The Okopowa Jewish Cemetery — Warsaw remembered

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The Jewish Cemetery at Okopowa was founded in 1806, when the Warsaw Jewish community received permission from the authorities of the Duchy of Warsaw to establish a new cemetery beyond the city limits of the time. Earlier Warsaw cemeteries — at the Pociejowska Gate and on Praga (Bródno, from 1780) — had proved inadequate for the growing community. The first burials took place in the same year.

Over the nineteenth century the cemetery grew alongside the Warsaw community — the largest Jewish community in Europe at the start of the twentieth century, numbering more than 350,000 people (one third of the Warsaw population). Successive generations of Jewish merchants, bankers, physicians, lawyers, scholars, artists and writers who shaped the cultural face of the capital were laid to rest at Okopowa.

Notable figures buried at the cemetery include: Ludwik Zamenhof (1859–1917), creator of Esperanto; Isaac Leib Peretz (1852–1915), father of modern Yiddish literature; Esther Rachel Kamińska (1870–1925), called "the mother of the Yiddish theatre"; Szymon Askenazy (1865–1935), historian and diplomat of the Second Republic; Mathias Bersohn (1824–1908), collector of Judaica and patron; and Rabbi Dov Ber Meisels (1798–1870), Chief Rabbi of Warsaw and supporter of Polish independence during the national uprisings.

In the interwar years, when the Warsaw community numbered over 350,000, the Okopowa cemetery became the final resting place of every stratum of Jewish society — from the magnate banking dynasties (Kronenberg, Bersohn) to anonymous burials sponsored by the Chevra Kadisha burial society.

During the German occupation (1939–1945) the cemetery lay within the Warsaw Ghetto. It became a site of mass burials of victims of starvation, typhus and German terror — it is estimated that approximately 100,000 Jews from the ghetto were buried here between 1940 and 1943, often in mass graves. On 23 July 1942, on the eve of the Great Deportation to Treblinka, Adam Czerniaków, chairman of the Judenrat, took his own life — refusing to sign the deportation list of 6,000 persons a day. He was buried at Okopowa.

After the war the cemetery survived in far better condition than most Polish Jewish cemeteries — the Germans did not devastate it systematically (as they did in Krakow or in smaller towns), because for most of the occupation it lay within the ghetto and was in use for burials. The damage that did occur came mainly during the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, when the front line of the battle for Wola ran past the cemetery.

The cemetery remains active — the Warsaw Jewish Religious Community continues to bury present-day members of the community here. In the years 2000–2026 systematic conservation of the historic monuments has been under way, in partnership with the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland and international donors. The most prominent contemporary burial is the grave of Marek Edelman (1919–2009), the last commander of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, interred in 2009 with state honours of the Republic of Poland.

Okopowa is an active Jewish cemetery — all traditional customs apply. Men and boys from the age of thirteen are required to cover their heads — kippot are available at the main gate. Admission is charged (a moderate fee, 10 PLN per person in 2026, for conservation).

The cemetery is closed on Saturdays (Shabbat) — from sunset Friday until sunset Saturday — and on Jewish holidays. Open: Monday to Thursday 10:00–17:00, Friday 09:00–13:00 (shorter day before Shabbat), Sunday 09:00–16:00. The best moment for a visit is early Sunday morning or a weekday morning.

The tradition of placing stones applies — at the graves of the most famous figures (Zamenhof, Edelman, Peretz) thousands of stones lie left by pilgrims. Stones may be gathered from the paths or brought with you.

Men of priestly descent (kohanim) traditionally do not enter the cemetery. The exception is the obligation to attend the burial of immediate family (parents, children, spouse, siblings). If a guest is a kohen, we can view the cemetery from the boundary wall or from the gateway.

Photography is permitted with respect for the gravity of the place. We do not step onto matzevot, do not approach burials in progress and do not use flash within rabbinic ohels.

The cemetery is vast — 33 hectares, some 250,000 burials. Without a map or guide it is easy to become lost in the dense network of paths. We recommend booking a guide from the Jewish Cemetery Foundation in advance — they help locate specific graves and tell the stories of the figures.

Zasady wizyty:

• • Nakrycie głowy: wymagane (mężczyźni, chłopcy 13+)
• • Otwarcie: Monday–Thursday 10:00–17:00, Friday 09:00–13:00, Sunday 09:00–16:00; closed Saturday (Shabbat) and Jewish holidays
• • Tradycja kładzenia kamyków: tak — symbol pamięci
• • Fotografia: dozwolona z szacunkiem

For families seeking the graves of Warsaw forebears, the Okopowa cemetery maintains its own burial database, partly accessible online (cemetery.jewish.org.pl). The database currently covers over 100,000 indexed matzevot with inscriptions in Polish, Hebrew and Yiddish. Each record contains the location (quarter/row/number), a translation of the inscription and the date of death.

Complementary sources: the Archive of the Jewish Historical Institute (Warsaw community registers 1826–1942), Yad Vashem (database of Shoah victims — many Warsaw families), JewishGen (Warsaw Cemetery Project). For Hasidic families the dynastic archives (Ger, Aleksander, Kotzk) are useful.

The Jewish Cemetery Foundation offers genealogical consultations — we can arrange a meeting with a genealogist before your visit, so that you arrive with the burial location in hand.

The Okopowa cemetery is at ul. Okopowa 49/51 in the Wola district, about 3 km from central Warsaw. The Mercedes V-Class draws up directly at the gate — parking is available on ul. Okopowa itself. From most central hotels (InterContinental, Bristol, Polonia Palace, Hotel Warszawa) the drive takes 10 to 15 minutes.

A standard visit takes two to three hours — the cemetery is large and demanding on foot. We recommend a morning visit — the light is better, the temperature manageable and the footfall low. The driver remains at the vehicle or at a discreet distance.

For guests combining the visit with other sites of Warsaw’s Jewish heritage we plan a full-day programme: Okopowa together with the POLIN Museum, the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes, the Umschlagplatz Memorial, the Nożyk Synagogue and (for the interested) the Bródno cemetery. Hotel pickup and returns are included.