The Jewish cemetery in Ciechanów has been marked out. At the outbreak of September and October, sandstone markers with the Star of David and the inscription “Jewish Cemetery” in Hebrew, Polish, and English have been put up around the cemetery perimeter. At the entrance, we have placed a plaque with information about the cemetery.

Marking the cemetery boundaries was sponsored and supported by: Stefany and Simon Bergson Foundation, Bob and Barbara Roswell in memory of Max Ruda, Albert and Beth Kava in memory of the Golodzier Family, Jaffa Bergson Feldman, Lillian Meyers, Jeri Ann Karlsberg, Max Singer, H. William Wolfson, William Wolfson, Friends of Jewish Heritage in Poland, and National Heritage Board. 

Sandstone markers were designed by the Formy Wspólne Foundation and produced by Magdalena Olszowska. Israel Hamiteil shared photos of the cemetery from 1945-1946. Michael Katzer translated information texts.

The cemetery was established in the 19th century and, at that time, it was located outside of the town.

Several thousand people were buried in the cemetery. The exact number of burials is unknown. Between 1900 and 1910 alone, the records of the local Jewish community recorded 621 deaths. A funeral home was located in the northwest corner of the cemetery. 

During World War II, victims of German crimes were shot and buried in the cemetery, among them 68 Jews murdered in the hospital on Zagumienna Street on November 7, 1942, and four soldiers of the Home Army, who were hanged at Ciechanów Castle on December 17, 1942. During the war, devastation of the cemetery started. This process continued in the following decades.

In the second half of the 1940s, members of the Jewish Committee and the Jewish Religious Association in Ciechanów cared for the cemetery. They recovered some of the tombstones taken from the cemetery by the Germans who then used the matzevot to pave streets; they erected monuments; and, they exhumed the bodies of Shoah victims that were buried elsewhere within the town and surrounding areas, and then they transferred the bodies to this cemetery. Over time, the survivors – in 1946, the town had 39 Jewish residents – left Ciechanów.

In 1962, the Ciechanów Jewish Homeland Association in Paris erected a monument at the cemetery to commemorate the victims of the Shoah.

Since 2016, the cemetery has been owned by the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland, which, in collaboration with the descendants of Ciechanów’s Jews and Friends of Jewish Heritage in Poland, strives to restore its dignity.

This is one of over 150 cemeteries owned by the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland. Please help us maintain this burial place of Jews from Ciechanów. Get in touch with us to discuss the form of your support: fodz@fodz.pl.

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