A wooden synagogue was built in 1781 –1782. A mikvah was situated next to it. In 1787, 120 Jews lived in the town. At the time the edict was issued, there were 48 Jewish families living in Dobrodzień.

In the 1820s, a Jewish hospital was set up in a purchased house. On 1 June 1846, the synagogue and surrounding buildings burnt down in the great fire of the town.

On 1847, the Prussian authorities enacted the “Jewish Relations Edict”.

In June 1848, the construction of a new synagogue began, which was opened the same year. In 1849, 233 Jews lived in the town.

The turn of the 19th and 20th centuries was characterised by an increased emigration of Upper Silesian Jews to larger urban centres within Germany. That trend also applied to Dobrodzień. In 1896, the number of followers of Judaism in the town decreased to 175.

Adolf Hitler's rise to power in 1933 significantly changed the position of the Jewish population throughout Germany.

During the so-called Kristallnacht of 9/10 November 1938, organised pogroms against Jews took place all over Germany. Dobrodzień was not spared, as the synagogue (then already in the hands of the local county savings bank) was burnt down and numerous properties belonging to Jews were demolished. Those events intensified the emigration of the Jewish population. The census of May 1939 showed only 14 Jews and 3 people of partial Jewish origin in the town.

The Description

The Jewish cemetery in Dobrodzień is the third oldest 18th-century necropolis in Upper Silesia. Its official date is 1750, although one of the surviving pre-war photographs shows a tombstone from before that year, which today allows us to move the origins of the necropolis to the late 1720s.

The cemetery was established outside the then town limits, south-east of the city centre, near the forest in the fields later known as Lerchenfeld. The 4,800 square-metre necropolis, surrounded by cultivated land and enclosed by a brick wall, was accessed from the north by a dirt road starting next to the road to Lubliniec (today's Lubliniecka Street, ulica Lubliniecka). A funeral home was erected in the south-western part of the cemetery, while a one-storey caretaker's house was built at the northern boundary.

The above-mentioned tombstone – which no longer exists today – crowned the grave of two women: Gitel, daughter of Yonatan, and Temerel, daughter of Yekutiel Zalman, both of whom died in 5490, i.e. between 1729 and 1730. The oldest known tombstone currently in existence is set up on the grave of Shlom, son of Nechemia, who died on 17 January 1773.

Throughout its existence, the cemetery was last resting place for Jews living in Dobrodzień but also those living in several surrounding villages. Until 1820, it was used by Jews from Olesno, and until 1815 also by some of those from Opole.

It is difficult to unequivocally determine how many people are buried in the cemetery. It is estimated that the number may be approximately 500 adults, not to mention children, whose number is impossible to determine today. What is certain, however, is that the last buried person was Erna Brauer (née Süssmann), who died on 29 October 1941 at the age of 59.

On 4 July 1939, the necropolis became the property of the Association of Jews in Germany, which was represented in the area by the local office in Gliwice. In 1940, the cemetery had several toppled tombstones and the funeral home had partially broken windows. Its general condition, including developments, was considered severely neglected, for which the caretaker of the cemetery was blamed. Due to insufficient care and the possibility of further damage, any repairs were abandoned.

At the end of November 1942, the sale of the cemetery grounds with the developments for 3,150 marks was under way, and the conclusion of the sale agreement with Franz Nowak of Dobrodzień was solely dependent on the approval of the central supervisory authority. In all probability, its finalisation did not take place very soon, as on 10 June 1943 the site was seized by the Gestapo and placed under the administration of the district tax office.

After World War II, the cemetery – left unattended – gradually deteriorated, driven also by human factor. After the caretaker left the cemetery developments, those were demolished over time. The cemetery became overgrown and was devastated. The first, albeit unsuccessful, attempts to restore it were made in 1987. In July 2001, as part of the clean-up work, a lapidarium was created from fragments of damaged tombstones. That action, however, led to the displacement of some of the tombstones from the places to which they potentially belonged.

The cemetery area is completely enclosed by a plastered brick wall. It is regularly mown, which means that it is not overgrown with feral vegetation, and access to the tombstones – approximately 140 of which have survived – is not difficult today.

The cemetery is listed in the register of historic monuments of the Opolskie Province (no. 439/88 of 27 May 1988).

Author of the note: Sławomir Pastuszka

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