The Jewish community established its own cemetery shortly thereafter. It was located ca. 600 metres northwest of the Market Square, in today’s Zielona Street. At the end of the 17th century, the community erected a wooden synagogue thanks to the support of the owner of the town. In 1702, there were already 46 Jewish families living in Sieniawa. Their number was steadily growing, and in 1765, the town had 1,045 Jewish residents.

The 19th century saw dynamic development of the Jewish community in Sieniawa. In the first half of the century, the town became an important Hasidic centre. Its most prominent figure was Tzaddik Yechezkel Shraga Halberstam, son of Chaim Halberstam of Sanz. He settled in Sieniawa in 1856. After his death in 1898, he was buried in the local cemetery and an ohel was erected over his grave.

Despite the damage caused by the fire of 1889 and the intensified emigration at the end of the century, the Jewish community of Sieniawa continued to thrive, boasting 3,263 members in 1900. In the interwar period, Jews accounted for about 56% of the total population. Their number increased in the fall of 1939, when Sieniawa fell under Soviet occupation and many refugees coming from the areas occupied by Germany settled there.

On 22 June 1941, Sieniawa was seized by the Wehrmacht. The ohel of Tzaddik Halberstam was destroyed and the entire cemetery was devastated. In May 1943, the Germans used the necropolis as the execution site of 600 Jews remaining in the town after mass deportations. The corpses were cremated a year later in order to cover the traces of the crime.

The cemetery continued to fall into decline after the war. Despite the neglect, over 600–700 tombstones have survived on the area of 0.9 hectare, with the oldest recorded matzeva dating back to 1686. Many slabs are richly decorated and bear relief inscriptions. Traces of polychrome paintings are visible on some of the tombstones. In 1970, the cemetery was fenced with wire mesh and its area was cleaned up. However, the fence came to surround only a part of the cemetery grounds (0.68 hectare), with the remaining land converted into fields. In 1978, the ohel over the grave of Tzaddik Halberstam was reconstructed.

The cemetery was entered into the register of monuments under the number A-830, dated 18 December 1989.

At the beginning of the 21st century, Sieniawa was visited by a group of Israeli students from the Reut School in Jerusalem as part of the “Gidonim” project. They cleaned up the cemetery and took an inventory of the surviving tombstones. In addition, a new fence was placed around the necropolis, this time covering its entire historic area. In 2018, young people from Israel bolded the inscriptions on selected matzevot (with black and white paint). Photographs taken during the project and the assembled list of tombstones are available at http://www.gidonim.com/galleries/galleries-2/cemeteries/seniawa-cemetery/ [accessed: 12 September 2020].

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