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Jewish cemetery - Zabytek.pl

Jewish cemetery


Jewish cemetery 1838 - 1847 Pabianice

Address
Pabianice

Location
woj. łódzkie, pow. pabianicki, gm. Pabianice (gm. miejska)

Founded in the late 13th century or the mid-14th century, Pabianice belonged to the Cracow Cathedral Chapter and was the administrative centre of its vast domain in Sieradzkie Province.

As property of the Church, the town was granted a privilege banning Jews to reside within its boundaries (de non tolerandis Judaeis). Only after the Second Partition of Poland and the region’s annexation by Prussia were the restrictions on Jewish settlement lifted – in 1794, Pabianice had 482 inhabitants, including 15 Jews.

In the period of the Kingdom of Poland (Congress Poland), Pabianice became one of the centres of the textile and drapery industry flourishing in Łódź and its environs. Throngs of Jewish settlers started to arrive in the town. They initially only inhabited the part of Pabianice known as the Old Town. In 1848, some of the local Jews were allowed to move to the New Town, but only after proving that their work was beneficial to the town and obtaining a special permit. The status of the Jewish community in Pabianice was fully regulated after the adoption of the Tsarist decree of 1862. At the time, there were 800 Jews in the town, constituting 16% of the local population. Many formed part of the local cottage industry, weaving their products on handlooms.

The local Jews founded their own religious community in 1836. A year later, a two-grade school accepting both Catholic and Jewish students was opened in Pabianice. The facility employed two teachers (one of them was Jewish) and was attended by 190 students (10% of whom were Jews). At the end of the 19th century, the Jewish community opened its own religious school, located in Kapliczna Street. Religious services in the town were initially held in private houses and later in a rented house in Bóżnicza Street. A brick synagogue was erected in Pabianice in 1880. The Jewish cemetery was established in Cmentarna Street.

In 1897, Pabianice had over 5,000 Jewish residents, accounting for 19% of the local population. The beginning of the 20th century was a period of intensified political activity among the Jewish community, with the Polish Socialist Party, the Bund, and Zionist organisations founding their cells in the town. Soon, the Orthodox Agudath gained considerable influence in Pabianice. During the interwar period, Jews made up under 20% of the total population (in 1939, there were 9,000 Jews among a total of 46,000 residents). They were traditionally involved in trade and crafts, though they also made up a significant portion of Pabianice’s intelligentsia and industrialists. Most of them still lived in the historic Jewish district – the Old Town – located in the area of Bóżnicza, Kapliczna, Batorego, Stary Rynek, Garncarska, Konopna, and Piotra Skargi streets. Pabianice was a major centre of Jewish religious life. It was home to supporters of numerous Hasidic groups, especially those connected with the Ger dynasty (tzaddikim from Góra Kalwaria). Several rabbinical courts held their session in the town. One of the newspapers issued in the town was the Yiddish-language Pabiantzer Zeitung.

After the German army entered the town in September 1939, the Jewish community was immediately targeted wiht persecutions. In February 1940, a ghetto was established in the Old Town. It encompassed the streets Sobieskiego, Batorego, Bóżnicza, Kapliczna, Konopna, Garncarska, and Kościelna and was one of the first Jewish quarters founded by the Germans in occupied Poland. Its population comprised ca. 8,000–9,000 people. The local Judenrat (Jewish Council) was headed by Rubinstein; there was also a unit of the Jewish police in the ghetto. The Jews were forced to perform labour around the town, including the demolition of bunkers constructed during the September Campaign or levelling works. The Germans selected a group of 1,200 craftsmen and sent them to work in confiscated Jewish factories. They sewed uniforms for the Luftwaffe and military tents. Several groups of young men and women were sent to forced labour outside the town (to Łódź, Poznań, or even Norway). In spite of the harsh living conditions in the ghetto, a small theatre operated in the district, staging plays and vaudevilles. The former Jewish school housed a hospital accepting only Jewish patients.

In February 1942, a medical commission examined all ghetto residents over the age of 10, stamping an “A” or “B” on their chests. In mid-May of the same year, all Jews were evicted from their flats, rushed through the streets of the town, and locked up in the sports stadium at Zamkowa Street. The weak and ill were murdered on the way to the stadium, as were those who refused to leave their flats. Some of the Jews assigned the “A” category were put on trams and sent to the ghetto in Łódź, while the rest – about 5,000 people in total – were transported in trains towards Kutno and Płock. Their final destination was the Nazi German extermination camp in Chełmno nad Nerem (Kulmhof), where they were killed in gas chambers upon arrival. The few Jews who remained in Pabianice lived and worked in a tailoring workshop inside the ghetto. Property left behind in abandoned flats was looted by the Germans and taken to Łódź. The devastated synagogue was pulled down in 1960 by the decision of the erstwhile municipal authorities.

The Jewish cemetery in Pabianice was established around 1847 in the south-western part of the town, on a plot of land located between today’s Wileńska, Cmentarna, Jana Pawła II, and Śniadeckiego streets. In the interwar period, the necropolis covered an area of 1.7 hectare. In 1968, it was reduced from the western side in order to build a boiler house and a coal warehouse. In the 1990s, restoration works were carried out at the cemetery on the initiative of Jewish émigrés from Pabianice and their descendants. In 1995, the necropolis was entered into the register of monuments. In 2014–2015, on behalf of POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, the Foundation for Documentation of Jewish Cemeteries took an inventory of all tombstones preserved at the site, including personal data of the deceased and photographs of the matzevot.

Nowadays, the cemetery covers an area of 0.85 hectare and holds over 1,300 tombstones in various states of preservation. Some of them are adorned with renovated polychrome paintings. The perimeter of the necropolis is surrounded with a modern concrete fence. Entrance gates are located on the eastern and western side.

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

Objects data updated by Andrzej Kwasik.

Category: Jewish cemetery

Protection: Register of monuments, Monuments records

Inspire id: PL.1.9.ZIPOZ.NID_N_10_CM.13522, PL.1.9.ZIPOZ.NID_E_10_CM.33291