JEWISH CEMETERY

The first Jewish cemetery in Lodz was established in 1811 and was situated in Wesola Street. A fast growing Jewish Population caused the cemetery to fill up and it was necessary to establish a new one. In 1892 the new Jewish cemetery in Bracka Street was opened - today the biggest Jewish cemetery in Europe.

During more that 100 years of the history of the cemetery, many meritorious members of the Jewish community were buried here, like rabbis, industrialists, teachers, doctors, scientists, politicians and social activists. Their graves are very often an authentic stonecutting and blacksmith work art. Here also are buried the victims of the one of the most tragic events in the history of the Polish Jewry - the extermination in the Ghetto Lodz. Witness to this tragedy is a big Ghetto Field and 6 pits next to the cemetery wall prepared for the burial of the last shot Jews of the Ghetto.

Since the beginning of its existence, the Foundation Monumentum Iudaicum Lodzense took a special interest in caring for the cemetery. The Foundation covers the costs of the regular maintenance works, cleaning the cemetery quarters from the overgrowing vegetation and adapts it to the original architecture of the cemetery.

The Foundation also supported the conservations of the main gates and the reparation of the roof of the Funeral House. Through the financial help from the Polish-German Cooperation Foundation "Pojednanie" and the Eternal Remembrance Foundation the damaged fragments of the cemetery wall were repaired.

Through development of Zagajnikowa Street during the 50's damaged part of the cemetery, thanks to the government's subvention, received a fence. A substantial help to the Foundation comes from the Municipality of the City of Lodz.

The Foundation Momentum Iudaicum Lodzense makes renovations work of the Jewish Cemetery tombs. The reconstruction program takes care especially of the tombstones and mausoleums of a great historical and artistic importance. In this framework, the cupolas of the Silberstein family grave was secured and work on the re-construction of the grave of family Jarocinski are in progress.

The Foundation finances also the research works on the cemetery. Mr. Dariusz Dekiert, the scholarship holder of the Foundation, made a full inventory of the part of cemetery call "The Old Field". This research showed the existence of the graves before 1892, what means before the official date of establishing the cemetery.

In 1998 the Foundation started the efforts to give the Jewish Cemetery in Lodz the status of the Monument of the Polis Culture.

You are welcome to visit a page specifically devoted to the cemetery in Lodz ...more


 
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