Jewish Cemetery

The Jewish cemetery was founded at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries. During World War II, the Germans devastated the cemetery.

The Jewish cemetery in Dąbrowa Tarnowska - colloquially called by the residents "kirchoł" - is located at the intersection of ul. Warszawska and ul. Berek Joselewicz. According to various sources, the cemetery was built at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries. According to cadastral maps, around the mid-nineteenth century the area of ​​the cemetery was expanded. During World War II, the cemetery was devastated by the Nazis. The tombstones were used to harden the yard at the then Wehrmacht headquarters; paving one of the streets in Dąbrowa Tarnowska or the road in Olesno. Matzevot were also used to build a swimming pool by the Germans at the Breń River. The cemetery was the site of many executions of the Jewish population. In one of them, on July 22, 1942, under the oaks growing to this day, about one hundred and eighty people were shot. After the war, few burials were carried out in the cemetery. Among others, in 1959, the funeral of Estera Adler took place; in 1962, lawyer Jakub Weissberg, a year later - Pesli Grincwajg, and in 1969 - Frederic Weissberg, wife of Jakub. To this day, several dozen gravestones have survived on the surface of over two hectares, the oldest of which come from the mid-nineteenth century. After the liberation, some matzevot found in various parts of the city were moved here. There are also graves of Jews murdered during the war. Holocaust victims are also commemorated by monuments funded by the Tarnów Congregation of the Mosaic Confession and Jews from Dąbrowa and their descendants. Thanks to the efforts of Rabbi Mendel Reichberg, in 1991 the ohel was rebuilt, in which are buried: the first Dąbrowa tzaddik Dawid, who died in 1843; his son Józef, died in 1876 and Mojżesz Eliaki, who died in 1917. In 1992, on the initiative of Jews living in America, a new fence was erected. Let us devote a few words to the person of Samuel Hirsz Roth, who after the liberation took care of the cemetery for several decades. Samuel Roth was from Radgoszcz. Imprisoned in the camps in Pustków and Oświęcim, he miraculously survived the dark time of the Holocaust. Despite the pogrom in Kielce, numerous assassination murders of Jews returning to their homes after the war and the anti-Semitic campaign unleashed in 1968, he did not leave Poland. His ambition was to look after the burial place of Jews from Dąbrowa. Over the years, along with three other Jews from Dąbrowa, he prayed in the synagogue, and from 1972 - when they were forbidden to gather in the old synagogue - in his apartment, converted into a house of prayer. Then he only stayed with his sister-in-law Etke. He was called "the last Jewish guardian" and "the last small-town Jew." Samuel Roth died on December 14, 1995 and was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Dąbrowa Tarnowska. In his former home at ul. Daszyńskiego 8, a small Judaic museum was organized. Right next to the cemetery is a ruined synagogue, built in 1865 according to the design of Abraham Goldstein. Inside, beautiful, unique polychromes with floristic and animalistic motifs have been preserved.