The memory of a cemetery 

For many Polish people Jewish burial grounds are not cemeteries. The Sociologist Sławomir Kapralski referring back to the research he  carried out in the eighties recalls,  “I talked to many residents of towns and villages and for as long I carried on  asking  them about the whereabouts of the  Jewish  cemeteries I had  great difficulty in getting them to tell  me where they were. People simply just did not understand. The difficulties disappeared as soon as I started using the local descriptions e.g.  Kirkut or okopisko (loosely translated - trench).  For these people they were not cemeteries, they were places of a completely different order.

In nearly every town of the Świętokrzyskie Voivodship there was a cemetery were Jews had been buried. With the murder of the Jewish population the cemeteries invariably started to die. To begin with their desecration was begun by the Germans who trampled on the greaves and plundered the Matzevots. With time the Polish authorities closed them down, forbidding their use since no one was no longer being buried there.  Later on local people played their part in the demise of the forsaken and neglected last resting places of their former Jewish neighbours; using the Matzevots abandoned at the time of the war for reinforcing pavements, river banks, house foundations or driveways.  It is unimaginable that a similar fate could befall the tombstones of a Christian burial ground, even those which had not been cared for some considerable time.

There is place in the vicinity of Kielce where the foundations of every other house conceal remnants of tombstones from nearby Jewish cemeteries. In the town of Opatów there is a children’s playground sited on a cemetery and a concert bowl on the burial place of an eminent spiritual leader. I know a woman who was forced out of a small town where she lived and ran a shop just because she had tried to dig up the Matzevots, which made up the pavement outside her shop, in order to return them to the cemetery.  

In the same statement made by Kapralski he goes on to say  – “Yet again here we touch upon the ultimate question, the matter of death, the matter of what next, as well as who will be in a better position on the  final judgement day. It was during my travels at that time I became totally convinced that Poles from rural areas were absolutely certain that Jews were buried in a seated position so that they could rise a lot faster on the final judgement day. As to why Jewish cemeteries were situated on hills and uplands a similar interpretation was offered – because from there it was obviously a lot closer to heaven. But in all reality they were simply tracts of land that nobody wanted.”   

Jews were strangers but unlike members of the Orthodox Church or the Roma. They were seen as outsiders, perceived as those people, who had rejected what we as Catholics had chosen.  Through their perversity became our antagonists, as much in life as after death.

Thanks to changes made after the close of the Vatican Council and above all thanks to the great Pope, John Paul II, we know that Jews are, neither strangers nor foes but on the contrary   are friends and our brethren in the belief in one God – the same God and  a people elected at the very beginning by God and remaining so to this present day and the end of time.

Is it acceptable to scorn our brethren’s grave? Can a Christian remain a true Christian by condoning an act of desecration of any graveside and perish the thought of any such  complicity ? Can we honour the memory of our departed parents with due respect whilst trampling on a neighbouring grave just because no one has placed flowers or lit candles there? The answer to these questions is unequivocally no.

Jewish cemeteries, even if resembling patches of abandoned land are holy ground just as all other cemeteries and if not an apparent responsibility, an obvious holy obligation of ours. They are holy, like our memory of all the dead and our dearest departed and this should without fail, include our Jewish brothers and sisters.

And this is exactly what transpired in Bodzentyn. Fr Leszek Sikorki fulfilled his Christian and civil duty by embracing under his care the remains of deceased Jews, who once walked the same streets, lived in the same houses, were born there, were happy and sad there,  and in the end died there. Just like us.

Bogdan Białek

Chairman of the Jan Karski Society

Young People’s Opinions (what the young people say and think )

Joanna Zych one of the pupils in the Gymnasium school gives her answer to the question of  how and why  she and her friends  got involved in the local initiative  to tidy up  Jewish the cemetery in Bodzentyn as what convinced them to  take part in a  project  about the history of the Bodzentyn Jewish community; organised by teachers Urszula Sokół  and Halina Mazur at the gymnasium school

“To tell you the truth, to begin with, we weren’t to keen on the idea of wanting to take part in the initiative. Jews? Apart from evoking some obvious connotations or the commonly held stereotypes it didn’t really say much more than that…. However, once we were introduced to the details of the project we began to get know the historical facts.  We were all really surprised that before the war a large percentage of the residents of Bodzentyn were orthodox Jews. What’s more that  at onetime  there been even been a synagogue next to the present-day parish church and a Kirkut on the outskirts of the town. We simply couldn’t believe that we hadn’t be told anything about such an important fragment of the history of our town   

Moreover we weren’t at all aware that places close to where we live were the scene of   earlier tragic events.  The fate of Dawd Rubinwicz, a Jewish boy, was particularly moving for us. This young boy died simply because he was born a Jew. Now we are all the more determined to learn more about these past events which we want to share with all our school friends. Our outlook on life has since significantly changed.  We no longer think in terms of such stereotypes and have taken a firm stand against them.  At the end of the day each one of us different and we have the full right to be so ...”

 Joanna Zych

School student at the State Gymnasium in Bodzentyn