According to the authors of the Memorial Book of Jedwabne (Sefer Jedwabne. Historiya ve’zikaron, Yerushalayim 1980), several Jewish families may have lived in the village in the second half of the 17th century, attracted by the weekly markets. In the 18th century, Jedwabne was chartered under the Magdeburg Law. This prompted many Jews from Tykocin to move to the newly located town. The developing Jewish community of Jedwabne erected a wooden synagogue ca. 1770, but even afterwards it remained under the jurisdiction of the kehilla of Tykocin.

The number of Jewish residents in Jedwabne was growing since the late 18th century. In 1808, there were 325 Jews living in the town (68% of the population), and in 1897 – as many as 1,941 (ca. 77%). The community started to shrink at the beginning of the 20th century. This was mostly due to the deteriorating economic situation and the outbreak of World War I, which forced many Jews to migrate in pursuit of better living conditions.

The Jewish community of Jedwabne probably founded its own cemetery at the beginning of the 19th century. The site selected for this purpose was located about half a kilometre north of the Market Square, outside the town. It was situated ca. 60 metres east of Cmentarna Street, directly opposite the Roman Catholic cemetery. The necropolis occupied a roughly square plot with an area of 1.4 hectare.

Before 1939, the cemetery was surrounded with a low slate fence. It was entered through a gate topped with decorative Tablets of the Law. The last burials at the site took place in 1941. The cemetery was devastated during the German occupation and continued to fall into decline after the war, with most of the tombstones plundered by the local population. Its central part became overgrown with a thick hazel grove. Only fragments of a stone rampart in the south-western part of the cemetery have been preserved to the present day. There are no visible traces of the original layout of the cemetery and only several dozen tombstones, either whole or in pieces, can still be found at the site (ca. 30 matzevot have been recorded during a field inspection of the cemetery). A matzeva-shaped monument has been placed at the south-western border of the necropolis. It commemorates the Jews who were murdered and buried there in 1941. The cemetery was entered in the register of monuments under the number A-374, dated 29 July 1988. It is surrounded with a fence made of stone blocks and partially with wire mesh.

On 10 July 1941, Polish residents of Jedwabne, assisted by German military policemen, burnt alive several hundred Jews after trapping them in a barn located on a plot of land adjacent to the cemetery. In 2001, a memorial to the murdered Jews was erected ca. 25 metres away from the southern border of the necropolis, at the site where the barn once stood.

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