The community continued to grow over the following decades. In 1844, the Jews of Filipów erected a synagogue and a house of prayer. They also employed a rabbi. In 1857, the local Jewish community had 856 members, but it started to shrink in size in the following years. In the interwar period, there were only 263 Jews living in Filipów. The outbreak of World War II and the German occupation brought an end to the local Jewish life.

The cemetery is the only surviving trace of the Jewish community of Filipów. It was probably established in the 19th century, ca. 1.5 kilometres south of the village, on the slope of a hill located between today’s Garbarska Street and the Rospuda River valley. The cemetery was surrounded with a stone wall and was entered through a metal gate. During World War II, the necropolis was destroyed and its wall was pulled down. The site continued to fall into decline in the post-war years.

Today, the cemetery occupies an unfenced trapezoidal plot with an area of ca. 0.8 hectare and holds about 50 tombstones in varying degrees of preservation. According to the record sheet filled out during field inspection, there are supposedly as many as several hundred matzevot at the site, though many must have since sunk into the ground. Most of the surviving stones come from the second half of the 19th century. Some of them are overturned and bear illegible, faded inscriptions. There are still visible outlines of many graves at the necropolis. 

The Jewish cemetery in Filipów was entered into the register of monuments under the number A-740, dated 21 November 1989. 

Description copyright owner: POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews