In 1560, Andrzej Górka, the then owner of the town, defined the rights and obligations of Szczebrzeszyn Jews. Further privileges were granted e.g. under the last Jagiellonian dynasty, and also in 1583 from King Stephen Batory. In 1648, there was a pogrom against Jews during the Chmielnicki Uprising.

In the 18th century, sessions of the Parliament of the Four Lands took place in Szczebrzeszyn. During this period, Jews also made a living from propination and viniculture.

At the beginning of the 19th century, Hasidism reached Szczebrzeszyn. In the 1880s, tzadik Elimelech Javorov Hurovitz stayed there. Tema Blima Szejner, grandmother of the famous writer Isaac Baschevis Singer, was also a resident of Szczebrzeszyn.

In 1910, 185 Jews owned 556 properties in Szczebrzeszyn. During World War I, there was one synagogue, three prayer houses and two cheders subordinated to the Chełm School Management.

In the interwar period, Jews lived mainly in the tightly built-up city center. The intelligentsia had their houses on Zamojska street, the main artery of the town, and the poor resided in the area called 'Zatyły'. Jewish political life flourished, and Zionist parties were especially active. In addition to the traditional cheders, new educational institutions appeared, including the Yawne religious school, run by the Mizrachi organisation, and a school of the Central Jewish School Organization. There was also a Jewish library named after Jakub Abramowicz.

After the outbreak of World War II, Szczebrzeszyn came under German occupation. The Germans looted Jewish shops and forced the Jews to burn Torah scrolls. They also burned the synagogue and destroyed houses in the above-mentioned Zatyły.

There was no separate ghetto in Szczebrzeszyn during the occupation, but the local population was still subject to repression and restrictions. From 1940, Jews were forced to work on the construction of the military airport in Klemensów. In 1942, the Germans deported some of the Jews to the German Nazi extermination camp in Bełżec, and murdered the remaining ones at the local cemetery. After 1945, a large part of the Jews who survived the Holocaust emigrated to Haifa.

The Description

The Jewish cemetery in Szczebrzeszyn is located on a hill at Cmentarna street. Established at least at the beginning of the 16th century, it is a unique historical monument in the entire region, one of the oldest facilities of this type in Poland. Despite the expansion of vegetation, it is also one of the most visitor-friendly. Well-worn paths lead here to plaques marking various parts of the cemetery, as well as translations of some inscriptions and symbols of the tombstones.

The process of caring for the cemetery was initiated by decisions No. A/642 of November 8, 1972 (WKZ Lublin) and No. TAK / A/333 of December 14, 1985 (WKZ Zamość), on the basis of which the cemetery was entered into the register of monuments as an element of the urban layout of Szczebrzeszyn. In 1991, a monument dedicated to the memory of Jews from Szczebrzeszyn and the surrounding area was unveiled, funded by the Society of Szczebrzeszyn Jews in Israel and the Diaspora. In May 2010, the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage, together with the Peacework organization, carried out cleaning works at the cemetery. American students from Hendrix College in Arkansas and students of the Polish Olympians Junior High School in Szczebrzeszyn took part in these activities. In July 2010, the Foundation for the Preservation of the Jewish Heritage installed a new information board at the entrance to the cemetery. In August 2011, the next stage of work carried out by the FPJH was concluded. A gate, an entrance wicket, and a wall were built, separating the cemetery from Cmentarna street. In the fall of 2011, FPJH installed a commemorative plaque in honor of local Jews.

There are probably as many as 2,000 tombstones in the entire cemetery, including the fallen ones and fragments. Additionally, there is a stone monument in the form of a plaque with three matzevas in memory of the murdered Jews from Szczebrzeszyn and two modern matzevas surrounded by steel spans at the burial place of the rabbis. The collective graves of 2,300 Jews shot here by the Germans in 1942 are probably located within a group of old oak trees in the central part of the cemetery.

The cemetery has one of the most interesting and largest sets of Jewish gravestones in the Lublin region. Prof. Andrzej Trzciński from the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin identified a group of several 16th-century tombstones in the north-eastern part of the cemetery. These are rectangular stelae with concave inscriptions and no decorations. The oldest of them commemorates Jechiel, son of Moses, who died on April 9, 1545. There is an inscription on it that reads: 'Here lies a righteous man o[ur teacher?] Jechiel, son of sir Moses of blessed memory. Let his soul be bound in a bag of the living. His soul departed on Tuesday, Nisan 26, 305, according to a short count.' To the south there is a burial area dating back to the 17th and 18th centuries, where there are many richly carved tombstones, decorated mainly with plant motifs. Most of the preserved tombstones, including those with traces of polychrome, date back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In the north-western part of the cemetery there is a large women's section.

Author of the note: Magda Lucima

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