It is unknown when Jews appeared in Kargowa, located on the Silesia and Wielkopolska border; it is assumed that it was after 1655. After the Second Partition of Poland in 1793, Kargowa came under Prussian rule. There were 1155 Christians and 323 Jews in the town. In the Description of South Prussia and New East Prussia (Polish: Opis Prus Południowych i Nowych Prus Wschodnich) from 1797, there is a passage about the Jews of Kargów, which shows that they looked "humanly", i.e. they wore the same clothes as other inhabitants and had a synagogue. At the beginning of the 19th century, most of them were involved in trade, mainly in cloth, which was exported to Russia.

In 1835, there were 74 naturalised Jews in Kargowa, and 89 children were subject to compulsory education, carried out by the communal elementary school.

In December 1841, a fire consumed many Jewish houses, including the synagogue. The community, already numbering approx. 400 community, the municipality organised a collection for a new one, commissioned in 1842. In 1888, the community reconstructed the synagogue. It was given a neo-Romanesque form. The taller front part of the building was decorated with two squat towers with a flat roof, while the body of the building retains a hall-like layout. The windows in the walls of the synagogue were finished with arches.

At the beginning of the 20th century, only 69 people of Jewish origin were in the town. This was caused by the outflow of Jews to large centres in the west, mainly Berlin. In the year when the Nazis came to power (1933), there were 1733 inhabitants in Kargowa, including 36 Jews. Many of them were soon forced to sell their estates and leave. In 1936, under pressure from the Nazis, the Jewish community in Kargowa sold the synagogue to the carpenter Auras. The new owner used it as a timber warehouse, saving it from destruction during the "Kristallnacht" (9 November 1938 - 10 November 1938). After 1945, the building was converted into flats. Recent reconstruction in the 1980s obliterated the original features of the synagogue. Today, it is a cubic block with only minor elements of the eastern wall reminding us of its original function.

The Description

The Jewish cemetery is located 2 km east of the centre of Kargowa, on the right side of provincial road 314, leading towards Wolsztyn. It was situated on a wooded hill, which was an early medieval fortress. The date of the cemetery's founding is unknown, but its destruction occurred in 1944 and 1945, when it was decided to use the hill as a resistance point against the approaching Red Army. Despite this fact, there were still numerous tombstones in the cemetery in the 1970s. To this day, they have been overwhelmingly destroyed, and in 2021 there were only a few fragments of shattered matzevot and two graves.

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