New Jewish Cemetery
Kraków Cemeteries
A historic Jewish cemetery (Grzegórzki district), known as a kirkut, founded in 1800 on land the Jewish community bought from the Augustinians. It covers about 3 hectares and has a lapidarium and some 10,000 gravestones, the oldest dating from 1809. During the Second World War the Germans closed the cemetery and the gravestones were sold to stonemasons. After the war many were found in the Płaszów camp and returned. Many plaques commemorate murdered Jews. The funeral house of 1903 was designed by Władysław Kleinberger.
History
The New Jewish Cemetery at 55 Miodowa Street was founded in 1800. The land was bought from the Augustinians by the Jewish community, which in 1836 bought another plot from the friars. During the Second World War the Germans closed the cemetery, and the matzevot (gravestones) were sold to stonemasons. After the war an engineer named Stending found many of the gravestones on the site of the German camp in Płaszów and set them back up in the cemetery. In 1957 the grounds were restored with funds from the Joint Distribution Committee. The cemetery covers about 3.1 hectares and has a lapidarium and 10,000 gravestones, the oldest of which dates from 1809. The pre-burial house, built in 1903, was designed by Władysław Kleinberger. Rabbis of Kraków are buried here, among them Josef Nechemia Kornitzer, as well as Ozjasz Thon, rabbi of the Tempel Synagogue and a member of the Sejm of the Second Polish Republic. The painter Maurycy Gottlieb and the photographer Ignacy Krieger, one of the pioneers of photography in Poland, also rest here.
Did you know?
The cemetery has many symbolic graves and memorial plaques for people murdered during the Second World War, among them the poet and folk singer Mordechaj Gebirtig.