Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Make a matched gift and support Jewish journalism. DONATE NOW
Fast Forward

Polish Vandals Desecrate Jewish Cemetery

Vandals painted Nazi and racist symbols on the fence of a Jewish cemetery in southern Poland.

Swastikas, Celtic crosses and symbols of the National Polish Revival, an anti-Semitic organization, were painted on columns of the fence of the Jewish cemetery in Starachowice.

Cemetery caretaker Maciej Frankiewicz discovered the devastation, called police and began repairing the fence. Vandals left the tombstones untouched, though several years ago tombstones at the same cemetery were defaced.

Jews from Starachowice, Wierzbnik and surrounding towns are buried in the cemetery. During World War II, Nazis carried out mass executions there, and bodies of the victims were buried in unmarked graves which still have not been located

The cemetery in Starachowice is entered in the country’s register of protected monuments.

It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!

This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions. 

We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.

As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday! 

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:

  • Credit the Forward
  • Retain our pixel
  • Preserve our canonical link in Google search
  • Add a noindex tag in Google search

See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.