The driving force for the development of the Jewish community was the Edict on Civil Relations proclaimed on 1812. At the time of the proclamation of the edict, there were 48 Jewish families living in Mikołów, in 1825 there were 272 Jews living in Mikołów. On 1847 the statute of the Synagogue Community in Mikołów was adopted, giving it legal personality.

The turn of the 20th century saw increased emigration of Upper Silesian Jews to major urban centres within Germany and also Palestine and United States.

In 1900, 182 Jews lived in the town, while in 1910 there were 175.

After 1922, Mikołów saw an influx of Polish Jews, mostly from the Dąbrowa Basin as well as former Congress Poland and Galicia. Having settled in the town, they partly compensated for the outflow of German Jews and allowed the Jewish community to survive.

In 1928, there were 74 Jews living in Mikołów.

Under German occupation, Mikolow was incorporated into the Katowice Regency, and incorporated into the Third Reich.

The anti-Jewish ordinances introduced by the Germans were aimed primarily at eliminating Jews from economic life, at the same time excluding them from society and limiting their freedoms. At the turn of June 1940, the vast majority of Jews from eastern Upper Silesia were resettled to Zawiercie, Chrzanów, Olkusz, Trzebinia, and the cities of the Dąbrowa Basin, mainly Będzin and Sosnowiec, where collective ghettos were gradually established.

In May 1942, the Germans carried out a large-scale deportation of Silesian Jews to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp; the Jews of Mikolow, imprisoned in the Sosnowiec-Srodula ghetto, were taken there on May 12, 1942.

The Description

In the 1720s – no later than 1726 – a new Jewish cemetery was opened in Mikołów. It was established on a triangular plot of 0.52 hectares, located south-west of the town centre, at the fork of the roads to Łaziska Dolne and today’s Stara Droga and Konstytucji 3 Maja streets. Until 1812, it operated under the so-called “stole law” (iura stolae) – requiring a customary fee to be paid by the Jews for each funeral to the parish priest of the Parish of St. Adalbert in Mikołów.

The three oldest gravestones preserved today stood on the graves of people deceased in 1726: Chayim, son of Yehuda Leib, who died on 1 March; Yentla, daughter of Hirsh, who died on 27 July; and Yehuda Leib, son of Shmuel, who died on 28 July. They have been used as a benchmark to estimate the time of establishment of the cemetery. Given that the last documented burial in the old cemetery took place in March 1722, the new cemetery could not have been founded more than four years earlier than estimated.

Like the old cemetery, the new necropolis was used until the 1890s as a burial site for Jews from all towns and cities of south-eastern Upper Silesia, including Bieruń Stary, Gliwice, Pszczyna, Racibórz, Rybnik, Sośnicowice, Wodzisław Śląski, and Żory. Once separate Jewish cemeteries were established in these towns, the Mikołów graveyard started to be used exclusively by Jews from Mikołów and over 20 surrounding villages and colonies.

The cemetery started to fill up in the early 1870s, so it was expanded to the west with a rectangular plot of 4,385 square metres purchased in 1828 by Mendel Oschinski. The enlarged cemetery area covered 9,600 square metres. It was surrounded with a brick and stone wall. A pre-burial house with living quarters for the caretaker-gardener was erected on the northern side of the new section.

It is estimated that at least 700 adults were buried in the cemetery. The last burials probably took place in early 1940. The number of children laid to rest at the site is practically impossible to assess, although taking into account the high mortality rate, it can be roughly estimated at several hundred.

During World War II, the cemetery was spared from being vandalised and remained in a good condition until the end of the occupation. The only interference from the German authorities was the demolition of the pre-burial house (likely only its main part) on 20 July 1940. On 16 January 1945, Schutzpolizei officers shot and ordered the burial of fourteen Polish resistance fighters in the north-western, previously unused corner of the necropolis. A few days later, buried at the same site were the bodies of about 60 prisoners of various nationalities and religions murdered by the Germans during the hasty evacuation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp.

After World War II, the cemetery was left unattended and gradually deteriorated, partially destroyed by human hand. Tombstones made of high-quality materials were stolen from its premises. The masonry wall was finally demolished in 1982, although at that point most of the stones had already been plundered. In the years 1988–1990, the site was surrounded with a new metal fence.

About 300 tombstones remain today, and a monument from the 1950s stands at the site of a mass grave.

In the recent years, the cemetery has undergone several clean-up works that have improved its condition. In 2016, on the initiative of the Mikolov Historical Society, documentation work was made.

Author of the note: Sławomir Pastuszka

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