This met with opposition from the local Christian population, who in 1740 managed to obtain a ban on Jewish settlement issued by the king. It remained in force until 1862, but it was never rigidly enforced. The number of Jews living in the town was therefore steadily growing, especially after the Third Partition of Poland and the annexation of the area by Prussia.

Documents from 1797 confirm that an independent Jewish kehilla already operated in Piaseczno. It also controlled localities located in the vicinity of the town, including Jeziorna. The community did not survive for long and all of Piaseczno’s 26 Jews (as of 1808; 4% of the total population) were soon subordinated to the kehilla in Nadarzyn. Despite losing its independence, the Jewish community in Piaseczno started to dynamically develop during the period of the Kingdom of Poland (Congress Poland): in 1818, it boasted ca. 160 members (18% of the population), and in 1856 – already over 500 (42%). A wooden synagogue was built in the town in the 1860s, replaced by a brick temple after 1886.

With the growing Jewish population, the community started to struggle with the issues concerning burials and registration of marriages and births. The Jews of Piaseczno started making efforts to become independent from the community in Nadarzyn. The Synagogue District in Piaseczno was eventually founded in 1869, also including Jeziorna, Skolimów, Bogatki, and Wilanów. The community purchased a plot of land outside the town to establish a cemetery. The first rabbi of Piaseczno was Josef Adamaszek, and his successors were Hasidim Noach Sakiewnik of Ger (Góra Kalwaria) and the famous tzaddik Kalman Shapira (in 1913, he founded a private house of prayer at 15 Niecała Street).

In 1897, Piaseczno was inhabited by ca. 1,100 Jews, constituting 40% of the total population. The dominant religious faction within the community were the Hasidim. Many of the local Jews made a living from stone extraction for the Warsaw market. In the interwar period, the Jewish community – comprising over a third of all inhabitants of Piaseczno – played an important role in the town’s economic and public life, including in the Municipal Council. The most influential political forces among the local Jews were the Zionists and the Orthodox Agudath. The town boasted religious schools for boys and girls. In the 1930s, separate guilds for Jewish craftsmen operated in Piaseczno, uniting tailors, shoemakers, shoe upper makers and saddler, butchers and bakers, carpenters, painters, tinsmiths, and wood turners.

In January 1940, a 12-member Judenrat (Jewish Council) was formed in the town on the order of the German occupation authorities. It set up the Coordination Committee for the Provision of Food to the Poor Jewish Population (Polish: Komitet Koordynacyjny Dożywiania Ubogiej Ludności Żydowskiej), headed by Boruch Higier. The Jews were obliged perform forced labour for the town, the German army, and German farmers from the area. In the winter and spring of 1940, several hundred Jews displaced from other localities, including Łódź and Garwolin, were brought to Piaseczno. In July of the same year, the German authorities of Piaseczno began to demarcate a ghetto. It was located in the southern part of the town, in the summer resort district right at the edge of the forest – its borders were marked by the streets Świętojańska, Jerozolimska, Topolowa, Czajewicza, and Krótka. All Jewish inhabitants of the town were moved to the ghetto by November 1940. However, the district only existed for a short time. It was liquidated in January and February 1941, with its prisoners displaced to the Warsaw Ghetto in several transports. Some of the abandoned houses were demolished, while others were allotted to Poles deported to the town from Pomerania. The Jewish community was not revived after the war, and the ruined synagogue was demolished in the 1970s.

The Description

The Jewish cemetery in Piaseczno was established in 1869, and the last burial at the site was likely held in 1941. The necropolis was located to the west of the town, in today’s Tuwima Street. It probably held ca. 1,500 tombstones before the outbreak of World War II. The cemetery was surrounded with a fence with a wooden gate on the southern side. During the war, the Germans tore out many tombstones and used them in construction works. After the end of the armed conflict, the abandoned cemetery became an illegal rubbish dump. The remaining matzevot fell prey to thieves. The cemetery plot was almost entirely developed with residential buildings. It was not until the early 1990s that the surviving part of the necropolis was cleaned up and fenced. The works were carried out thanks to the efforts of the Eternal Remembrance Foundation (Polish: Fundacja Wiecznej Pamięci), local authorities, and pupils of nearby schools. They secured the area of ca. 0.19 hectare (38 × 50 m) remaining from the original cemetery plot covering 1.7 hectare.

Information boards presenting the history of the cemetery and indicating its status of a historic site have been placed at the gate of the fenced necropolis. Opposite the entrance there is a monument designed by Karol Tchorek, commemorating 60 Poles and Jews murdered by the Germans at the cemetery in the years 1942–1944.

Only 36 tombstones in varying states of preservation have survived in the cemetery to the present day. The oldest of them commemorates Lejzor, son of Moshe, who died in 1889 (his stele is quite unique in its design, with the main inscription panel framed by semi-columns and an additional panel on the pedestal, with a triangular pediment adorned with an engraved jug – symbol of the Tribe of Levi). Most of the preserved objects are traditional sandstone matzevot in the form of vertical slabs with semi-circular, rectangular, or triangular tops. All legible inscriptions are in Hebrew; almost no original polychrome paintings on the tombstones have survived. The cemetery also holds a number of semi-cylindrical supporting stones placed behind matzevot. It can be assumed that most tombstones stand on the proper burial places.

The cemetery was entered into the register of monuments under the number 1409, dated 2 February 1991.

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