Jewish cemetery, Katowice

Jewish cemetery in Katowice - cemetery located at 16 Kozielska Street, in the downtown district.

In 1868 Jewish community in Katowice bought a plot of land for the new cemetery from Josef Ludnowski for 480 thalers - it was 3 morga of land. The cemetery was opened in 1869 and expanded in 1927. During World War II Germans devastated the cemetery. They brought here corpses of murdered defenders of Katowice. After the war, there was another expansion of the cemetery. The cemetery is surrounded by a brick fence. In 1.1 ha there are about 1400 matzevot left.

The first person buried in this cemetery was four-year-old Carl Munzer. Members of such families as Goldstein, Glaser, and Schalscha are buried in the cemetery. In 1890 the funeral home was rebuilt, and next to it a building of the Funeral Brotherhood with an apartment for the watchman was erected.

In the cemetery there is a monument dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust. It has a form of a wide altar. On the stele, crowning the mensa, Polish-Hebrew inscriptions are placed. On the mensa there are plaques commemorating six families murdered by the Germans during World War II. There are two standing candles on the mensa. The cemetery was entered into the Monument Register on October 29, 1990. The protection limits include: cemetery grounds, tombstones, funeral building, funeral fraternity building, fence with a wrought-iron gate.