The Jews in Lublin - Biblioteka Multimedialna Teatrnn.pl - Brama ...

3rd November 1943, during a mass execution of Jewish prisoners of all the Lublin
region camps, at Majdanek concentration camp as a result of the Erntefest Operation.
Under the same operation, the Janowska Street camp in Lviv was liquidated and its
prisoners murdered on 19th November 1943 7 . In both cities all Jewish traces were
gradually being erased. In Lviv this action began in 1941, i.e. with the establishment
of the German occupation. First most of the synagogues were pulled down, including
the Renaissance Golden Rose Synagogue in the Old Town and the Great Suburban
and Tempel synagogues in Krakowskie Przedmieście Street. Additionally, both Jewish
cemeteries - the Old Cemetery located at the corner of Kleparowska Street and Meisels
Street, and New Cementery established in the inter-war period in Janowska Street
were destroyed. In Lublin the demolition process began after the Podzamcze ghetto
liquidation in 1942. By 1944 the whole historical centre of the Jewish town had vanished,
and three Lublin Jewish cemeteries: the Old, New and Wieniawa, were levelled.
The buildings that survived were located outside the Jewish Town (Synagogue Chewra
Nosim, the Jewish Hospital, Perec House and Jesziwas Chachmej Lublin) 8 .
In Lviv the demolition of Jewish-related buildings continued also during the
Soviet supremacy after 1944. Due to the lack of historical sources, it is impossible
now to say when precisely they were pulled down. However, we know that some preserved
gravestones from the Old Cemetery were used for the construction of Lenin's
monument in the Wały Hetmańskie street. The cemetery itself was altered into use
as a market place - so called Krakow's Market. (It is worth mentioning that there is
no commemorating plaque or information that this place used to be the oldest Lviv
Jewish cemetery). The cemetery in Janowska Street has a separate Jewish section but
the majority of these graves were installed after 1945. The nearby bushes still hide
some remnants of old tombstones 9 .
The ghetto liquidation entailed the demolition of the western part of Zamarstynów
district, in retaliation for weak, yet existing, Jewish resistance in the ghetto 10 . Old
7
During the liquidation of the Janowska Street work camp, about 4-5,000 Jews, the last camp prisoners,
were executed. However, the total number of victims is estimated at between 60,000 and 100,000
people. Between 1st and 4th June 1943, during the liquidation of the Lviv ghetto, the camp saw the
execution of 10-12,000 Jews. Cf. KRUGLOVA., op. cit., pp. 162, 174.
8
The rubble of the Maharszal Synagogue (dynamited by Germans in 1942 and 1943) was still there up
until the early 1960s when it was finally taken away.
9
The author managed to find two such gravestones. One has a name and surname of a woman in
Polish. The others letters are blurred. The cemetery was gradually devastated by Germans. The most
beautiful gravestones — of marble and granite — were taken to Germany. They were loaded to carriages
at Kleparów railway station, the same point that witnessed the deportation of Jews to Bełżec. The Jews
of Janowska St. camp were used to this work. At the cemetery there was also a Mauritian-style funeral
house. When the ghetto existed Jews suffering from typhoid were kept there. In August 1942 the sick
were taken to the Bełżec camp or executed. This information is collected from an interview with an
anonymous carer at the cemetery.
10 Cf. JONES E., op. cit., p. 121.
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