In 1540, the burghers and merchants of Prudnik demanded the expulsion of Jews from the town, but Margrave George prevented any action in this matter. After 1543, his son George Frederick continued to implement policies favourable to Jews. In 1562, the sejmik of the Duchy of Opole and Racibórz passed a resolution obliging the Jews to sell their houses, pay off debts, and leave the duchy within a year. As a consequence, in 1564 the Jews of Prudnik were ordered to leave the town, but the landlord of the Prudnik estate – Krzysztof Prószkowski – allowed them to stay in the town until 1570.

Under the imperial decree of 1576, Jews were forbidden to conduct trade in Prudnik. In 1713, issued an edict of tolerance allowing Jews to settle in Silesia after paying a special tolerance tax.

The driving force for the development of the Jewish community was the Emancipation Edict proclaimed on 1812.

In 1817, the town had 41 Jewish residents, in 1828 – 127, and in 1840 – 146 (2.3% of the total population).

In 1816, prayers were held in a rented room in a house at Niederstrasse, and later at Zamkowa Street. From 1846, services were organised in the annexe of the house at 9 Rynek (Market Square).

On 1847, the Prussian authorities passed the statute of the Synagogue Community.

In 1861, 174 Jews lived in Prudnik (ca. 2% of the total population). In 1880, the number was slightly higher – 184. In 1877, a synagogue was built on the corner of today’s Klasztorna and Armii Krajowej streets.

The turn of the 20th century saw increased emigration of Upper Silesian Jews to major urban centres within Germany. This trend also applied to Prudnik. In 1910, 114 Jews lived in the town (0.6% of the total population).

Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in 1933 significantly changed the situation of the Jewish population throughout Germany. The main aim of the Nazi policy was to eliminate Jews from the German society and force them to emigrate. This task was carried out by both administrative and economic means as well as through physical violence. Seeking protection against discrimination and persecution, the leaders of Upper Silesian Jews used the legal route. By a decision of the Council of the League of Nations in Geneva, legal protection was granted to the Jewish minority in Upper Silesia in accordance with the 1922 Polish-German Convention, and the Third Reich was obliged to refrain from taking any action against the Jews living in the region. Until the Convention expired on 15 July 1937, Upper Silesia was the only region of Germany where adopting legislation discriminatory to the Jewish population was formally prohibited. This weakened anti-Semitic persecution in the area but did not fully eliminate it.

After the Convention expired, all anti-Semitic laws adopted in the Third Reich after 1933, including the so-called Nuremberg Laws, were also enforced in the area of German Upper Silesia.

During the so-called Kristallnacht of 9/10 November 1938, organised pogroms against the Jewish population took place throughout Germany. The wave of violence also swept Prudnik, where the synagogue was set on fire and numerous properties belonging to Jews were demolished. These events intensified the emigration of the Jewish population. In May 1939, there were still 79 Jews in the town.

The outbreak of war in September 1939 resulted in further repressions introduced against Jews in the German part of Upper Silesia. However, they were not physically isolated from the rest of the society, nor were there any changes in the organisation of their lives. Only in the spring of 1942 did the Germans start to deport the local Jewish population to ghettos, transit camps, or directly to extermination camps. The displacement campaign continued in 1943, albeit on a smaller scale.

After the end of World War II, Prudnik was incorporated into Poland. The local Jewish community was never revived.

The Description

In 1849, the Prudnik Jews petitioned to establish a Jewish quarter at the newly opened Catholic cemetery. In 1859, the municipal authorities donated a plot of land of 2,750 square metres to the local Jewish community (which at that point was using the necropolis in Biała) to establish its own cemetery. Secondary sources customarily refer to it as the “new” cemetery in order to distinguish it from the Habsburg-era necropolis. The plot of land donated to the community was located north-west of the city centre, at erstwhile Hohenstrasse and now Kolejowa Street, in close proximity to the railway station.

The cemetery did not open until two years later. The first burial, held on 23 July 1861, was an unnamed boy from the Schlesinger family, who died on 21 July at the age of two days. The first adult – and the third person overall – to be laid to rest at the site was Auguste Fränkel née Guttmann, who died on 25 January 1862 at the age of 21. Her marble tombstone has been preserved to this day.

The rectangular cemetery area was surrounded with a wooden fence, and a pre-burial house was built in its southern part, replaced by a more modern building in 1906. The same year, a new wrought iron fence on a high foundation with a gate and wicket was installed on the side of the street. Sometime after 1935, a small dwelling house for the cemetery caretaker was built in the south-west corner of the necropolis.

Thanks to the meticulously kept burial register, we know that a total of 184 people were laid to rest in the cemetery by 14 February 1939 – the date of the last recorded burial. This last entry in the books – and indeed the last buried person – is Eugen Doctor, who died on 11 February 1939 at the age of 68. Apart from Jews living in Prudnik itself, the cemetery also holds the remains of several members of the Chotzen family from nearby Głuchołazy (buried before 1927).

On 4 July 1939, the necropolis became property of the Association of Jews in Germany. The vacant part of the cemetery (with an area of 725 square metres), located directly behind the caretaker’s house, had already been sold by 10 January 1941. On 10 June 1943, the rest of the cemetery grounds were seized by the Gestapo and placed under the administration of the district tax office in Prudnik.

The cemetery was preserved virtually intact until 1945. In January of that year, it was used to bury a group of Jewish prisoners of Auschwitz-Birkenau murdered during one of the first evacuations of the camp to the west.

After World War II, the cemetery was left unattended and gradually deteriorated, partially destroyed by human hand. In 1986, the building of the pre-burial house became property of the local congregation of the Pentecostal Church. In 1990, it was renovated, expanded, and adapted for use as a chapel. The entrance to the cemetery was paved, and a new gate was installed in 1989, designed to match the original fence.

The condition of the cemetery is generally good. The area is regularly mowed. The vast majority of gravestones located at the premises as of 1939 have been preserved to the present day.

The site is listed in the register of monuments of Opolskie Province (no. A-21/77 of 31 March 1977).

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