The Jewish Cemeteries of Piotrkow Trybunalski, by Leonard Markowitz

...How doth the City sit solitary,
That was full of people!
How is she become a widow!
She that was great among the Nations,
And princess among the provinces,
How is she become tributary!
My eyes do fail with tears,
For the destruction of my people;

Arise, cry out in the night,
Pour out thine heart before the Lord,
Lift up thy hands toward Him
For the life of thy young children,
That faint for hunger
In the top of every street...
Lamentations of Jeremiah--
1:1; 2:11; 2:19.

The Jewish Cemeteries of Piotrkow Trybunalski

by Leonard Markowitz

The following information about the cemeteries in Piotrkow Trybunalski was obtained from the IAJGS cemetery database. Both cemeteries were surveyed during 1991.

Cemetery #1 (U.S. Comm. No. POCE000666)

This urban cemetery¹ is located on flat land at Wojska Polskiego Str. The property is isolated, unmarked and without a fence or gate.

There are no tombstones, structures or mass graves. The cemetery is reached by turning off from a public road. The municipality currently owns the property, which is now used as a park, playground and sports field. The areas adjacent to the former cemetery are residential. The site is not maintained and is not visited as a cemetery any longer.

Cemetery #2 (U.S. Comm. No. POCE000667 and 0000037)

The Jewish Orthodox community established this cemetery at Spacerowa Str. 93 in 1794. The suburban cemetery is isolated and on flat land, which is surrounded by a continuous masonry wall with a locked gate. The site is reached by turning off a public road. The cemetery contains over 500 tombstones², most in their original location. The marble and sandstone tombstones are inscribed in Hebrew, Yiddish, Polish, German or Russian and are datable from 1795 to the 20^th century.

The cemetery was devastated by the German during WWII. They used the cemetery for mass executions of the inhabitants of the ghetto. The most infamous mass execution took place on October 14, 1942. A symbolic grave commemorates the victims. Between 1939 and 1945, 28,000 Jews were exterminated in and around the city of Piotrkow Trybunalski.

The site is not maintained and is visited infrequently. The current owner of the property is the municipality. Agricultural and residential areas are adjacent to the cemetery.

_____________________________

Reprinted with kind permission from:

Markowitz, Leonard. "Piotrkow Trybunalski, Poland: The Ancestral Shtetl." Four Jewish Families in Philadelphia. Baltimore, MD: Gateway Press, Inc., 2000. LOC # 00-132239. Email: priluki@voicenet.com

¹ The old cemetery dates from 1677 to 1792.

² Some sources state there may be more than 2,000 tombstones in existence.