Jewish Cemetery in Zawiercie-Kromołów

Behind a brick wall on Piaskowa street in Kromołów, now a district of Zawiercie, stand around 920 matzevot (Jewish headstones) – the oldest commemorates Sulka, daughter of Avraham Hirsh, who died on 21 August 1730. According to Poland's National Heritage Board, it is one of the largest, oldest and best-preserved monuments of Jewish material culture in the region.

History: a community that moved to Zawiercie

Jews probably settled in Kromołów from the 17th century, and the cemetery already existed before 1730. In the 19th century the Kromołów community was subordinate to the kahal in Lelów, and around 1900 it served more than a thousand people from Kromołów, Zawiercie, Rokitno Szlacheckie and Poręba Mrzygłodzka. Kromołów was also a centre of the Hasidic movement. In 1901 the synagogue district was moved to fast-growing Zawiercie, which opened its own cemetery ten years later, and burials in Kromołów became rarer.

In autumn 1939 the Germans burned the local synagogue, and in 1942 all the Jews of Kromołów were deported to the Zawiercie ghetto and from there to Auschwitz-Birkenau. The last burial in the cemetery most likely took place that same year. The cemetery has been on the heritage register since 1967, which may have spared it from greater destruction.

What to see

• Matzevot in rows, facing east, from the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries. Most have rounded tops; fewer are stepped or have more elaborate crowns.
• The ohel (tomb shelter) of Tzadik Israel Leib Gancwajch (c. 1835–1892), rabbi of Kromołów from 1875 to 1892, linked to the Hasidic dynasty of Sasov. The ohel was reconstructed in 2022.
• The graves of rabbis Mordechai Yosef Tenenholc and Jakub Isachar Buksman, and the headstones of Cecylia and Markus Holenderski – parents of the philanthropist and industrialist Stanisław Holenderski.
• The pre-burial house (tahara house) from the 1920s, with a stone slab for preparing the dead and a marble plaque bearing a prayer in Yiddish – one of only a few to survive in the region – plus the former caretaker's building on the other side of the gate.
• The wall funded by Jakub J. Löwenstein and a small war cemetery of 1926 with a memorial to soldiers who fell near Kromołów in the First World War.

Interesting facts

The pre-burial house was used as a dwelling until the late 1980s. In 1992 the Jewish Community of Katowice had the cemetery cleaned up, and in 1993 the present steel gate with Stars of David was installed. In 1999 Jan Paweł Woronczak described the cemetery's history and catalogued its headstones in his doctoral thesis on the cemetery as a cultural text.

Tripto tip

The entrance is on Piaskowa street. The site is fenced and not permanently open – many visitors view it through the gate and along the wall. The ground is uneven and overgrown, so wear sturdy shoes. Men entering the cemetery should cover their heads; do not touch the headstones or step on graves. Allow 30–45 minutes for a quiet walk, and combine your visit with Kromołów and the springs of the Warta river.