In 1526, Silesia came under the rule of the German emperors. Soon afterwards, the municipal authorities were granted the de non tolerandis Judaeis privilege by Vladislaus II, Duke and King of Bohemia. Effectively, Jews were banned from settling in the city.

Modern Jewish settlement appeared in Otmuchow after the Emancipation Edict proclaimed on 1812. In 1845, the town had 37 Jewish residents (1.4% of the total population). They belonged to the synagogue community in Nysa.

In 1850, there was a house of prayer and a Jewish school in Otmuchów.

The turn of the 20th century saw increased emigration of Upper Silesian Jews to major urban centres within Germany. In 1885, there were 27 Jews living in the town. By 1930, their number had decreased to 10. In the 1930s, there were no longer any Jews in Otmuchow.

The Description

A Jewish cemetery in Otmuchów had been established by late 1832, which is confirmed by the oldest tombstone preserved at the site – or rather, only its bottom part. It commemorates a man named Rosenthal, who died on 17 November 1823.

The cemetery is located north of the town centre, on the edge of the municipal forest called Bażanciarnia, west of the road to Nieradowice and the present-day Henryka Sienkiewicza Street. Its original area is unknown; it now occupies a separate plot of 847 square metres.

Archival death certificates of the local Jewish population from the years 1813–1874 have not been preserved, so it is currently impossible to determine the identity of the first person to be buried in Otmuchów. We know, however, that a total of about 50 people were laid to rest in the cemetery, the last of whom was probably Rosa Berger née Rosenthal, who died on 8 September 1933 at the age of 58.

As of 1854, the necropolis was owned by the Jewish community in Nysa and looked after by its branch in Otmuchów. On 4 July 1939, the cemetery became the property of the Association of Jews in Germany, while on 10 June 1943 it was taken over by the Gestapo and placed under the administration of the district tax office. No deliberate damage was inflicted at the site until June 1940. The cemetery remained in a good condition until 1945.

After World War II, the cemetery was left unattended and gradually deteriorated, partially destroyed by human hand. Tombstones made of high-quality materials were stolen from its premises. The cemetery was eventually almost totally stripped of matzevot. In 2003, cleaning works were organised at the cemetery, carried out jointly by Polish, Israeli, Czech, and German youth. At that time, a brick wall was erected in the south-western section to create a lapidarium for around a dozen discovered fragments of incomplete gravestones. The site was also marked with a stone information board and a commemorative stone plaque with inscriptions in Polish, Czech, German, English, and Hebrew reading: “Youth exchange. Everywhere one person is responsible for the other. Otmuchów, August 2003.”

The cemetery suffered damages in a windstorm which passed over Otmuchów on the night of 5/6 July 2012.

Author of the note: Sławomir Pastuszka

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