6 Jewish Gravestones Vandalized in Polish Cemetery

Image by Malgorzata Ploszaj/virtual sztetl

By JTA March 6, 2014

Vandals destroyed six tombstones in a Jewish cemetery in the Piasek district of Myslowice, a city in southern Poland.

The identity of the vandals, who knocked down the nineteenth-century gravestones on Monday night, remains unknown.

Last year, a group of local residents organized a cleaning of the cemetery, grubbing trees and bushes and cleaning the gravestones. During the work they exposed the gravestones of some of the city’s prominent historical figures, including author Jacob Lustig and Loebel Danziger, co-founder of the Myslowice coal mine.

“We will inform the police about the damage,” Ireneusz Skwirowski, one of the residents involved in cleaning the cemetery, told local news website itvm.pl. ”I was able to take pictures of the people suspected of creating this devastation.”

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO