In 1830, the town had 16 Jewish residents (3% of the total population), however in 1845, this number had fallen to 14. Due to the small number of Jews residing in Skorogoszcz, a separate synagogue community was not established in the town.

By 1861, the Jewish population of Skorogoszcz had decreased to mere seven people, and in 1925 only two Jews remaining in the town. In the 1930s, no more Jewish were reported.

The Description

The Jewish cemetery in Skorogoszcz was founded before 1837. It was situated on a small hill, south-east of the town centre, west of the road to Opole and east of the dirt road to the village of Niwa. Currently, it is situated at Dębowa Street, surrounded by single-family housing. The rectangular cemetery plot covers an area of 0.4 ha and was originally surrounded with a fence, probably made of brick. No buildings existed on the site.

Initially, the local Jewish community used the cemetery in Brzeg. The first documented person buried in Skorogoszcz was Abraham Friedländer, leaseholder of a local inn who died on 6 March 1837 at the age of 75. It is difficult to determine how many people were buried at the site in total or how long it was used. The most recent burial recorded in sources took place at the end of 1859 – it was the funeral of a stillborn child (sex unknown) of innkeeper Louis Beihof of Lewin, held on 22 November.

On 4 July 1939, the necropolis – at that point already out of use – became property of the Association of Jews in Germany, while on 10 June 1943 it was taken over by the Gestapo and placed under the administration of the district tax office. The site did not suffer any deliberate damage it until June 1940. At the end of World War II, a bunker was built in the western, empty part of the cemetery as part of field fortifications of the German defence. It has been preserved to the present day. In late January and early February 1945, skirmishes between German and Soviet troops took place on the cemetery grounds, which undoubtedly had a negative impact on its state of preservation.

After World War II, the cemetery was left unattended and gradually deteriorated. It was used by the local population as a site for extracting sand for construction purposes, which significantly deformed the lie of the ground. Today, the necropolis area is unfenced, neglected, overgrown with trees and thicket. Only bases of a few sandstone gravestones have survived. A fragment of one gravestone is kept in the local House of Remembrance.

Author of the note: Sławomir Pastuszka

Właściciel praw autorskich do opisu: Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich POLIN.