The old Jewish cemetery in Kazimierz, Krakow, and the one on Miodowa

Kazimierz has two Jewish burial grounds within a short walk of each other, and they tell different stories. The first lies behind the Remuh on Szeroka, a walled garden of old stones that the Jewish community calls one of the oldest Jewish cemeteries preserved in Europe.⁹ The second sits further east on Miodowa Street and is the only Jewish cemetery in Krakow where burials still take place.⁶

This guide covers both. If you came looking for the old Jewish cemetery in Kazimierz, Krakow, start with the Remuh: the entry for the synagogue and the cemetery is the same gate at Szeroka 40.¹⁰ The Miodowa cemetery takes longer to reach and longer to see, and it feels far less visited. Together they span the city's Jewish life from the rabbis of the 16th century to the musicians, painters and civic leaders of the modern city.

Both are religious places first. They are run by the Jewish Religious Community of Krakow, they shut for the Sabbath and Jewish festivals, and the rules that apply in its synagogues apply here too.^7,11 Read the section on conduct before you go, and plan the visit for a weekday or Sunday morning, when you can take your time among the graves. Wear comfortable shoes: the ground is uneven and some paths are narrow between the stones.

The cemetery takes its name from Rabbi Moses Isserles, the Remuh, who died in 1572 and whose grave draws Jews from all over the world.¹² Orthodox communities worldwide still consult his code of law, the Mappa.²³ The community notes that devout Jews come to his grave on every anniversary of his death.²⁴ His stone carries a 16th-century line comparing him to the prophet: from Moses to Moses there was no such Moses.²⁵

You will see small folded papers at his grave. These are kvitelach, slips with requests that visitors leave in the hope that he will intercede for them.²⁶ Do not touch or move them. The city guide notes that his grave is the only one in the cemetery not damaged during the war, and stories grew up to explain why.²⁷ Whatever you make of those stories, the grave is the focus of the place, so give people praying there room and quiet.

Other leading figures of Jewish Krakow lie nearby. The community lists Isaac Jakubowicz, who founded the Isaac Synagogue, and the rabbis Isaac Landau, Natan Spira and Eliezer Aszkenazy among those buried here.²⁸ Spira was the Kabbalist of Szeroka Street whose candle, as the story goes, burnt out in 1633 along with his life.²⁹ Their stones are not grand; what matters is who they were.

When the Remuh was closed, a new cemetery opened in 1801 on land bought from the Augustinian order, at what is now Miodowa 55.^5,20 It covers nearly 19 ha and holds about 10,000 gravestones, the oldest from 1809.²⁰ Between the wars it filled up, and from 1932 burials moved to new cemeteries on Abrahama and Jerozolimska Streets, both almost wholly destroyed in the war.³⁶ That is why so much of Krakow's modern Jewish history is concentrated on Miodowa.

The Miodowa ground was only partly devastated and was restored after the war with money from the Joint Distribution Committee.³⁷ Among those buried here are the painter Maurycy Gottlieb and Józef Sare, a deputy mayor of the city.³⁸ The community also lists Rabbi Ozjasz Thon, the preacher of the Tempel, and the klezmer musician and composer Leopold Kozłowski.²² Kozłowski also wrote the camp and ghetto songs for Schindler's List.³⁹

By the entrance stands the funeral home designed by the Krakow architect Władysław Kleinberger, which opened in June 1903.⁴⁰ Allow an hour or more if you want to walk the long avenues, and bring water on a warm day, as there is little shade on some paths. The cemetery is the only operating Jewish one in Krakow, so you may meet a funeral; step aside and wait.⁶ Note the address before you set out and check the hours on the day.