In 1563, the townsmen of Koźle asked Emperor Ferdinand to issue the "De non tolerandis Iudaeis” privilege for the town, to which he agreed on 16 September 1563.

In May 1713, Emperor Charles VI issued the “Tolerance Edict” and allowed Jews to settle down in Silesia upon payment of a special tolerance tax. That document gave Jews the right to practice door-to-door trade in Silesia, apart from the following locations: Prudnik, Głubczyce, Racibórz, Koźle, Opole and Nysa. Jews; however, found a way to circumvent the law and settled down in the suburbs, where they developed commercial activities.

In 1766, 30 Jews lived in Koźle, there were 94 in 1787, and 98 in 1790. In 1796, a house of prayer was established.

The driving force behind the development of the Jewish community was the “Civic Relations Edict” issued by King Frederick William on 1812. At the time the edict was issued, there were 19 Jewish families living in Koźle.

On 1825, a two-storey building was purchased and a new house of prayer was set up in the premises, which  was used for more than 50 years. In 1844, there were 160 Jews living in Koźle, in 1861, there were 181 Jews living in Koźle; by 1880, the number of Jewish residents was 236. A new synagogue was built in the years 1883 - 1884. Over time, a Jewish community house, a ritual slaughterhouse and a mikveh were built nearby.

The turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was characterised by an increased emigration of Upper Silesian Jews to larger urban centres in Germany. That trend was also noticeable in Koźle. In 1910, the Jewish community consisted of 119 souls, in 1932, the number dropped to 80.

Adolf Hitler's rise to power in 1933 significantly changed the situation of the Jewish population in Germany. The expiry of the Convention on 15 July 1937 extended all anti-Semitic laws, adopted in the Third Reich after 1933, to the area of German Upper Silesia, including the so-called Nuremberg Laws (Nürnberger Gesetze).

During the so-called Kristallnacht of 9-10 November 1938, pogroms against the Jewish population were organized in Germany. Based on the census of May 1939, there were only 33 Jews and 21 people of partial Jewish origin in the town.

The outbreak of war in September 1939 intensified the restrictive measures against Jews in the German part of Upper Silesia. In June 1942, by decision of the Nazi authorities, the last Jews of Koźle were deported to Gliwice.

The Description

The Jewish community in Koźle, the members of which originally used the cemetery in Biała, established its own burial field in connection with the royal edict of 24 May 1814. On 11 November 1814, a plot of land was purchased for that purpose in the village of Dębowa, on the western side of the road that led to the centre of the village, the present-day Główna Street. From a formal point of view, the cemetery was an enclave that administratively belonged to the town of Koźle.

The oldest tombstone that has survived, found by the author in September 2021, belonged to a three-year-old girl with unknown German personal details and a Jewish name Fejga, who died on 30 January 1826. The oldest death certificates of the Jewish population of the town of Koźle that have survived come from the years 1810-1812, when the cemetery did not exist yet, and from the years 1821-1847, which also does not make it possible to establish the details of the first persons buried there. There are also no details of that religious group from any part of the district of Koźle, where the above-mentioned girl was probably registered. Currently, as per the research, the earliest buried person was Marcus Schütz, who died in 1818 or 1819, whose posthumous son - also Marcus - died on 26 April 1822 at the age of 4.

In 1822, a funeral home was erected in the north-eastern corner of the cemetery, which was replaced by a newer building in 1872. In 1864, the almost completely filled necropolis got expanded, and it reached the size of 2,885 square metres. The same year, a fence was built around the whole plot, and it was replaced by forged fence spans on a concrete foundation in 1912.

The cemetery in Dębowa was the resting place not only of the Jews from Koźle but also from Stare Koźle, Kędzierzyn, Kobylice and Reńska Wieś, inter alia. Theoretically, it could have been used until June 1942, when, following the decision of the Nazi authorities, all Jews from Koźle were deported to Gliwice. Most probably, for several months prior to their deportation, they lived in the buildings at the cemetery. At the moment, a seventy-six-year-old merchant, Salo Friedmann, who died on 16 April 1937 in Koźle, is considered to be the latest person buried at the necropolis.

On 4 July 1939, the necropolis became the property of the Association of Jews in Germany, which, in that area, was represented by a local office in Gliwice; on 10 June 1943, it was taken over by the Gestapo and handed over to the district tax office. In June 1940, no damage to the cemetery was noticed. In the second half of 1941, the metal fence spans were dismantled and replaced by a wire fence. This was probably the only interference by the authorities with the structure of the cemetery, which survived the Second World War almost intact.

After that area became part of Poland, the necropolis was taken over by the State Treasury as post-German abandoned property. According to a report by Romuald Żabicki, in 1950, there were still tombstones of black granite and marble with golden inscriptions in the necropolis. The distance from buildings and peripheral location enabled its easy and unpunished devastation. Most of the tombstones got systematically removed, with those made of better quality materials sold to stonemasons for reuse. In 1980, the authorities of the town tried to clean up the cemetery; however, this did not stop further thefts and devastation of the necropolis.

Despite several attempts of community members to tidy up the cemetery in recent years, only the actions undertaken by Mayor Tomasz Kandziora, in 2020, led to concrete results. Undoubtedly, a new fence, regular mowing and cleaning actions organized from time to time will stop further degradation of that area.

Author of the note: Sławomir Pastuszka

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