In 1820, 125 Jews lived in the town, and by the middle of the century, the community already numbered 820 people, which accounted for more than half of all the inhabitants of Kołbiel. During this period, an independent municipality was established. The correspondence conducted in 1853 regarding the independence of the synagogue district in Kołbiel from Karczew shows that the community in Kołbiel already had a rabbi, a synagogue, a school and a cemetery.

The Description

The cemetery is situated 600 m north-west of the market square, on a roughly square plot of 0.5 hectares. We can guess that the rabbis of Kolbiel are buried there, including Natan Nute bar Cwi ha-Kohen Duner (Doner), who held the position since 1894. During his tenure, the Jewish community in Kołbiel reached its apogee, comprising over 80% of the town's population (2077 Jews).

Due to the worsening economic situation, then World War I and the crisis that followed, more and more Jews emigrated to larger cities and abroad. Just before the outbreak of World War II, only 704 Jews were living in Kołbiel.

During World War II, after the liquidation of the ghetto, the Germans carried out executions in the Jewish cemetery. In January 1943, they shot a hiding Jewish family with six children, and in December, another five people. The last burial took place in April 1945. Two women murdered by an armed group were then buried. It should also be mentioned that in 1944 there was a Soviet army bridgehead in the Kołbiela area, and there was fighting in the area where the cemetery is located. Traces of trenches are still visible on its surface today. After the war, the inhabitants used the stone gravestones for construction purposes, lining the drainage channel and bridges, among other things.

Nowadays, the cemetery is located in the forest, overgrown with self-seeded pines. It can be reached from Kilińskiego Street (Polish: ul. Kilińskiego), following the dirt road running from the western side of the forest. The boundaries of the cemetery are blurred, the layout of the plots or the traces of the graves are not visible. In the southern part, one stele has been completely preserved in memory of Yitzchak, son of Avraham David ha-Levi, who died on 22 July 1938. Next to it lie fragments of 20 others. On one of them, the name of the deceased, Moshe ben Gershon ha-Levi Sztejman, can be read. One matzeva from the Kolbiel cemetery has been delivered to the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw. A list of tombstones can be found on the website of the Foundation for Documentation of Jewish Cemeteries in Poland: https://cemetery.jewish.org.pl/list/c_39.

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