The first confirmed mention of Jewish residents dates back to 1720. In 1801, 24 Jews lived in Sulęcin. Their number increased when the town became the seat of the Oststernberg District. In 1818, the local community already owned a cemetery. In the second half of the 19th century, the kehilla had ca. 100 members.

In the 1870s, a Neo-Romanesque synagogue with Oriental elements was erected at today’s Park Bankowy Street. In its design, it resembled the synagogue in Gorzów Wielkopolski. It was a brick building on a rectangular plan, covered with an almost flat, slightly sloping roof. The corners were decorated with turrets, and there were triple windows on each side of the building. At the end of the 1930s, the town took over the synagogue and converted it into a school. The building was still used for this purpose in the 1970s. At that point, it no longer had the turrets or the original window openings, which were replaced with rectangular windows. The only surviving element of the original decorations was the ornamental crowning cornice. The former synagogue is now defunct.

Ca. 1900, 65 Jews lived in Sulęcin. Their number increased slightly after World War I due to the influx of Jews from the territories incorporated into reborn Poland. In 1933, the town had 82 Jewish residents. However, the community started to shrink after the Nazi rise to power.

The Description

The Jewish cemetery in Sulęcin was established at the beginning of the 19th century. It was located 2 km east of the town centre, close to the road to Międzyrzecz, at Poznańska Street. It is currently located on a hill and isolated from other elements of infrastructure. It is invisible from the roadside, hidden behind an industrial building. The cemetery covers an area of 0.13 ha and is surrounded with a 1.6 m high stone wall, damaged in the northern part. An impressive entrance gate, over three meters high, has been preserved. After 1945, tombstones made of granite and marble were stolen from the cemetery, only sandstone slabs were left. The documentation prepared in 1998 by the Office for the Protection of Monuments in Gorzów Wielkopolski lists six complete free-standing matzevot and numerous fragments of broken slabs. The oldest preserved tombstone dates back to 1818; it stood on the grave of Zelig, son of Chaim. The foundations of a funeral home are visible in the southwestern part of the cemetery.

Currently (as of 2021), Professor Leszek Hońdo from the Jagiellonian University is working on retaking inventory of the cemetery. The documentation will be published on the website of the University of Potsdam under the title Cmentarze żydowskie w Polsce na terenie dawnej prowincji Brandenburgia (Jewish Cemeteries in Poland in the Former Province of Brandenburg).

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