The early appearance of Jews in Kazimierz should be associated with the favorable location of the city. It developed mainly thanks to the Vistula, used as a grain transport route to Gdańsk. The location on the trade route leading from the eastern territories of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as well as Lithuania and Ukraine towards the west was also very important.

The Jewish quarter in Kazimierz was called 'Na Tyłach' (lit. 'at the back'). It developed around a separate market square (Small Market Square) and along Lubelska street. It was probably there that the first wooden synagogue was built around the middle of the 16th century. Currently, in its place there is, a stone building from the second half of the 18th century, the fourth of its kind built there.

In 1655, Kazimierz Dolny was destroyed by the Swedish army, which murdered almost all members of the community. The later revival of the Jewish community was facilitated by a document of King Jan III Sobieski from 1676, which granted Jews privileges and relief for running a business. The ruler also forbade the city authorities from persecuting them, under a penalty of heavy fines. The Jewish community, which was rapidly becoming richer, gradually began to push Christians out of the tenement houses around the market square. Serious conflicts have occurred between these groups on more than one occasion, most of which have played out on economic grounds.

The rights and privileges of the Kazimierz Jews were reconfirmed in 1717. Thanks to this, the commune quickly recovered from the destruction brought by the Third Northern War (1700–1721).

In 1771, King Stanisław August Poniatowski made local Jews equal with other citizens from legal perspective. He allowed them to buy land and build houses throughout the city, as well as to trade freely. This contributed to the economic revival of the city.

As a result of the third partition of the Republic of Poland in 1795, Kazimierz Dolny found itself in the Austrian partition, in 1809 within the Duchy of Warsaw, and from 1815 in the Kingdom of Poland.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the Hasidic movement appeared in the city, and the tzadik Ezekiel ben Tzvi-Hirsh Taub, a disciple of the Seer from Lublin, established his court here. In 1869, Kazimierz lost its city rights, which were only restored in 1927. This was related to tsarist repressions after the January Uprising in 1863. By contrast, between 1880s and 1905, Mordechaj Twerski, son of Abraham Magid from Murzysko, a representative of the Hasidic dynasty from Chernobyl, lived in the town. In 1907, out of approximately 3,000 inhabitants of Kazimierz, Jews made up 89% of the population.

The outbreak of World War I caused the destruction of urban buildings and a decline in population. However, in the interwar period, there was a rapid expansion of the tourist network in Kazimierz Dolny and dynamic socio-cultural development of the Jews. At that time, numerous villas, guesthouses and a hotel were built here. The Jewish community operated, among others, a bathhouse and ritual slaughterhouse. A Jewish library, Makabi and Sztern sports clubs, and private schools were established, and Zionists created a strong organisation. In 1927, in the entire local commune, i.e. in Kazimierz and the surrounding villages, there were approximately 2,300 Jews. In this picturesque scenery, two leading films of Polish Yiddish cinema were shot in the 1930s: Der Dibuk (Yiddish: Dybuk) and Yidl mitn fidl (Yiddish: Yudel plays the violin).

After the outbreak of World War II, Kazimierz Dolny became a part of the General Government. Already in 1939, the Jewish police and the Judenrat were established, and all Jews aged 14-60 were subject to forced labor. The occupation authorities also forced them to wear armbands with the Star of David and mark their businesses with this symbol.

In 1940, the German occupier created a ghetto at Lubelska and Mały Rynek streets, to which - apart from the inhabitants of Kazimierz - Jews from nearby villages and Puławy were also relocated. The high mortality rate was caused by the crowded conditions, hunger, and typhus epidemic. Many Jews died in executions as well. In 1942, during the liquidation of the ghetto, the Germans took approximately 3,000 prisoners from here to the transit camp in Opole Lubelskie, and then to the German Nazi extermination camp in Bełżec. Few survived the war, including Berek Cytryn.

The Description

A new Jewish cemetery was established in Kazimierz in 1851, on the slope of a ravine in Czerniawy, on the road leading towards Opole Lubelskie. The land was donated to the municipality by Motek Herzberg. Most of the tombstones here were from 1880–1930, and the last burial took place here in 1942.

During World War II, like the old cemetery, the Czerniawy necropolis was almost completely devastated by the Germans. Some of the matzevas were used to pave the town's streets. However, a dozen or so tombstones have been preserved at the cemetery. During the occupation, the cemetery in Czerniawy was a place of execution of the Jewish and Christian population. To this day, however, we do not know how many people were murdered there.

After the war, the area of the necropolis was fenced with a stone wall, but it was subject to erosion and was finally demolished in 1971. The town authorities at that time tried to sell the land for building plots, but they found no buyers.

In the first half of the 1980s, on the initiative of the Society for the Protection of Monuments in Kazimierz, the Vistula Museum and the Office of the Monument Conservator, work on the partial reconstruction of the cemetery was undertaken. At that time, they managed to collect dozens of tombstones from all over the town. Many of them have been destroyed over forty years, but some have survived in quite good condition, even with the remains of polychrome. Several dozen of these tombstones came from the old Jewish cemetery at  Lubelska street.

In 1984, a monument-lapidarium was erected here from the remains of 600 tombstones, in the form of the Wailing Wall. Through the "crack" in the monument, symbolizing the tragic fate of Polish Jews during World War II, you can go to the area of the former cemetery, where on an area of 0.71 ha there are about 25 tombstones, the oldest of which dates back to 1851, while most of them date back to the second half of the 19th century and the first 40 years of the 20th century.

Author of the note: Magda Lucima

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