POLAND, WARSAW: OKOPOWA STREET JEWISH CEMETERY

We continued our Walk through Warsaw alongside these old brick walls that enclose the Okopowa Street Jewish Cemetery, established in 1806. 

Covering 83 acres, it is one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in the world. 

A map of the Ghetto and dedication plaque are affixed to the gate.

The cemetery has over 250,000 marked graves and an untold number of unmarked graves. The section closest to the entrance has been more or less restored.

I recently learned about giving tzedakah, or money for the poor, from one of my Jewish friends. I think that is what is represented here, along with a few books to indicate that an educated person is buried here.

A lion is a symbol of Judah, the tribe of the Jews.

Here are a few of my favorite crypts/mausoleums--I'm not sure what to call them.

Some of the carvings are illustrations of Psalms. I think this one is Psalm 137.

There was a big building project going on. Pawel told us that it is a mausoleum for Jewish soldiers who fought in the Polish army during World War I. It was planned in 1938 and the foundation was laid, but then the war came, and after the war the Soviets came, and they definitely did not want the memorial.  Just this year or last year the Polish government decided to finish it.

There were two roped-off areas that are mass graves of Warsaw Ghetto victims. The Nazis were afraid of disease, and so they actually buried some of the dead.

A semi-circle of upright stones prtially surrounds the burial site. Each rock has a black stripe across it that resembles the stripe on a rabbi's talith, or head-covering. Pawel told us that the rabbis are sitting around the graves to pray to God to forgive the dead for violating the rules of a Kosher burial.

In the 1800s, there were sections for women, men, children, married, single, pregnant, etc. With the growth of Reform Judaism, there was more integration. At the beginning of the 20th century, they began layering the graves. There are some places with as many as 13 layers. When a new layer is made, the stones are laid flat and a minimum of a meter of dirt is put on top before a new tomb is begun.

Jewish tombstones always face east-west, with the feet buried near the stone.

This was a cemetery for the wealthy, and they could afford nice markers.

This is a hero's monument for Adam Czerniaków, who was the head of the Jewish Council in the Warsaw Ghetto.  He swallowed a cyanide pill in July 1942 rather than aid in the deportation of Jews from the Ghetto to Treblinka. He left a note for his wife which read, "They demand me to kill children of my nation with my own hands. I have nothing to do but die." He left another note for other members of the Jewish Council that read, "I can no longer bear all this. My act will prove to everyone what is the right thing to do."

Did you know that the man who created Esperanto, the most used international language in the world, was a Pole? Dr. Lazardo Ludoviko Zamenhof (1859-1917) is buried in this cemetery. An interesting fact about him: He was nominated TWELVE TIMES for the Nobel Peace Prize but never won.

Twenty-five to thirty Jews are still buried here each year.

Remember the pediatrician who gave the hospitalized children morphine so they would not know they were being shot? She is buried here.

So is Marek Edelman, the last surviving leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. He escaped the Ghetto and the following year took part in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. After the war, he stayed in Poland and became a respected cardiologist. Lech Walesa attended his funeral.

Edelman asked to be buried next to this monument representing the "Bund," an early 20th century Jewish socialist party that opposed the Zionist movement. Edelman was a prominent member of the Bund before the war, and he ultimately convinced the Bund to support the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and then led the doomed effort.

This photo of Edelman and his wife was propped against the base of the memorial. I wonder who placed it there?

Memorials on the base.

This plaque was in the pavement in front of the memorial.

A Polish stonemason very popular before World War II, Abraham Ostrzega was well-known for his burial monuments that reference Jewish traditions as well as the art of ancient Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, and Greece. Sadly, Ostrzega died in Treblinka in 1942, and many of his works were destroyed during the war. However, there are some that continue to draw attention to the graves of the wealthy in this cemetery.

His monuments are easy to find because they are marked by an orange sign on a black iron post.

While they show a human form, most are "geometrized," or relatively abstract. For the most part, Ostrzega abided by the orthodox Jewish prohibition of clearly depicting a human face in art. 

I believe this is also a monument carved by Ostrzega, based on the orange-tipped post next to it..

At first I thought those were pineapples flanking the engraved stone, but they look like they could be parrots.  Maybe they are stylized Polish eagles.

Another Ostrzega marker stands next to the stone of Wacław Wiślicki (1882-1935), a member of the Polish parliament. Wiślicki is credited with the saying, "If it's so good, why is it so bad?"

I would love to take daily walks in this cemetery.  Imagine the stories that are buried here.

The cemetery did not fare well during World War II. There were mass executions here and the burial of residents of the Warsaw Ghetto as well as non-Jewish Poles. In retaliation for the Ghetto Uprising, the Germans blew up all of the buildings in the cemetery, including a synagogue. The front line of the Warsaw Uprising passed through the cemetery, and then the Communists intended to build a road through the middle of the cemetery, but never got around to it.

Renovations of the cemetery didn't begin until the 1990s. I wonder if part of the reason for that is that there were no Jews left in Warsaw to take on the project.

I'm guessing these walls were part of that renovation. Pieces of broken tombstones are mixed in with unmarked stones, similar to what was done in Krakow, but with a more modern look.

Some intact stones must have been separated from the graves they marked, and how would you know where to put them back up? Or perhaps they were created by surviving family members.

These people died in Treblinka, so this marker was made sometime after the war.

The first words on this marker Kamien Krzyczy, mean "stone screams," which refers to Habakkuk 2:11, "The stones of the wall will cry out . . . ."  Beneath the names are the words "Murdered in Treblinka, and other people from their families."

Here is a memorial for a man killed at the Katyn Massacre, which is where the Soviet Union murdered 22,000 Polish officers and intelligentsia.  Lekarz = "doctor."

A sign near the cemetery entrance/exit reads: "This 'house of eternity,' as the cemetery is often referred to in Hebrew, is a monument of gravestone art, of Jewish art, and Jewish presence in Warsaw. Its value as a record of Polish Jews is incalculable because the material heritage of the Jewish community was almost totally destroyed during World War II."

This was, again, an overwhelming experience. There are so many graves, but too few of the descendants of the dead are left on earth to care for individual graves or provide general upkeep. The horror of the camps casts its shadow everywhere and far back into the past--here, back to the Jews who were first buried in this cemetery in 1806 and now lie alone and forgotten, all their descendants gone.