The presence of Jewish culture in Turek, dating back to the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries and ending with the tragic extermination of the local Jews by the Germans during World War II, left a permanent mark on the historical heritage of the town.

History of the structure/dating of construction phases

Turek is a town with medieval roots (it was granted municipal rights in 1341), owned by the Archbishopric of Gniezno until the end of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The partitions of Poland led to the secularization of the town. In the beginning, all of Wielkopolska was subordinated to the Prussian state, which in the first quarter of the 19th century introduced changes in ownership as part of the process of secularization of church property and takeover of royal estates. As a result of the arrangements made at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the eastern part of Wielkopolska, together with Turek, became part of the Kingdom of Poland under the Russian Empire. Jews were granted permission to settle in the town in 1817. Before that their presence in Turek was connected with the existence of a large Jewish community in nearby Dobra. The development of the weaving craft in the first half of the 19th century contributed to the growth of the Jewish population in the town. In 1861 a synagogue was built in Turek. Before the outbreak of World War II and the extermination by the Germans, the Jewish population made up about one fourth of the town’s population. On 22 September 1939, a group of German officers of the Schutzstaffel formation (the so-called SS) sent several hundred men, women and children to the synagogue, and then, after surrounding the temple with a cordon of gendarmes and the army, set it on fire. In December 1940 the Jewish population of Turek together with other Jews brought from neighbouring villages and towns (among others from Brudzew, Władysławowo and Uniejów) were closed by the occupying German authorities in a ghetto established in the area of Szeroka and Wąska Streets. In October 1941 the ghetto in Turek was liquidated by the Germans and the Jews were moved to a newly established rural ghetto in the vicinity of the nearby Czachulec and covering an area of 1700 ha, the establishment of which was a phenomenon, unique in the scale of the entire Europe then occupied by the Third Reich. In the ghetto Jews worked in agriculture and craft workshops, which were transferred there. Until the ghetto was closed in 1942, they were gradually transported to the camp in Chełmno nad Nerem, where they were murdered by the Germans. The camp in Chełmno was the first German Nazi extermination camp on the territory of occupied Poland. Of the more than two thousand Jews living in Turek in 1939, only a few dozen survived World War II.

The Jewish cemetery in Turek was established in the first half of the 19th century. In the mid-century, a pre-burial house, a lodging house for the poor, and other buildings were erected next to it. In 1881, its grounds were expanded after the purchase of two plots of land. Leon Lubomir Kruszyński, in an article published in 1932 in the local newspaper “Echo Turku”, described the cemetery, mentioning several dozen names of people buried there and one of the Polish inscriptions written on the matzevot: “What I was - you are, what I am - you will be”.

In May 1941 the German occupation authorities closed the cemetery. The fence of the necropolis and some tombstones were demolished, the grave of Rabbi Pinkas Węgrów was profaned. From now on the burials of Jews took place in the Roman-Catholic cemetery and it was forbidden to place any religious symbols on the graves. The Jewish cemetery in Turek was finally liquidated in 1943. The remaining matzevot were used to pave the courtyard of Schnerr’s brewery located in the current Kolska St. and the road to the nearby summer resort Grabieniec.

After the war the cemetery area was planted with trees. Its existence was evidenced by a stone with a cast-iron plaque with the inscription: “Jewish cemetery. A legally protected area. Respect the resting place of the dead.” In 2003 the cemetery was cleared and fenced. It is maintained on an ongoing basis. The Jewish cemetery in Turek is the property of the Union of Jewish Religious Communities in Poland.

Description of the structure.

The Jewish cemetery in Turek is located in the northern part of the town at Lutosławskiego St. It covers an area of 0.6 hectares. A brick and metal gate leads to its fenced area. In the cemetery there is a monument with preserved fragments of broken matzevot and plaques presenting the founders of the current commemoration: the municipal authorities in Turek, “Adamów” lignite mines and the Israeli Association of Turek residents. A new plaque with an inscription was placed on the post-war memorial boulder: a cast-iron plaque placed on a huge boulder on the initiative of the Museum in Konin: “The Jewish cemetery in Turek was established in the early 1880s. During World War II, it was closed and liquidated by a decision of the German authorities in May 1941”.

Visitor access. The cemetery is open to visitors.

Author of the note: Tomasz Łuczak, 20-07-2018

Bibliography

• Makary Górzyński, Zabytki miasta Turku i powiatu tureckiego, Vol. 1: Miasto Turek, Turek 2000.
• Piotr Maluśkiewicz, Województwo konińskie. Szkic monograficzny, Warszawa-Poznań 1983, pp. 304-312.
• Piotr Maluśkiewicz, Ziemia konińska. Przewodnik turystyczny, Konin 2002, pp. 157-161.
• Wielkopolska. Słownik krajoznawczy, ed. Łęcki Włodzimierz, Poznań 2002, pp. 371-372. Wielkopolska. Słownik krajoznawczy, ed. Łęcki Włodzimierz, Poznań 2002, pp. 359-361.
• https://sztetl.org.pl/pl/miejscowosci/d/1490-dobra-woj-wielkopolskie – accessed in December 2017
• http://www.kirkuty.xip.pl/turek.htm – accessed in December 2017
• http://www.zchor.org/turek/turek.htm – accessed in December 2017