Mielec Cemeteries and Holocaust Memorial

The information about the Mielec Jewish Cemeteries and the photos were submitted by Anna Kwiatkowska. The text was transliterated by Susana Leistner Bloch based on the information given by Anna.

Anna Kwiatkowska is a teacher in Mielec and is teaching her pupils about understanding other nations and religions and about the Jewish community that once lived in Mielec. She also makes sure her pupils understand the importance of remembering the Holocaust.

While searching for material on Jewish Mielec Anna found our webpage and contacted us offering to take photos and report on the Mielec Jewish Cemeteries.

We are most grateful to Anna Kwiatkowska for this gesture of friendship and goodwill.

In addition, on the crossroads of Świerkowa Street and Wspólna Street there is a commemorative obelisk marking the mass grave of Mielec Jews killed during the German occupation.

Maps of Mielec prepared by Anna Kwiatkowska show the exact location of the Jewish Cemeteries, Holocaust Memorial and Synagogue. By locating the cemetery and than Mickiewicza Street you will be able to see that originally the cemetery was much larger.

The Old Jewish Cemetery was established in the beginning of 17th century. Jews from Mielec and from Piątkowiec and Smoczka used this cemetery. These two villages are now part of Mielec. The latest burial was in 1941.

At the beginning the cemetery was outside the town on a small sandy hill. It is now located near the town center. It is about 0.7-km from the place were the synagogue was once located.

During the German occupation the Old Cemetery was vandalized... The Matzevot [tombstones] were used for paving roads or dumped on the Wisłoka River.

The size of the cemetery before WWII was 700 sq. m. After WWII the city authorities built a post office on part of the cemetery. The post office building is placed over the Ohel [structure built over the resting place of a righteous person] of the Mielec Tzaddik Reb Horowitz.

Up to 1993 there was a small public park in the cemetery (near the post office).

In 1993 Mrs.Rachela Sussman of the US had the remaining part of the Old Cemetery fenced and a monument established with inscriptions in Polish and Hebrew.

The monument is a hexagon [six sided] obelisk built in black granite. At the top there is a Magen David [Star of David]. The base of the monument has three Magen Davids and three inscriptions: English, Hebrew and Polish. This is the English version:

In Memory
of
The Polish Citizens
OF JEWISH DESCENT
INHABITANTS OF MIELEC
and ITS ENVIRONS
Murdered by the nazis
During WORLD WAR ii

the founder
Rachela Sussman
1993

Before the fence was built there was a small park located on the Old Jewish Cemetery grounds with a few benches. The cemetery is now closed to the public and access allowed only by arrangements with the city authorit

About 35-40 Matzevot remain in the Mielec Old Jewish Cemetery. Only a few are whole and most of them are broken.

In August 1994, the Regional Museum in Mielec retrieved the matzevot sunk in the river during WW11 Retrieved pieces were placed on the cemetery close to the monument.

There has been some confusion with the location of the Mielec Old Jewish Cemetery. It is referred sometimes as the cemetery on Mickiewicza Street or Jadernych Street. The confusion is because the main gate to what remains of Old Cemetery is now in Jadernych Street. Before the Holocaust when the cemetery was in use and much larger it extended from Jadernych Street to Mickiewicza Street and the main gate was in Mickiewicza Street.

The International Jewish Cemetery Project gives the location of the Old Cemetery as Jadernego Street. This is not correct. The street name is definitely, [according to Anna (and other sources] Jadernych Street

The New Jewish Cemetery was established in 19th century with last burial during WWII (1942). This cemetery is on Traugutta Street. It is located on the outskirts of Mielec about 1 km from the town’s center and the former synagogue. The cemetery is situated between agricultural fields and small private houses and factories and is reached by turning directly off a public road and crossing other public property.

Last known burial was in 1942 during WWII. The cemetery was vandalized during WWII. The size of the cemetery before WWII was 800 sq. m; present size is 100 sq. m.

