Dzialoszyce Jewish Cemetery Restoration Project
Before the Holocaust the Polish shtetl of Dzialoszyce had a large Jewish cemetery atop the hill at the edge of the town. An impressive sandstone wall surrounded the cemetery. An older resident remembers that when the sun hit the cemetery walls early in the morning they looked like “the walls of Jerusalem”.
The cemetery was a place where the dead and the living came together to interact and care for each other. On the anniversary of the death of a loved one or in times of need family members would come together at the cemetery. They would ask their departed to keep watch over the living and to intercede in heaven on their behalf.
For the first three days of September, 1942 the entire Jewish community of Dzialoszyce went up the hill to the cemetery. They prayed to be saved from impending doom. Their prayers could be heard throughout the countryside. Sadly, their prayers seemingly went unanswered. On September 3rd the Nazis surrounded the town and marched off over 8,000 Jews to concentration and death camps. Over 1,500 elderly Jews were taken on carts to a ravine near the base of the cemetery hill. There they were shot and buried. Eyewitnesses recall the earth in the ravine heaving for days afterward.
As can be seen from the picture above, the former cemetery has become a forest. Not a single tombstone or remnant of the sandstone wall remains. Nor are there any fences to demark the boundaries of the killing field where the elderly Jews were massacred. One can easily walk by these non-descript areas today and not know they are stepping on sacred ground.
We invite Jews and Poles and all people of good will to come together to restore these sacred grounds and preserve the memory of the Jews who lived and died in Dzialoszyce.
