In the years 1812–1813, 11 Jewish families lived in the town. In the 19th century, the community was slowly growing in size, reaching its peak by the end of the third quarter of the century. In 1828, it comprised 57 people (4% of the total town’s population), in 1840 – 124 (6.3%), in 1871 – 168 (4.1%), in 1885 – 165 (3.1%), in 1895 – 156 (2.6%), and in 1910 – 142 (1.8%).

An independent Jewish community was established in Wejherowo around 1854. It had jurisdiction over all villages and towns in the Wejherowo District, including Gdynia and Sopot (until 1913). Jews settling in Wejherowo lived at today's Wałowa, Pucka, and Abrahama streets. In the 1860s, construction works on the town’s first synagogue were completed. Located at Pucka Street (Putzigerstraße, now Trautmana), the building was erected at the back of the plot. Leading to it was a buckeye alley, partially preserved to this day. The plot for the synagogue was purchased in 1839; the loan taken for the investment was supposedly only paid off in 1919. In the interwar period, the value of the building was estimated at 20,000 zlotys. The synagogue was devastated in 1939 and then pulled down by the Germans.

In the interwar period, when Wejherowo became part of Poland, the town experienced an outflow of the local Jewish population to Germany, followed by an influx of Jewish migrants from Polish lands. In 1921, 62 Jews lived in the town (0.7% of the total town’s population), in 1923 – 40, in 1928 – 70, in 1934 – 138, and in 1939 as many as 258 (1.6%). At that time, the religious community included the entire district of Wejherowo, as well as individual Jews living in Chylonia (five people in 1923), Mały Kack (five), Osowa (three), and Orle (one). In 1926, a group of a dozen or so Jews from the Eastern Borderlands settled in Wejherowo. In 1932, the Jewish communities of Puck, Wejherowo, Kartuzy, and Kościerzyna merged to form the Jewish Religious Community. Kartuzy was selected as the seat of the new community, probably due to its advantageous location and not its importance or size, as Wejherowo was much ahead of it in this respect. This was reflected in the composition of the subsequent terms of the community board, in which the Jews of Wejherowo played a significant role (including: Brunon Rosenthal, Luzer Blibaum, Wolf Aleksandrowicz, Moryc Ickowicz, Abraham Rotapel, and Maks Piese).

After the outbreak of World War II, a part of Jews from Wejherowo and the seaside district tried to flee. However, the German army was advancing so fast that the refugees were captured in the conquered territories. Gradually, Jews began to be isolated from the rest of the society. The first wave of arrests took place from 12 to 15 September. The Germans transported the detainees to a makeshift camp in Gdynia, then to Nowy Port, and from there to Stutthof. On 14 September 1939, a group of Jews was deported from Gdynia to Stutthof; among them were 11 Jews from Wejherowo. Some of the arrested families were most probably murdered by the Germans in Piaśnica in 1939 (including Irma and Herbert Israel, Dawid Riese with his wife and two children). A group of 95 people from Wejherowo and the district were displaced to the General Government on 26 October.

The Description

The dead from Wejherowo were buried at the Jewish cemetery in Bolszewo (German: Bohschlau). The same necropolis was used by Jews from Sopot, and since the 1920s also by the Jewish population of Gdynia. Established around 1766 and originally belonging to the community in Bolszewo, the cemetery was purchased by the Wejherowo community in 1827. This was mostly due to the dwindling size of the Bolszewo community, but also resulted from the fact that the community in Wejherowo had been unable to find a suitable plot for a cemetery on the outskirts of its hometown. In addition, as already mentioned, most of the first Jewish settlers in Wejherowo came from Bolszewo. The cemetery was located on top of a hill called Żydowska Góra (Judenberg – “Jewish Mountain”), south of the village of Bolszewo, by the old road running from Wejherowo to Lębork. In the later period, a railway line connecting the two towns was constructed in the vicinity of the cemetery. The necropolis was founded on an irregular rectangular plot which covered 3,414 m2, but the burial area was only 2,409 m2; the rest of the plot was overgrown with trees. An alley lined with spruce trees led to it from the north. The graves were positioned in rows along the north-south axis. Until 1892, there was no cemetery chapel on the premises. During World War I, the necropolis served as a burial place for seven Russian soldiers of Jewish faith; concrete slabs with plaques were placed in their graves. The area was enclosed partly with a wall and partly with a wooden or metal fence. The fencing was renovated in the second half of the 1930s.

During the September Campaign of 1939, the cemetery was seriously damaged since the Polish Army used the area as a defensive stronghold. After the war, the cemetery was systematically looted, the tombstones were used as a building material for houses and farm buildings as well as for road construction. The metal fence was stolen. It reportedly stands on one of the properties in Wejherowo or Bolszewo. Some of the matzevot were most probably used to build the wall around the Primary School no. 29 in Gdynia. In 1953, the cemetery was formally closed. Only a few tomb framings have survived to this day; in 2020, a destructed sandstone stele was found near the cemetery. Nowadays, the area is covered with a forest. For some time, the premises of the cemetery have been looked after by young people from the John Paul II Junior High School in Bolszewo and the detainees of the Remand Centre in Wejherowo.

Author of the note: Tomasz Kawski

Bibliography

• D. Drywa, Zagłada Żydów w obozie koncentracyjnym Stutthof (September 1939 – May 1945), Gdańsk 2001.
• Historia Wejherowa, J. Borzyszkowski (ed.), Wejherowo 1998.
• W. Rezmer, “Gmina Wyznaniowa Żydowska Okręgu Kartuskiego w latach 1920–1939,” in: Gminy Wyznaniowe Żydowskie w województwie pomorskim w okresie międzywojennym (1920–1939), Toruń 1995.
• G. Salinger, Zur Erinnerung und zum Gedenken. Die einstigen jüdischen Gemeinden Westpreußens, Bd. 1, New York 2009, pp. 140–152.
• M. Wołos, “Cmentarze żydowskie w województwie pomorskim w latach 1920–1939,” in: Gminy Wyznaniowe Żydowskie w województwie pomorskim w okresie międzywojennym (1920–1939), Toruń 1995, pp. 215–216.

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