At the time, the local Jewish community owned a synagogue built in the years 1379–1380. It was located an annexe at the rear of the northern frontage of Kotlarska Street. There was also a Jewish cemetery and a centre for Talmudic studies in the town. The medieval Jewish community disappeared from Świdnica in 1453, in the aftermath of inquisitor John of Capistrano’s visit to Lower Silesia. That year, the local Jews were accused of profanation of the host, which resulted in the execution of seventeen Jewish people at the stake.

The Jewish community was dissolved, and its remaining members were stripped of their property and expelled from Świdnica. The synagogue was converted into the Church of Corpus Christi. It burned down in 1757. A legendary version of the expulsion of Jews from Świdnica is depicted in a painting held in the local Cathedral of St. Stanislaw and St. Wenceslas. It alludes to the widespread allegations of desecration of the host in the Middle Ages.

Before the construction of a synagogue in Świdnica, the local Jews convened in houses of prayer. One of them, located at 8 Rynek (Market Square), was founded in 1847. The Świdnica synagogue was erected in 1877 at Untere Wilhelmstraße (today’s Niepodległości Avenue), designed by prominent Jewish architect Edwin Oppler.

After World War II, Świdnica became one of the towns of the so-called Jewish Settlement in Lower Silesia. In April, May, and June 1946, organised transports of Polish Jewish repatriates from the Soviet Union arrived in the city. In July 1946, 2,377 Jews lived in Świdnica, but due to the mass emigration after the Kielce Pogrom, only 1,245 Jewish people remained in the town in the second half of 1949.

Numerous Jewish organisations were established in Świdnica. The most important was the Jewish Committee, which supervised the operation of a number of subordinate organisations, including the Society for the Protection of the Health of the Jewish Population (TOZ) and the Jewish Cultural and Art Society, which ran a choir and a drama club. There were also several educational establishments in the town, including two Jewish schools – one Yiddish and one Hebrew.

The Description

The Jewish cemetery in Świdnica was established in 1815 on land purchased by the Jewish community from local merchant Samuel Gottfried Benjamin Gebhardt for 80 thalers. It was a 0.4 ha plot located outside the city. The first mention of this cemetery in primary sources dates back to 1816 and concerns merchant Wolf Löbel Lohnstein’s request to be buried in Świdnica or Legnica. In 1862, the Jewish cemetery was surrounded with an iron rail fence and planted with linden trees. It covered an area of 3.08 morgens. In 1886, the necropolis was expanded, and a pre-burial house was built on its premises.

In 1924, the Chevra Kadisha society was founded in Świdnica. It took care of the sick and organised burials. In the early 1930s, it had 35 members and was chaired by Moritz Groß.

After the Nazi rise to power in Germany, the cemetery suffered anti-Semitic vandalism on at least two occasions. In 1935, the pre-burial house was set on fire, as reported in the Schlesische Zeitung newspaper. During the Kristallnacht pogrom, the necropolis was vandalised by SA militiamen led by Horst Mann. The tombstones were overturned and later, in 1942, removed from the cemetery grounds and used for paving streets.

In the early 1940s, the cemetery was owned by the Association of Jews in Germany. At the time, it covered an area of 40 × 3 square metres. During World War II, it was used to bury Soviet prisoners of war who died in and around Świdnica. In 1944, the necropolis was sold by the district tax office to the city of Świdnica for RM 1,200 (Reichsmarks). According to a description drawn up at the time, the gravestones remaining in the cemetery did not hold much value due to an advanced degree of devastation.

After 1945, the cemetery was used by the Polish Jewish community, but its grounds – due to lack of proper security – continued to suffer devastation. In the mid-1950s, following an intervention of one of Świdnica Jews with Prime Minister of the People’s Republic of Poland Józef Cyrankiewicz, the Social and Cultural Society of Jews in Poland received funds from the Office for Religious Affairs to renovate the devastated cemetery. The area was fenced off, but the tombstones were not restored since, as argued by the Society, it was the responsibility of the Jewish Religious Congregation in Świdnica.

In 1963, on the initiative of the local branch of the Social and Cultural Society of Jews in Poland, a monument was erected in the Jewish cemetery to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. It bore a plaque reading: “19 April 1943, on the 20th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. To the Victims of Fascism. In honour of their memory. Świdnica, 19 April 1963.”

The Jewish cemetery in Świdnica is located in the northern part of the city, on a small hill at the intersection of Esperantystów and Bogusza Stęczyńskiego streets (plot no. 406, AM-5, Zawiszów precinct), in the vicinity of a petrol station. The entrance is located in the south-western section of the cemetery wall, at Esperantystów Street, but neither the gate nor the wicket have been preserved to the present day. The cemetery grounds are surrounded with a precast concrete wall completed in 2007. In the northern and western parts of the necropolis, there are around a dozen incomplete gravestones and one granite tomb dating from the pre-war period (without inscription). In 2018, the cemetery was entered in the register of monuments – decision number A/6109. It is now owned by the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland.

Author of the note: Tamara Włodarczyk

Bibliography

• Brilling B., Die jüdischen Gemeinden Mittelschlesiens. Entstehung und Geschichte, Stuttgart 1972.
• Decision on the entry of a monument into the register of monuments dated 6 December 2018.
• Führer durch die jüdische Gemeindeverwaltung und Wohlfahrtspflege in Deutschland 1932-1933 / herausgegeben von der Zentralwohlfahrtsstelle der Deutschen Juden, B. Schlesinger (ed.), Berlin 1933.
• Cemetery Inventory Sheet, K. Myślinski (ed.), 1995.
• Połomski F., “Zawłaszczenie i sprzedaż cmentarzy żydowskich w latach II wojny światowej na Śląsku. Ze studiów nad prawem własności w III Rzeszy,” Acta Universitatis Wratislaviensis no. 815 (Studia nad Faszyzmem i Zbrodniami Hitlerowskimi, vol. 11).
• Schirrmann W., Chronik der Stadt Schweidnitz, Schweidnitz 1909.
• Urban K., Cmentarze żydowskie, synagogi i domy modlitwy w Polsce w latach 1944–1966 (wybór materiałów źródłowych), Kraków 2006.
• Wodziński M., Hebrajskie inskrypcje na Śląsku XIII-XVIII wieku, Wrocław 1996.

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