Cmentarz żydowski w Białej

The cemetery is located on the slope of the hill. Once it had to be a very charming place, the view of the setting sun becomes a wonderful metaphor of life that has gone ... Today, a neglected place, in the summer when all these thickets grow, it will be difficult to move there. But still the place is impressive when it comes to the number of preserved stellias, according to the information board there are 907, which for me is the second largest Jewish cemetery I've ever seen. The first is the Wrocław necropolis. Not comparable with similar places in Namysłów, Wołczyn or Brzeg.

Beautiful and interesting cemetery. Walking after the rain there, you better be careful.

It can not be unambiguously determined whether there was one or two Jewish cemeteries in Biała. There are suspicions that at the beginning of the sixteenth century, north of the city walls - on the so-called Nyskie suburb - there was the first Jewish cemetery. There is no evidence, however. Preserved to this day, the cemetery on the hill called Mound (German: Schwedenschanze), was established no later than in 1621. From this year also the oldest preserved matzeva comes from. It is the largest and oldest Jewish necropolis in the Opolskie Voivodeship. The cemetery on the Mound has an area of ​​about 0.54 ha and the shape of an irregular quadrilateral with a maximum length of 188 m. It is located on the western slope of the hill, steeply descending towards a meadow by the Biała River. The area of ​​the cemetery was enlarged several times by buying additional plots of land. Until 1914, the kirkut was owned by the commune in Biała. In the same year, along with other objects of the Białowieża commune, it was transferred to the kehilla in Prudnik, and on February 23, 1943, the Association of Jews in Germany took over it. From the number of about three thousand burials, less than nine hundred gravestones survived. The oldest preserved stele comes from the grave of Estera, daughter of Symcha, who died in 5382, i.e. 1621-1622. It is made of sandstone and was found by Jan Woronczak in the bed of the Biała river. The inscription on the tombstone reads: "Here is buried modest and pious brave woman, Mrs. Estera, the daughter of our teacher, Mr. Symcha (righteous blessed memory), year 382 (according to a small account)." The last funeral at the Jewish cemetery in Biała Prudnicka took place in 1938.

Lovely place! It is worth to stray from the road!

A large and beautiful Jewish cemetery entirely located on a slope.