Landmarks

Jewish Cemetery in Kromołów

The Jewish cemetery in Kromołów, now within Zawiercie, stands on Piaskowa Street in the Kraków-Częstochowa Jura. It was established before 1730 and is one of the region’s oldest and best-preserved monuments of Jewish material culture. About 920 matzevot and tombstones from the 18th, 19th and first half of the 20th century survive on roughly 0.85 hectares.

Matzevot and community history

The oldest surviving matzeva commemorates Sulka, daughter of Avraham Hirsh, who died in 1730. Many stones carry Hebrew and Polish inscriptions; their semicircular tops and ornaments show the variety of Jewish funerary art. The Kromołów community also included residents of Zawiercie, Rokitno Szlacheckie and Poręba Mrzygłodzka; the last burial probably took place in 1942.

Wall, ohel and funeral house

The cemetery is enclosed by a historic wall funded in the 1920s by Jakub J. Löwenstein. The gate is flanked by a surviving funeral house and the former caretaker’s building. A small war cemetery with a monument to soldiers who died near Kromołów during the First World War occupies the south-western section. The ohel was reconstructed in 2022.

Practical information

The entrance is on Piaskowa Street, between Żniwna and Zbożowa streets. The grounds are fenced and uneven, with limited visitor infrastructure; do not assume fixed opening hours. Keep quiet, do not touch the matzevot and never step onto graves. Combine the visit with Kromołów, the source of the Warta and Zawiercie.