It was only during the reign of King of Prussia Frederick the Great that the first Jew permanently settled in Ścinawa. In 1722, tobacco manufacturer Borchard Löser was granted a general privilege allowing him to reside in any Silesian town. He chose to settle in Ścinawa, where he opened a tobacco factory. In 1787, his family had ten members.

An official Jewish community was established in Ścinawa in 1832, founded by three Jewish families living in the town at the time – the Cohnstadts, the Gerbers, and the Altmanns. Initially a branch of the Głogów kehilla, it was later incorporated into the 10th Synagogue District in Wołów. In 1887, the Ścinawa community became independent. It had jurisdiction over the entire area of Ścinawa County except for the town of Rudna. Its statute was approved on 25 September 1887. After the Synagogue Community in Wołów was dissolved (in 1906), it became a branch of the Ścinawa kehilla.

The local Jews initially congregated in a house of prayer founded sometime before 1829. In 1861, the representatives of the kehilla – M. Hauck, M. Caro, M. Wiener, and J. Frankfurter – appealed to community members for support for the construction of a synagogue. A year later, the community purchased a building located near the market square (6 Neuestraße) for 1,100 thalers and converted it into a synagogue. It was officially consecrated on 18 September 1862.

In 1875, the Synagogue Community of Ścinawa was headed by Martin Hauck and represented by Wiener and Bucky. In 1881, the board was composed of merchants Hauck and C. Methis. Hauck continued to head the Jewish community in 1898, while in 1904, the leaders were H. Bucki, B. Rinkel, and S. Barasch.

The Jewish community in Ścinawa was never very numerous. Before 1812, only one Jewish family lived the town. In 1830, 16 Jews resided in Ścinawa, in 1849 – 41, in 1871 – 129. At the end of the 19th century, the Jewish population started to shrink. In 1907, the town was inhabited by 41 Jews, in 1913 – 33, and in 1937 – only 22.

Between 1932 and 1933, the Synagogue Community in Ścinawa had 24 members, including ten community fee payers. The board consisted of Georg Müller and Karl Blumenthal. Four Jews from Rudna were also members of the community. Three children were receiving religious education.

 In 1938, during the Kristallnacht pogrom, the synagogue and two Jewish shops were destroyed. In the early 1940s, Gertrud Goldberg and Nanny Aron, both residents of Ścinawa, were deported to transit camps for Lower Silesian Jews in Tormersdorf and Grüssau, from where they were sent to the Theresienstadt ghetto. In 1942, Nanny Aron, Emma Eckstein, and Natalie Eckstein were also displaced to Theresienstadt. They were eventually deported to the Treblinka extermination camp. Another native of Ścinawa, Wilhelm Wiener, died in Theresienstadt in 1942. Klara Margarete Silbermann was sent to the Riga ghetto, and Arthur Rothgießer – to the Minsk ghetto. Margarete von Heise was deported first to the Ravensbrück concentration camp and then to Bernburg a. d. Saale, where she died.

Polish Jews did not settle in Ścinawa after 1945. The synagogue in Robotnicza Street was converted into a residential building. It has been preserved to the present day.

The Description

In 1842, the Jews of Ścinawa purchased land for the purpose of establishing a cemetery. The plot was located by the road to Krzyżowa, near the railway station. The first burial took place in 1845. Previously, the local Jewish community had used cemeteries in Głógów, Brzeg Dolny, and Prusice. A pre-burial house was erected within the area of the necropolis. The last burials were held in the 1930s.

Today, the Jewish cemetery in Ścinawa is located on the outskirts of the town, at Wincentego Witosa Street, which is an exit road from Ścinawa leading to the village of Krzyżowa. It occupies plot no. 112 with an area of 0.1674 ha. The cemetery is enclosed by a metal mesh fence and can be accessed from the side of the street (where a gate with a wicket used to be situated). To the north, its boundary is marked by the perimeter wall of a neighbouring building, perhaps previously serving as the pre-burial house. In 1962, the necropolis was officially closed.

Several dozen tombstones, mostly in the form of sandstone stelae, have survived to the present day. They are arranged in seven regular rows – roughly nine graves in each row. They are mostly single sandstone stelae with semi-circular or triangular pediments; several gravestones have the shape of a pyramid. They bear Hebrew or bilingual (Hebrew-German) inscriptions. Few monuments are adorned with symbolic elements – the Star of David, crown, broken candle, or palm branches. The oldest surviving gravestone – that of Josef Eliezer – dates from 1861/1862 (5622 according to the Hebrew calendar). In 2019, Krzysztof Bielawski identified 61 gravestones with inscriptions at the site. Buried in the cemetery are Jews from Ścinawa as well as from Chobień (Köben an der Oder). Among the people laid to rest in the necropolis were Marcus Hauck (1817–1898), a long-standing member of the Ścinawa community board and its chairman, involved in the construction of the local synagogue in the 1860s; merchant Hirsch Bucki, owner of the “Hirsch Bucki Söhne” company founded in 1859; Sallo Saliczak, soldier in the Prussian army and non-commissioned officer in the 230th Infantry Regiment, killed in World War I; and David Pitschpatsch, merchant and chairman of the municipal council in Chobień.

The cemetery remains in a generally good condition, although in 2018–2019 it suffered several fires which damaged the gravestones. In 1987, the cemetery was entered in the register of monuments – decision number A/2426/750/L. It is owned by the Ścinawa Municipality. At present, the necropolis remains under the care of the “Mała Ojczyzna” Social and Cultural Association of the Ścinawa Land, which regularly removes excess vegetation from its premises and mows the grass.

Author of the note: Tamara Włodarczyk

Bibliography

• Bielawski K., Dane osobowe odczytane z macew na cmentarzu w Ścinawie, http://cmentarze-zydowskie.pl/Ścinawa.
• Brilling B., Die jüdischen Gemeinden Mittelschlesiens. Entstehung und Geschichte, Stuttgart 1972.
• Czerniawski E., Kozaczewski T., Kozaczewska-Golasz H., Kubik M., Cmentarz żydowski w Ścinawie, Warszawa 1982.
• File of the Jewish cemetery in Ścinawa, ed. H. Kozaczewska-Golasz H., E. Czerniawski, Legnica 1982.
• Schubert H., Urkundliche geschichte der Stadt Steinau an der Oder, Breslau 1885.
• Włodarczyk T., Z historii Żydów w regionie legnickim, Jelenia Góra 2016.

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