Podgórze Jewish Cemetery in Kraków

The old Podgórze Jewish cemetery lies at Jerozolimska 25 in Podgórze and covers several hectares. Today only one gravestone has survived on it, belonging to Chaim Jakub Abrahamer, who died in 1932, as well as a dozen or so gravestone bases.

Founding and the war

The cemetery was established in 1887 by the Podgórze Jewish community on the southern slope of Łysa Góra. From 1932 it bordered another Jewish necropolis, in which members of the Kraków community were buried. In 1942 the Germans set up the concentration camp KL Plaszow on this land, and used almost all the matzevot and gravestones to surface roads and for the foundations of barracks. The camp is described in a separate entry on the grounds of the former KL Plaszow camp.

After the war

After the war the cemetery stood abandoned and deteriorated. In 2003 some of the trees were cut down, the grass was mown and the gravestone bases were uncovered, and in 2005 the site was tidied again by Polish and Israeli young people in the Antyschematy project. In 2022 the boundaries of the cemetery were marked with natural dyes. On the grounds there is also a plot of soldiers who fell in the First World War, the location of which is difficult to establish today.

Practical information

• Address: ul. Jerozolimska 25, Kraków-Podgórze.
• Check the rules of entry and the marking of the site before your visit, the sources do not give them.
• Nearby places connected with the history of Kraków's Jews are the Old Synagogue and Oskar Schindler's Enamel Factory.