Jewish Cemetery in Kielce

The Jewish cemetery in Kielce is located in the southern part of the city, in the district of Pakosz, near the exit road to Krakow. It was founded in 1868, soon after the first Jewish residents moved into the city. It served the local Jewish community for over 70 years. During the war it was devastated and desecrated and became a place of executions. 1981, a lapidary opposite the entrance to the cemetery was made out of destroyed tombstones. On July 8, 1946 the victims of the Kielce pogrom were buried in the cemetery. On their grave there is a small obelisk with the inscription “Here lie the remains of 42 victims of the Kielce Pogrom of July 4, 1946. Honor to their memory”. In 2005, during the 64th anniversary of the Pogrom, a new tomb, built at the initiative of the Jan Karski Society, was dedicated to the victims. The author of the reconstruction project was Marek Cecuła, who explained that creating a design of the tomb he wanted to give it a deeply symbolic form – a six-meter slab of black marble is cracked symbolizing suddenly interrupted life of the people buried underneath. In the middle of the tomb the artist placed the symbolic Star of David and the date “4 VII 1946”. There are also the names of the victims and a brief description of the events that happened 64 years ago in Hebrew, English, Polish, and Yiddish. Next to the tomb a 450-kilogram boulder was placed. It was transported from Israel to Kielce as a gift from the Kielce Landsmanschaft Jews. The boulder carries a symbolic message – it conveys the unfulfilled dream of the Jews killed 64 years ago to go to Palestine . The second, equally moving, tomb is located in the corner of the cemetery. This is a tomb of 45 children murdered in 1943. On the tomb slab people leave candles and toys. The children came from a labor camp, located between Jasna and Stolarska Streets. “ On May 23, 1943, we were gathered in a camp’s square (…) There were all adults and children there including my parents. Suddenly, someone grabbed me by the neck and dragged me into a small, old house. When struggling to free myself I started to shout and the man hit me hard in the face. I sensed that something very wrong was about to happen”, wrote Jan Zabłocki, one of the survivors, in his letter read out during the celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the shooting of the Jewish children in Kielce. He was 13 years old. He survived because together with two colleagues he hid in an attic of a small house. The boys stayed there for four days and were helped to escape by some prisoners of the camp.