Settlement intensified after Silesia passed to Prussia in 1742. Between 1763 and 1771, a new synagogue was erected in Wielowieś. In 1781, 138 Jews lived there (17.5% of the total population). Settlement remained stable in the 19th century. In 1829, there were 158 Jews living in Wielowieś (approx. 10% of the total population).

The turn of the 19th and 20th centuries was characterised by the increased emigration. In 1895, there were still 75 Jews living there, while in 1905 – 53, in 1925, there were only 30 Jews.

During the so-called Kristallnacht of 9/10 November 1938, there were anti-Semitic attacks occurred, however, the local synagogue was not burn down, as it was sold just 9 days earlier (1 November).

The last Jews left Wielowieś on June 8, 1942, taken by the authorities to nearby Gliwice and then to the German Nazi extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. All perished in the gas chambers.

The Description

The Jewish cemetery in Wielowieś is located amidst farmland, to the southeast of the village buildings and to the east of the road to Wojska, i.e. today's Szkolna Street. Information about its sponsor is provided by a Hebrew-language epitaph from his gravestone, which is also the oldest surviving grave monument still standing in situ at the Wielowieś cemetery. The person in question is Jonatan Bloch from Krakow, who died on 22 April 1722 in Wielowieś.

Details about most of those buried are provided by a re-prepared chronological Hebrew-language list of 590 gravestones of people who had died by September 1886. According to it, but also to other documents, the first person to be buried there was Bracha, daughter of Salomon Grätz and wife of Jonathan Bloch, who died on 7 July 1694.

In 1748-1749, the Jewish community authorities headed by Hirsch Bloch applied to the local manor house for permission to enclose the cemetery with a fence, which was probably granted. In 1762, an additional section of the field was purchased to expand the cemetery.

Until the first decades of the 19th century, the Wielowieś cemetery was the only Jewish necropolis in the area, and therefore it was used to bury the dead from many villages, including some very remote ones. Before 1814-1815, when many new Jewish cemeteries were established in Upper Silesia, Wielowieś recorded burials of people from Gliwice, Łabędy, Racibórz and Rybnik, among others. Until the early 1920s, it was also used by Jews from Lubliniec, Leśnica, Rept and Strzelce Opolskie. The last two large non-local groups of users of the necropolis were coreligionists from Pyskowice and Toszek. The former established their own cemetery in 1830, while the latter in the mid-1840s.

As more and more new Jewish cemeteries were established in Upper Silesia, the number of burials in the Wielowieś necropolis decreased significantly. In 1854, the religious community in Wielowieś – apart from itself – consisted of only six nearby villages still inhabited by Jews.

It is difficult to clearly determine how many people have found eternal rest at the Wielowieś cemetery, but the number could oscillate around 800 adults and several hundred children. The youngest gravestone found on its grounds tops the grave of Amalia Pinkus (née Aufrichtig), who died on 16 October 1924 at the age of 83. She was undoubtedly not the last person buried there, and individual funerals could still take place there in the second half of the 1930s.

Under an agreement of 1 November 1838, the local Jewish community sold the northern part with an area of 567 square metres – featuring, among other things, a funeral home – to a merchant from Wielowieś, Franz Bialek, for 6,000 marks.

On 4 July 1939, the necropolis formally became the property of the Reich Association of Jews in Germany (German: Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland). On 10 June 1943, the site was seized by the Gestapo and placed under the administration of the district tax office.

It is difficult to clearly determine in what condition the cemetery survived until 1945. Given its current state, it should be concluded that the burial area with gravestones survived intact. However, it is not known when exactly the funeral home and the wall surrounding the cemetery were demolished.

After World War II, the cemetery that was left unattended gradually deteriorated. Cleaning work was undertaken in 2003. Up to 250 matzevot have been preserved to this day, as well as relics of the fence - the posts of the defunct gate and the fence around the perimeter of the cemetery.

Author of the note: Sławomir Pastuszka

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