kultura' rubber stamp factory, and three warehouses of pharmaceutical materials. The community managed the synagogue, prayer house, six schools, two mikvahs and a cemetery. The commune also subsidised the operation of an orphanage and an old people's home. In the years 1910–1914, there was also an amateur Jewish theater in the city.

In the interwar period, the Jewish religious community in Chełm, apart from the city, included the nearby villages: Okszów, Sielec, Żółtańce, Kasiłan, Kumów, Serebryszcze and Weremowice. The kahal had: two synagogues, a house of prayer, several dozen cheders, two baths, two mikvahs, an orphanage, libraries, nursing home and a cemetery. Five Jewish newspapers were published. There was a shelter for the poor, numerous social organizations, clubs and sports associations; the community also had a fund from which unemployed Jews were supported. Despite growing economic emigration, especially to the United States, in 1939 there were 14,995 Jews among the inhabitants of Chełm.

In 1939, the German occupation authorities deported about 2,000 Chełm Jews to Sokal. About 300 people died during the so called death march, most of whom were buried in a mass grave in Mojsławice. Since 1940, the first mass executions took place, including in the vicinity of Chełm and in the nearby Borek forest, where a makeshift field crematorium was organized.

In 1941, the German occupation authorities established a ghetto in the city, which included Lwowska, Uściługska, Wojsławicka, Partyzantów and Pocztowa streets. Jews from Slovakia were also imprisoned there. In 1942, approx. 3,300 Jews were gathered in front of the Church of the Sending of the Holy Apostles and then transported to the German Nazi extermination camp in Sobibór. The rest were placed in a labor camp and, after 1943, deported to, among others, German Nazi concentration camp at Majdanek. The Holocaust was survived by approx. 200 Chelm Jews, most of whom emigrated after the war.

The Description

The Jewish cemetery in Chełm is located at the junction of Starościńska and Kolejowa streets. The exact date of its establishment is unknown. The first written mention about the necropolis dates back to 1755, when the Jewish community and the Chevra Kadisha funeral fraternity concluded an agreement regarding burial fees. Nevertheless, some researchers believe that it may have existed earlier, and that there were tombstones from the 15th century and even one tombstone from the 13th century on its premises before the war. Probably after 1825, the fence was built or renovated. Before the Holocaust, the property housed, among others, a pre-funeral home, a caretaker's apartment and a pump for ritual ablution at the entrance. The whole area was covered with old-growth forest.

During World War II, the Jewish cemetery in Chełm became a place of numerous executions, and the bodies of prisoners who died and were killed in the Chełm ghetto were also buried there. In 1940, the German occupation authorities handed over the eastern part of the cemetery plot to a drainage works company operating nearby. A section of the fence was then dismantled and the matzevas were used to pave streets and sidewalks, e.g. in front of the jail at Kolejowa street. Some of the stone slabs were taken by local residents.

After the end of the war, on the initiative of the surviving Jews from Chełm, some of the matzevas were found and brought to the cemetery. In the 1960s, a garden square was arranged on the site. Unfortunately, the lack of care in subsequent years resulted in the gradual destruction of the necropolis. At that time, matzevas also started to disappear and were stolen, among others, by stonemason companies.

At the end of the 1990s, thanks to the efforts of the Nissenbaum Family Foundation, the Israeli Association for the Reconstruction of the Cemetery in Chełm and the First Commercial Bank in Chełm, the devastation was stopped. The area was cleaned and surrounded by a steel fence, tombstones were restored and their fragments were attached to vertical slabs. At that time, an imposing monument made of raw stone was erected in honor of the victims of the Holocaust, with a Star of David and epitaph plaques in Hebrew, Yiddish, English and Polish. On the initiative of Rabbi Israel Meir Gabaj from the 'Ohele Cadyków' association, a tombstone was placed at the presumed resting place of Rabbi Meir Neuhaus, also called the Tomaszower Rebe.

Author od the note: Magda Lucima

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