The report from the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies - Cemetery Project, dated June 1992 mentions that the cemetery on Traugutta Street has no sign or marker. and is open to all without wall or gate. Some 20 matzevot (tombstones) remain in their original locations. The matzevot made of limestone and sandstone flat shaped stones have Hebrew and Polish inscriptions.

Anna Kwiatkowska reports (2006) that the Traugutta Street cemetery is now fenced in and very few Matzevot remain. Anna further comments that it seems the cemetery is rarely visited and it was obvious by the rust of the chain and lock that the gate has not been opened for quite some time.

There is a notice, in Polish, posted on the entrance to the New Jewish Cemetery:

Mielec Jewish Cemetery.
Destroyed by Nazis during WW11

Closed for burial purposes

Field law protected

The cemetery has Memorial Monument to Holocaust victims. The number 300 refers to one particular mass killing that occurred in Mielec on March 9, 1942, during the deportation of Mielec Jews. The numbers differ in different reports and are given as much higher by some sources. The Monument is placed on a small prominence and is situated in the middle of cemetery. The inscription is in Polish and Yiddish. There are a few sentences in Polish followed by Hebrew text and than another Polish inscription: Text translations:

IN REMEMBRANCE OF THE THREE HUNDREDS JEWS,
VICTIMS OF NAZI BARBARITY IN THE YEARS 1939-1945

Jewish cemetery established
by THE Jewish Community OF Mielec
destroyed in THE years 1939-1945 by Nazis

To the south of the monument, 4 Matzevot [tombstones] remain which have barely readable inscriptions. The oldest Matzevot that survived date from 1942 and belonged to Matylda Braun and Rachela Buchen.

On January 2005 the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage reported signs of vandalism and anti-Semitic graffiti on the memorial monument in the New Jewish Cemetery. No further action was taken because the perpetrators were not identified.

The Memorial to the Holocaust victims marks the place of a mass grave where hundreds of Jews were shot and buried.

The Mielec Holocaust Memorial is located on the crossroads Świerkowa Street and Wspólna Street in a district of private housing called Borek, about 1, 5 km from Traugutta Street. There is a fence separating it from the main residential area.

Although this site never had a many of the local Mielec inhabitants refer to this place as the “Third Cemetery”. There is no evidence that a Jewish cemetery ever existed at that location and the confusion might arise from the fact that a tombstone was placed near the Memorial and two other memorials in the “shape” of Matzevot. The old Matzeva (tombstone) is located near the Memorial and we assume it was moved from one of the Mielec cemeteries or recovered from the Wisłoka River.

The Holocaust Memorial marks the place of the mass grave of Mielec Jews killed on March 9, 1942, during the deportation of Mielec Jews.

Early on the morning of March 9, 1942, the transportation of Mielec’s Jews commenced. That morning, all the remaining Jews were marched at gun point out to the aircraft hangers at Cyranka. The elderly, sick and certain prominent people in the community, including the rabbi, were shot. For the next three days, while Mielec’s Jews were deported by train, those remaining at Cyranka were marched around the compound. Any that appeared weak, sick or injured were shot. Those killed during the transportation were buried in a mass grave near the aircraft factory. [from Mielec Through The Holocaust by Howard Recht].

There is an inscription on the Holocaust memorial both in Hebrew and Polish. It reads:

MEMORIAL TO THE ONE THOUSAND JEWS
VICTIMS OF NAZI BARBARITY

IN THE YEARS 1929 - 1945

IN MEMORY OF MY BELOVED FAMILY
    MY FATHER CHANINE
    MY MOTHER SARA
    MY BROTHER LAZAR     STROCH
    MY SISTER SOSIA

ALWAYS REMEMBERED
DAUGHTER RACHELA

ETERNAL memorial
FOR The HUNDREDS of Jewish man and woman
from the town of Mielec
killed by the Nazis
on March, 0 1942
BURIED IN this mass grave