In 1382, Gostynin was chartered by Duke Siemowit IV. The earliest reference to Jews in the town dates back to the 15th century. At the beginning of the 17th century, a Jewish man leased the local brewery and malt house. In the same century, accusations of ritual murders allegedly committed by Jews were made in the town.

An official community was most probably established in the first half of the 18th century. Most of its members were traders, innkeepers, and craftsmen – mainly tailors, furriers, and butchers. After the Second Partition of Poland, Gostynin became part of Prussia. At that time, the Jewish community had over 100 members and constituted a quarter of the town’s population. In the years 1823–1862, an extremely overcrowded "Jewish district" existed in Gostynin.

The first wooden synagogue, erected in 1779 on Olszowa Street (nowadays Kardynała Wyszyńskiego Street), burned down 30 years later. It was rebuilt but suffered another fire in 1899. At that point, a new brick building was erected in its place. The synagogue and the house of prayer were located near the Market Square. In the 19th century, Gostynin became an important centre of Hasidism. Tzaddik Yechiel Meir Lipschitz was active in the town. Crowds of Hasidim made a pilgrimage to his grave on his yahrzeit.

In the 19th century, when Gostynin was part of Congress Poland, Jews (whose number had been growing dynamically, reaching 1,760 people in 1897, i.e. 32% of the town’s population) were the dominant force in the local trade. In 1898, only one larger shop and several small stalls in the town were not owned by Jews. Before the introduction of state monopoly on vodka, as many as 36 taverns belonged to Jews. After the construction of a paved road from Płock to Kutno via Gostynin in 1866, the Jews were the first to use it for regular omnibus transportation (they were also the first to launch a permanent motor car connection with Łódź and Warsaw in 1925). Many people also dealt with contraband across the Prussian border.

After Poland regained independence, branches of the most important Jewish political groups were established in Gostynin, among them the socialist Bund, the Zionist Organisation in Poland, Agudath, Poale Zion-Right, and Poale Zion-Left. Some Jewish activists joined illegal communist structures. Many trade unions were founded in the town, associating tailors, shoemakers, cobblers, transport workers, domestic servants, and hairdressers. There was a branch of the Maccabi sports club in Gostynin, as well as an amateur theatre, a choir, an I.L. Peretz library, and charity organisations.

The period of independent Poland saw intensified emigration of Gostynin Jews to America, and later to Palestine. The share of the Jewish community in the town’s population decreased. According to the census of 1921, there were 1,830 Jews in Gostynin (27% of all the inhabitants). At the end of the 1930s, the community grew to 2,300 people, but it constituted only 18% of all inhabitants of the town.

After the outbreak of World War II, the town was captured by the Germans and incorporated into the Reich (Wartheland). In early 1940, apart from the original Jewish population of Gostynin (1,600), there were some 650 Jewish migrants and people displaced from other towns (Gąbin). The synagogue in Gostynin was destroyed. A ghetto with an area of 1.5 ha was set up in March 1941. Its boundaries were marked by the quadrangle of streets Olszowa (now Kardynała Wyszyńskiego), Piłsudskiego, Bagnista, and the right side of Zamkowa Street. About 3,500 people were crowded inside. The ghetto prisoners worked mainly in tailoring and linen workshops. The deceased were buried in Wola Łącka. In March 1942, a group of ghetto inhabitants was driven to Konin. The main stage of liquidation was carried out by the Germans in April 1942 – almost all the Jews who remained in Gostynin were transported to the Chełmno (Kulmhof) extermination camp and murdered on the spot. The ghetto eventually ceased to exist in August 1942, when the last few people held inside were transported to the ghetto in Łódź.

After the end of the war, the local Jewish Committee was founded in Gostynin; in early 1946, it registered 44 people. Most of the Survivors left Poland in the subsequent years.

The Description

The first Jewish cemetery in Gostynin, established in the first half of the 18th century, was located to the north-east of the town centre. The surviving necropolis at today’s Gościnna Street was founded in the second half of the 18th century in the south-western part of Gostynin. Its western boundary is marked by the valley of the Skrwa River, and the southern – by the abovementioned street. The necropolis once held the ohel of Tzaddik Yechiel Meir Lipschitz (Gostininier). The cemetery was demolished during World War II – the Germans tore out many matzevot and used them to pave the roads and sidewalks. The post-war period saw further devastation of the site. No tombstone has survived on the 0.88-hectare plot. The cemetery was closed by the decision of the provincial administrative authorities in 1964; for the following half century, the cemetery area was left unattended.

In 2010, fragments of broken tombstones from the Gostynin cemetery were found on a forest road leading to Skrzany. Thanks to the efforts of Gostynin regionalists and history lovers, they were excavated with the intention of relocating them to their original location. In 2016, a group of social activists formed an informal association called “Multicultural Gostynin.” One of its goals was to commemorate the Jewish cemetery. Thanks to a grant from the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland, surveying works were carried out to determine the boundaries of the cemetery. Works related to the “Multicultural Gostynin – Commemoration the Jewish Cemetery” project continued in 2018, carried out by the Gostynin Development Centre and the “Multicultural Gostynin” group with financial support from the Jewish Historical Institute. In September of that year, on the 130th anniversary of the death of Yechiel Meir Lipschitz, a commemorative plaque was unveiled at the cemetery with an inscription in memory of the tzaddik and the Jewish community of Gostynin (in Polish and English). A lapidarium in the shape of a wall was erected behind the plaque, composed of discovered fragments of matzevot from the destroyed cemetery.

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