Bródno Jewish Cemetery
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Bródno Jewish Cemetery (also known as the Jewish Cemetery in Praga) is one of several Jewish cemeteries of Warsaw in
Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...
. The cemetery is located in the district of
Targówek Targówek () is a district in Warsaw, Poland located in the northern part of the city. It is divided into two parts: residential and industrial. About 30% of the district's area is covered by municipal parks, such as Lasek Bródnowski, Park Bró ...
(near the better known district of
Praga Praga is a district of Warsaw, Poland. It is on the east bank of the river Vistula. First mentioned in 1432, until 1791 it formed a separate town with its own city charter. History The historical Praga was a small settlement located at the e ...
, and within Praga's unofficial neighborhood). The cemetery has been founded in 1780. It occupies an area of . Approximately 300,000 people are presumed to have been buried there, though only about 3,000 graves (tombstones) are preserved to this day. It is the largest Jewish cemetery in Warsaw. It is also said to be one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in Europe.


History

The cemetery was opened in 1780 by Szmul Zbytkower, a
Polish Jewish The history of the Jews in Poland dates back at least 1,000 years. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Jews, Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of Jewish culture, because of the long pe ...
merchant and financier, who donated the land for that purpose (though he benefited from selling burial rights and other "arbitrary exactions" afterward). By mid-19th century the cemetery has grown to 18 ha. Since the 1870s the cemetery was administered by the local Jewish council, which refocused it on the burials of impoverished Jewry; this marked the beginning of the deterioration of the facilities. The cemetery suffered from a lot of destruction during the
occupation of Poland Occupation commonly refers to: *Occupation (human activity), or job, one's role in society, often a regular activity performed for payment *Occupation (protest), political demonstration by holding public or symbolic spaces *Military occupation, th ...
by
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
in World War II, both due to the German administration's purposeful use of the cemetery as a source of building material and due to collateral damage from the war. After the war it was the site of the mass burial of Jewish fatalities exhumed during the rebuilding of Warsaw; it was officially closed in 1950. It has suffered from continued deterioration since, receiving negligible support from the local administration. The cemetery was administered by the Nissenbaum Foundation from 1984 to 2010. The cemetery is occasionally vandalized, and criminal incidents (robberies) have been known to happen there. This has caused activists and members of community to demand that the cemetery, designed as a monument in 2009, should be better protected. City council representatives in 2010 noted that their first priority is protecting the cemetery from vandalism, and restoration is secondary to that. As of 2010, the Nissenbaum Foundation has stopped its involvement with the cemetery, and its legal status had to be determined by the court, with both the
Warsaw City Council Warsaw City Council, officially the Council of the Capital City of Warsaw () is a unicameral governing body of the city of Warsaw, the capital of Poland. The council was first created following the location of Warsaw under the terms of the Magdebu ...
and the Jewish Community of Warsaw showing interest in administering the land. In 2012 the cemetery was passed to the Jewish Community of Warsaw which wants to start a new renovation program in the near future.


Famous burials

* Abraham Stern, inventor of
mechanical calculator A mechanical calculator, or calculating machine, is a mechanical device used to perform the basic operations of arithmetic automatically, or a simulation like an analog computer or a slide rule. Most mechanical calculators were comparable in si ...
s * Szmul Zbytkower


See also

*
Bródno Cemetery :''You may also be looking for the Bródno Jewish Cemetery.'' Bródno cemetery () is an old cemetery in the Targówek district, in the eastern part of Warsaw, Poland. Occupying an area of , it is the largest cemetery in Warsaw. With more than 1 ...
*
History of Jews in Poland The history of the Jews in Poland dates back at least 1,000 years. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Jews, Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of Jewish culture, because of the long pe ...
*
Okopowa Street Jewish Cemetery The Warsaw Jewish Cemetery is one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in Europe and in the world. Located on Warsaw's Okopowa Street and abutting the Christian Powązki Cemetery, the Jewish necropolis was established in 1806 and occupies 33 hectare ...


References


External links


Foundation for Documentation of Jewish Cemeteries in Poland
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brodno Jewish Cemetery Jewish cemeteries in Poland Cemeteries in Warsaw 1780 establishments in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth Targówek Cemetery vandalism and desecration Cemeteries established in the 1780s