They held a special residence permit. Half a century later, there were five Jewish families living in the town. Statistics from 1794 mention 24 people belonging to the Jewish community. Archival documents show that they jointly employed a community servant and a gravedigger. It is assumed that a cemetery was established around that time, that is in the 1770s–1780s.

After 1820, the number of Jewish inhabitants of Świdwin began to grow dynamically. The community was most numerous in the second half of the 19th century – 387 Jewish people lived in the town ca. 1880. Apart from the cemetery, the community owned a wooden synagogue erected in the 1820s (replaced with a new brick building in the 1880s) and maintained a religious school.

In the early 20th century, the Jewish community in Świdwin started to shrink. This was due to the deteriorating economic situation, growing anti-Semitic sentiments, and repressions against Jews after the NSDAP’s rise to power. As a result, at the beginning of the 1930s, only 187 Jews lived in the town. During Kristallnacht, on 9/10 November 1938, both the local cemetery and the synagogue were destroyed. The synagogue was set on fire and its remains were blown up. The cemetery continued to fall into decay in the following years. After 1945, the graves would be dug up, and the tombstones stolen. Even at the beginning of the 21st century (2003, 2006, 2007) there were incidents of destroying tombstones. Nevertheless, the cemetery in Świdwin is the best-preserved Jewish necropolis in Western Pomerania.

The Description

The Jewish cemetery in Świdwin is located ca. 3 km south-west of the market square, at the former Polchleper Weg (now Dobra Rycerskie Street). Jews from nearby Sławoborze (Stolzenberg) also buried their dead here. It is estimated that 400–500 people had been buried in this cemetery by the 1930s.

The cemetery plot covers an area of 0.41 ha and is roughly square-shaped. About 70 tombstones have survived to this day, mainly stelas and obelisks. The outlines of the bases and remains of the graves as well as of tomb chapels are also visible. The layout of the sections and lanes has been preserved. The area of the cemetery is overgrown with deciduous old trees – rows of lime trees and individual oaks, sycamore trees, and ash trees. The necropolis is surrounded by an old, dilapidated stone wall. It is some 40–70 cm tall on the southern and eastern side, and 100–200 cm tall on the western and northern side.

On 5 December 1989, the Provincial Conservator of Monuments entered the cemetery into the register of monuments under no. 1216. Inventory was taken of the site. A total of 72 preserved tombstones and 29 graves were registered. The oldest recorded tombstone was dated 1897. Most of the tombstones had German inscriptions on one side and Hebrew on the other.

In 2001, members of the local Pentecostal Church took the cemetery in their care. Polish and German youth cleaned up the area. A boulder holding an information board in Polish and Hebrew was placed at the site. The inhabitants of Świdwin organise maintenance works at the cemetery several times a year. Since 2009, the site has been the property of the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland.

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