The Silesian locality of Bielsko was chartered before 1312 by Duke of Cieszyn Mieszko I of the Piast dynasty. Biała, meanwhile, formed part of Lesser Poland and was only granted town rights four centuries later by King of Poland Augustus II the Strong (1723). Despite the rapid rate of Polonisation after World War I, both towns were dominated by Germans, mostly Lutherans, until the first half of the 20th century. Jewish settlers came to Bielsko in the mid-17th century, when the town was getting back on its feet after the destruction of the Thirty Years’ War. They reached the newly founded town of Biała several decades later and soon started to constitute a fifth of the total population. In 1765, Jews were expelled from Biała (under the de non tolerandis Judaeis privilege) and only returned in the early 19th century, when the region was controlled by Austria. Despite those perturbations, Jewish merchants gained a strong economic position as traders in the products of the local textile industry. Thanks to the reforms of Joseph II implemented in the late 18th century, many Jews of Bielsko were quickly becoming assimilated into the German culture and language. At the end of the 19th century, the town had 2,500 Jewish residents, making up 15% of the entire population. They owned over one third of the town’s factories and were the local financial elite.

The turbulent years of the Spring of Nations brought the abolition of the remaining restrictions of Jewish settlement in both cities (1848–1849). This made a particularly noticeable change in Biała, where the newcomers soon became the dominant force in many branches of trade and craftmanship. Until 1865, the Jews of Bielsko were subordinate to the religious community in Cieszyn. The Jewish population of Biała belonged to the community in Oświęcim until 1870. In Bielsko, the greatest influence was enjoyed by the supporters of assimilation, whereas Biała was largely dominated by Orthodox Jews. The end of the century saw a rise in the popularity of Zionist and socialist ideas among the local Jews, forced to struggle against the intensifying anti-Semitic sentiments.

Despite mass emigration to Germany and Austria after 1918, the Jews of Bielsko and Biała retained their strong economic and social position in reborn Poland. Bielsko in particular remained a strong centre of Jewish political, cultural, educational, and sporting life. In 1921, Jews constituted one fifth of the population of Bielsko and made up a similar percentage in Biała (19% in both towns at the end of the 1920s).

In 1939, at the beginning of the German occupation, 6,700 Jews (12% of the total population) were registered in the two towns, which were incorporated into the Reich. A ghetto for Jews from both Biała and Bielsko was established in the former locality; it operated in the years 1941–1942. Most of its prisoners were deported to the Nazi German Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in June 1942. After the war, a group of several thousand surviving Jews returned to the newly merged city of Bielsko-Biała (it had 3,400 Jewish residents in 1951), which resulted in the reactivation of the community and religious and social and cultural organisations. Most local Jews left Poland after the events of March 1968. Nowadays, Bielsko-Biała is home to one of the nine Jewish religious communities still operating in Poland.

The history

The Jewish cemetery in Bielsko was established in 1849 in the district of Aleksandrowice, at today’s Cieszyńska Street; beforehand, the local Jews had buried their dead in the cemetery in Cieszyn. The foundation of a separate burial site in Bielsko was accelerated by the cholera epidemic, as the prohibition on transporting corpses to other localities proved to be a perfect pretext for establishing a local Jewish cemetery. Adolf Brüll bought a plot for the necropolis in Aleksandrowice in July 1849. The ownership of the land was transferred to the Jewish community 16 years later, after the official registration of the cemetery. The oldest found matzeva was placed on the grave of Josef Neumann, who died in September 1849 (the sandstone tombstone is now stored in the hall of the pre-burial house). The year 1868 saw the establishment of the Chevra Kadisha burial society. It was responsible for maintaining and administering the cemetery. In the 1930s, the management of the cemetery was taken over by the community, with the activities of Chevra Kadisha limited only to burying the dead. The new owners carried out necessary renovation works at the site. A large debate within the community was sparked by the demands of Orthodox Jews to have a separate section of the cemetery marked out for them.

During World War II, the Germans planned to liquidate the cemetery and develop a housing estate at the site. Although the project was never implemented, many matzevot were stolen. In 1963, the cemetery became the property of the State Treasury despite the protests of the Congregation of Mosaic Faith (Polish: Kongregacja Wyznania Mojżeszowego). Nine years later, it was handed over to the city of Bielsko-Biała. In 1988, the cemetery was entered in the register of monuments. At the beginning of the 1990s, the tutelage of the site was taken over by the Nissenbaum Family Foundation (Polish: Fundacja Rodziny Nissenbaumów), which renovated the graves of soldiers killed in World War I and carried out other maintenance works. Thorough renovation of the cemetery began in 1992, financed from the Polish-German Cooperation Fund (Polish: Fundusz Współpracy Polsko-Niemieckiej) and public funds. Since 1997, the site has been the property of the Jewish Religious Community in Bielsko-Biała.

Nowadays, there are ca. 1200 tombstones preserved on an area of 2.4 hectares. The cemetery is fenced and well-maintained. The oldest part of the cemetery is located behind the pre-burial house. It is a rectangular plot almost completely filled with graves. Farther into the cemetery there is a plot of land purchased and added to the necropolis in the interwar period. It had not been fully developed until 1939 and now also holds graves transferred from the cemetery in Biała in the years 1966–1967. In 2000, a monument was unveiled at the site in memory of the Jewish inhabitants of Bielsko-Biała who perished during World War II.

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